8700K 8Pack Bundle - Stability problems ~6months in

pprest123 · 7 May 2018 at 07:05

Hi there,

Back in mid-late November, last year, I received my 8Pack 8700K bundle (with the 5.2GHz bin & MXH, no other changes) - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/8pac...i7-8700k-5.00ghz-gaming-bundle-bu-00w-8p.html -

Since last week, I've been starting to get regular BSODs, usually it is ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY, and another one I've had is DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, and most recently, UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP and it's always caused by ntoskrnl.exe - a screenshot of the dump in Bluescreenviewer is here: https://i.imgur.com/d4bXCN1.png. It almost always happens when I'm playing a game, and it doesn't seem to matter which game, be it Overwatch, BF1 or even Rocket League etc.

Things I've tried so far, to no avail in the past week with the pre-applied (5.2) BIOS profile:
(I thought it might be memory related issues, so that's where I started)

Memtest86 overnight - no errors
HCI MemTest overnight (~8-9hrs) - no errors
Rolling back my drivers (restore point, rolling back a Windows update) - Still BSOD after several hours of gaming.
Realbench (v2.56) Stress - Got ~3hrs in before throwing UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
(I was away from the computer when it did BSOD but I did manage to catch that the max temp was no higher than 80c about an hour or so in).

Failing the above, I reset everything in the BIOS to default values (stock)
(I haven't bothered running the memory tests as if it can pass at XMP, surely it can pass at stock, right?)

Realbench (v2.56 Stress) - Lasted the full 8hours, no issues
Updated BIOS to the latest version, as I was still running the version the board shipped with. I plugged in all the settings from the 5.2 config (I took pictures of all of the BIOS pages) - repeated the tests above (except the restore point) with the same results) - in hindsight I probably should have done this much sooner for the spectre patch.

At this point I'm convinced the CPU clock is unstable - I'm not sure how, as it's been working flawlessly up until last week when I started having problems - and all that changed then was a few Windows updates and a NVIDIA driver (off the top of my head), hence me trying to roll back.

Anyone else got any ideas or should I go through the RMA process (as I'm still in warranty)?

orbitalwalsh · 7 May 2018 at 08:47

tag in @8 Pack for you .

should be able to help you through

FlyingScotsman · 7 May 2018 at 10:21

May be your temps are increasing with the warmer weather, and is borderline stable, try a small increase of vcore voltage and test again.

8 Pack · 7 May 2018 at 11:00

You should not have updated bios. .. New microcode is often junk.

I would have tested at stock first how do you know gpu is not at fault or similar??

pprest123 · 7 May 2018 at 11:31

I guess it's possible it's the GPU but I didn't put any load on the GPU in realbench (I de-selected it during the stress test). I'll try and put the GPU through its paces on its own and see if that throws up anything (not convinced it will - why else would it be fine when the CPU is at stock?).

Also keep in mind, updating the BIOS was the very last thing I did, a last ditch attempt so to speak - evidently it didn't improve anything.

JediFragger · 7 May 2018 at 22:50

Out of personal interest, can I ask what volts you were using with the CPU? Recently built mine and it's solid even in this warmer weather at 1.36v XMP 5Ghz (but I have it set so it drop voltage when idle, so only at 1.36ish when loaded).

pprest123 · 8 May 2018 at 04:56

JediFragger said:
Out of personal interest, can I ask what volts you were using with the CPU? Recently built mine and it's solid even in this warmer weather at 1.36v XMP 5Ghz (but I have it set so it drop voltage when idle, so only at 1.36ish when loaded).

1.375

JediFragger · 8 May 2018 at 09:41

pprest123 said:
1.375

Thanks. Is that all the time or does it drop at idle? Just don't want to risk any possible degradation.

foster grant · 8 May 2018 at 10:11

Was the OP instructed not to update the BOIS ?

agnes · 8 May 2018 at 20:14

foster grant said:
Was the OP instructed not to update the BOIS ?

Doesn't state it on the product page, seems sort of stupid to not allow bios upgrades on a custom part. People will do it ultimately causing issues. OP should be able to send it back and have the board reflashed.

pprest123 · 18 May 2018 at 04:17

Been a while since I've been back here.

Since the last time I posted, as another last resort I re-installed Windows 10. Happy to report I've had no issues since then.

Still clueless as to what was causing the original BSOD but it hasn't appeared since re-installing Windows 10.

opethdisciple · 18 May 2018 at 13:25

Back the core clock down a notch.