£1300 New Build - Random Freezing Issues - Please Help!

[77Stu77]

Hi there,
I ordered a large sum of components from Overclockers UK a few weeks ago to go with a couple of items I purchased a few months ago.

Components are as follows:
Intel i7 4770k
Corsair H100i CPU Cooler
G.Skill TridentX 2x4GB DDR3 2400MHz
Asus Maximus VI Formula Z87
Sapphire Vapor-X HD7970 GHz Edition
Corsair AX860w PSU
Cooler Master HAF-X

Since putting the system together I have had nothing but trouble with random freezing right from the word go.

The HDD is a fairly old 500GB drive that was wiped before a clean installation of Windows 7 that was installed at the start and has now just been fully
updated through service pack 1 and says no new updates available.

Only once (the other night) did I experience a night where it went through with no freezing and I came back to it in the morning still active.

I have not overclocked the CPU but as it was a new system I thought stressing it was a good idea to get it bedded in, I tried using Prime95.
The whole time I have monitored temps with Aida64.
To start with they were not especially high but I did notice a large difference in temps between cores. I bought some diamond Artic Cooling thermal paste so reseated the CPU and H100i cooler with this new paste after giving it a thorough clean.
This made my temps more even and brought them down a little.

The freezing can happen at any point, be it writing this post or during a stress.
But I do notice that it seems to happen more often if the pc is left to it's own devices.
I have turned off all power saving in the Windows power options in hope to see the temps or anything out of the ordinary when the freeze occurs. For a lot of times it seems to be near 40 minutes after I started a stress test with Prime95 but this sometimes changed to an hour and half or the odd time less. Nothing conclusive there.

The only thing that is not standard in the bios is the RAM which is using it's XMP profile 1 that is set in the BIOS to get it running at 1.65v 2400MHz effective.

When i set this back to default so it clocked down to 1333MHz, the crashes still occurred so I ruled this out.

I do have all of the software extras that came with the ROG board installed, I wonder if any of these could be affecting anything, is AI Suite a possibility?

I have had the computer restart over night after installing a lot of Windows updates and has been frozen at the login screen when I have come back to it in the morning. This moves me away from programs causing issues but I suppose drivers would be loaded by then?

I really am at a loss here as this pc has cost me near enough £1300 to build this year, I am really looking forward to making the most out of it but at the moment I can't do the simplest of things as I fear a crash may happen. I really do not want to purchase any other components as it has cost me enough already. The only possibility is an SSD and a large new HDD to keep up with the rest of the system and for peace of mind as I know they are new.

Is there any kind of live logging that can be done or logs I can send to you to analyse? I am unsure of standard/safe voltages, possible analysis there?
As it is a freeze there is no BSOD, no error reports generated etc all I can do is hit the reset button.

Steps I have taken so far:
Get Windows fully up to date
Update to latest AMD drivers for graphics card
Update the motherboard BIOS to latest version
Reseat CPU + Heatsink in case of overheating
Windows memory diagnostic for 14 hours, no faults found
Disable all power saving options in Windows power options
Disable XMP memory profile
Error checked all disks

I look forward to hearing from you all to see if you can help me with this issue, any suggestions are welcome!

Thanks and regards,
Stu

 

[77Stu77]

I know it is sin that I don't have an SSD yet! Most certainly on the cards though
I don't think it has the click of death but it is a very loud drive, no idea how old it is
Just wanted to get the system up and running and start testing. Since it was blank and lying around I thought it was acceptable to throw it in until I got myself an SSD and a new HDD for storage. I don't think that was a good idea now

According to Aida64 the primary HDD is this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-ST3500630AS-500GB-7200RPM-Drive/dp/B000YDLNSG
I also threw in my old HDD with Windows still installed as a secondary drive so I could access my data.
Please note, this was added after the crashing was noticed. Initially there was only the 500GB Seagate drive.
The old Windows HDD is this: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-ST3320820AS-320GB-Hard-Drive/dp/B000Y3RY16

Can anybody recommend a performance SSD for £200 or less and roughly 250GB?
Also whilst we're on, a performance mechanical HDD roughly 1TB, any price range on this.

At a very first though without looking into things I was thinking of the Samsung 840 Evo 250GB and possibly a WD Black Edition HDD?

Thoughts?
Shame the PCI-E SSD's aren't competitive yet and have a broader range, they look the nuts!

 

[77Stu77]

Thanks, that shouldn't be a problem for me.
Brother has one and I don't think his is too loud, sure this old drive is louder!
What do we think about the 1TB WD VelociRaptor? Fairly expensive though, but my birthday is coming up

 

[77Stu77]

There is generally more to update than just the BIOS and the Graphics drivers.

Have you updated everything that is available on the ASUS website that is relevant to your hardware?

• BIOS
• BIOS-Utilities
• Chipset
• Audio
• VGA
• Firmware
• LAN
• USB
• Utilities
• Wireless
• SATA
• Blue Tooth

Thanks for the reply, I installed all from the motherboard CD which contained a large amount:
[Manually from ASUS] BIOS
[Yes]BIOS-Utilities
[Yes]Chipset
[Yes]Audio
[Yes]VGA
[Yes]Firmware
[Yes]LAN
[Yes]USB
[Yes]Utilities
[Yes]Wireless
[Yes]SATA
[Yes]Blue Tooth

I will check out the Asus site manually and go through all relevant drivers other than just looking for the BIOS update this time.

Thanks!

 

[77Stu77]

Okay, I gave up last night!
I had a nice uptime of 15 hours with no issues then did a reboot after installing some updates.
Then I went over to the Asus site and took a look at the drivers for my motherboard.
The only updates were for the Bluetooth/Wifi module and the Realtek audio driver.
I updated the Bluetooth/Wifi no problem, the Realtek update didn't seem to do much apart from open CMD and then proceed to do nothing.
I closed this after approx. half an hour.
After selecting reboot after the first driver installed successfully, it froze on the shutting down screen and had to be killed by the button.
After that I went to bed because it was late no irregular HDD noises noted at the time.
We will get to the bottom of this!

EDIT:
Making myself feel better now, just ordered the following!
Samsung 256GB 840 Pro SSD
WD 1TB Caviar Black HDD

Hopefully these will now get the problem sorted! If not then they were certainly needed anyway

 

[77Stu77]

Apologies for the double post, the SSD and new HDD solved the random freezing issue!
This pc has now set me back.....£1550 but now I can enjoy it woo hoo!
Thank you all for the help and recommendations!

 

[77Stu77]

Yeah that's right, was only a stop gap for my impatience checking other new components until I got the SSD!
Also numpty here didn't realise which SATA controller I had hooked it up to. After benching with PassMark Performance Test I switch it over from the ASMedia controller to the direct Intel one.
It showed a 50% speed increase across tests which was a very pleasant surprise after using it on the ASMedia controller for a week, just kept getting quicker
Like everyone said I'd say, why didn't I do this earlier? ^^