Troubleshooting mystery.

[Sundin]

So I just did an upgrade on my pc. Got an 6850k running on as asus X99 a-2 and got a Samsung 950Pro 500gb. 

At first everything went perfect,  booted and installed windows 10 with no problems  at all. Did stability tests, played overwatch.  It was flawless.

 So I installed asus AI suite and did their 4 way optimization routine so I could get a baseline on what to expect in terms of overclocks,  got 4,6 but I thought the voltage was way too high for daily operations , so I Uninstalled the program and started tweaking myself.  Only changing cpu core ratio,  cpu core voltage numbers and modes. 

After a few failed attempts I decided to try the uefi EZ tuning wizard, that's when I believe my problems started. 

I was able to boot in to Windows but the pc would reboot every 5 min, no matter what I was doing, playing overwatch, watching a youtube video or just idleing. 

So I decided to reinstall  windows, as I thought I had a corrupted Os after the failed attempts of overclock.  So I formated my disk and started a new install, 5min into it and reboot...

So I started troubleshooting,  disable xmp profiles, tried ram individually,  update the bios and was getting the same results. Rock solid on the Uefi but rebooting after five 5 min in the windows instalation. So I was about to test my old ssd (non nvme one) that had a previous installation of win 10 on it, and for my surprise it booted, was able to get to Windows, watch YouTube videos, even ran intel extreme tuning stress test for solid 20min. So problem solved? I will just install a fresh copy of the OS on this ssd and send this nvme one to the warranty. And...  I was wrong, as soon as I started installing the the Os on the ssd I got the same problem, reboots every 5min. I'm running out of ideas guys, please help me! 

 

By the way tried installing 2 different copies of win 10 and one copy of 8.1 so I don't think the OS is the problem. 

 

 

[paddy-stone]

It's almost certainly to do with the auto overclocking. Reset the CMOS and load default values into the BIOS, don't do anything else until you've tested the system for stability, you could make things worse.

[Sundin]

Thanks for the fast answer! I did already reset cmos and loaded default values, not running any overclock right now and still getting the same problems. 

[paddy-stone]

1 hour ago, Sundin said:

Thanks for the fast answer! I did already reset cmos and loaded default values, not running any overclock right now and still getting the same problems. 

Hmm, OK only thing I can think of then is that it didn't take, that there's a remnant left over from when you did use auto OC... try resetting it again, but do it via removing the battery for a minute instead of shorting the pins. I know it sounds weird, but I had a bug in my BIOS before and the problem persisted even after shorting the pins and across a BIOS upgrade. The only trhing that worked was resetting via taking out the battery... then it was all good again.

[Sundin]

I'm old school,  always remove the batery to clear cmos. Hahahaha. 

So Ive tried it already. 

[paddy-stone]

1 hour ago, Sundin said:

I'm old school,  always remove the batery to clear cmos. Hahahaha. 

So Ive tried it already. 

OK, first off can you quote me if you want me to see your replies please.. I don't get auto follows as it's too heavy. I only saw this reply as it was still in the newest posts.

 

Can you please either list your specs or pcpartpicker link them so we can see what else could be causing the problem. Cheers

[Sundin]

Core i7 6850k

Motherboard asus x99 a-2

4x8gb crucial ballistics DDR 4 2400

Ek predator 240 cooler 

Sdd 850 Evo 500gb, and a nvme 950 pro 500gb

Gtx 980ti gigabyte g1 gaming 

Power supply is a fractal design newton r 3 1000w

 

Thanks for the help! 

 

[Sundin]

12 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

OK, first off can you quote me if you want me to see your replies please.. I don't get auto follows as it's too heavy. I only saw this reply as it was still in the newest posts.

 

Can you please either list your specs or pcpartpicker link them so we can see what else could be causing the problem. Cheers

 

13 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

OK, first off can you quote me if you want me to see your replies please.. I don't get auto follows as it's too heavy. I only saw this reply as it was still in the newest posts.

 

Can you please either list your specs or pcpartpicker link them so we can see what else could be causing the problem. Cheers

 

[Sundin]

Sorry for several posts, having a bad time on mobile. 

[paddy-stone]

1 hour ago, Sundin said:

Sorry for several posts, having a bad time on mobile. 

No worries, it got the job done

 

OK, bear with me please... I'm having to think of stuff and then go back to your first post and re-read to try and see if you already tried it, so if I suggest something you already tried I apologise but it's a process.

 

OK, one thing I would normally suggest, but assume you can't as you have an x99 board and don't have an i-gpu CPU either is to remove the GPU from the equation. So this is gonna be a tough troubleshooting here.

Ok, I'm gonna have to assume the GPU is OK, as we have no other choice... assume that it's not software related as you re-installed windows. Next thing I would try would be the drivers TBH, try a different GPU driver version than the one you were using before. If you still have the problem, then we can mostly rule that out.

Next I'd see whether it might be a disk problem... I'm assuming the 950 pro is in the M.2 slot on the mobo?  so when you used the other SSD to try and rule out the disk, it still could have been booting from the M.2 drive as you didn't remove it right?  so next step for me, would be to remove the M.2 from the system, and then try the SSD spare you had laying around and re-install. I personally make sure that the drive uses GPT partitioning and UEFI, this is most easily done by using https://rufus.akeo.ie/

and setting the USB drive where it says [partiton scheme and target system type] to "GPT partition scheme for UEFI" - this leaves no room for mistakes and all you have to do after that is plug in the USB drive and boot from it into the windows installer.

Then all we really want to do is load the latest drivers on for the GPU and give it a stability test.

[Sundin]

I'm gonna try to reinstall my old setup when I get home. Just so I can rule out the Gpu. But I was trying to boot from the ssd without the nvme installed on the system and getting the same results. 

Now both my disks are wiped so I'm not able to pass windows instalation on any of them. What I wonder is why I was able to get everything working fine on the old drive with the "dirty"  OS but as soon as I tried to do a clean install I stared getting the same problem. 

[Sundin]

35 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

No worries, it got the job done

 

OK, bear with me please... I'm having to think of stuff and then go back to your first post and re-read to try and see if you already tried it, so if I suggest something you already tried I apologise but it's a process.

 

OK, one thing I would normally suggest, but assume you can't as you have an x99 board and don't have an i-gpu CPU either is to remove the GPU from the equation. So this is gonna be a tough troubleshooting here.

Ok, I'm gonna have to assume the GPU is OK, as we have no other choice... assume that it's not software related as you re-installed windows. Next thing I would try would be the drivers TBH, try a different GPU driver version than the one you were using before. If you still have the problem, then we can mostly rule that out.

Next I'd see whether it might be a disk problem... I'm assuming the 950 pro is in the M.2 slot on the mobo?  so when you used the other SSD to try and rule out the disk, it still could have been booting from the M.2 drive as you didn't remove it right?  so next step for me, would be to remove the M.2 from the system, and then try the SSD spare you had laying around and re-install. I personally make sure that the drive uses GPT partitioning and UEFI, this is most easily done by using https://rufus.akeo.ie/

and setting the USB drive where it says [partiton scheme and target system type] to "GPT partition scheme for UEFI" - this leaves no room for mistakes and all you have to do after that is plug in the USB drive and boot from it into the windows installer.

Then all we really want to do is load the latest drivers on for the GPU and give it a stability test.

 

[paddy-stone]

6 hours ago, Sundin said:

Now both my disks are wiped so I'm not able to pass windows instalation on any of them

Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say here. I understand that you're saying both disks are wiped, but do you mean windows won't install to either disk now? or that you don't have a copy of windows to put onto USB to try what I said? or something different?

 

[Sundin]

4 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say here. I understand that you're saying both disks are wiped, but do you mean windows won't install to either disk now? or that you don't have a copy of windows to put onto USB to try what I said? or something different?

 

Just got home and did some testings.  Tried 2 different copies of Windows in 3 different USB drives on my x99 rig, failed to install because of reboots mid way thru on both SSDs the 850 Evo and the 950 pro.  

So I proceeded to get my old z97 rig back together using the same power supply and gpu, was able to successfully install Windows 10 on the 850 Evo and the 950pro (after a few work arounds,  cause it wouldn't recognize the nvme drive from the start) 

So now I have to assume there is something wrong either with my new motherboard or with my new processor.  More likely motherboard. I don't think I would be able to boot and get to the uefi if the processor was bad. Am I correct? 

[paddy-stone]

I would be likely to assume it was the motherboard before the CPU as the cause yes. I wouldn't go there yet though, I would start again from scratch, build the rig outside of the case with the components one step at a time and check each time, so just the PSU,mobo,cpu, gpu(as you don't have another choice) and one stick of ram to start... with just the 24 pin and 8 pin board power inserted, and the gpu power. See if it posts. add the NVME drive, see if it posts... see if you can install windows.