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- Joined
- 8 Feb 2008
- Posts
- 801
- Location
- UK
Hi there. Looking for some help in identifying an issue with my PC. It's a self-build ITX machine less than 6 months old with the following specs:
MOBO - ASRock H170M-ITX/ac
CPU - Intel Core i3-6100
RAM - Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB DDR4
HDD - Seagate 1TB
The issues started about a week ago. I went to the PC and noticed it was on but the monitor was off, however, mouse and keyboard had no effect. I have it set to go to sleep after 30 minutes inactivity and turn the monitor off after 5 minutes. I held the power button until it shutdown and proceeded to restart - at startup I recieved 4 beeps. After finding the beep codes (not in the ASRock manual to my surprise) it stated the following error: "4 short ------------ System timer failure ------- The system clock/timer IC has failed or there is a memory error in the first bank of memory". Since then it has worked intermittently with me coming to it several times now and finding it has locked up - during which I've had the same 4 beeps a few times and as many single beeps (1 short ------------ DRAM refresh failure -----The programmable interrupt timer or programmable interrupt controller has probably failed). Last night I found it in this state:
Obviously the system must have locked up whilst the monitor was still on. Again, only recourse was to hold the power button. Started up this morning ran fine for 5-10 minutes then this time it locked up whilst I was using it and had the same flickering monitor:
I had ran memtest after I built the system and everything passed fine but I figured I'd run it again as the codes seem to suggest a RAM problem. Ran it and during test #7 system froze with 1 error (9 minutes in). Whipped out the stick of RAM in the B1 slot and ran memtest on the single stick in A1 for about 5 hours without any errors. To check it's not a problem with the slot I then took the stick that had been tested for 5 hours in slot A1 and put it in the empty B1 slot which I again ran fine for ~4 hours. To check I hadn't just got lucky and pulled the dodgy stick of RAM out, I took out the stick I had tested solo in both slots and put back in the second stick into the A1 slot to try and confirm it was the problem component. Now the test is running fine on the second stick leaving me a bit lost as to where the issue lies.
It appears that having both slots populated is when the issues appear but having tested both sticks individually and both slots does this rule out a motherboard fault. Could it be something with the integrated memory controller, should I try bumping some voltages perhaps for the IMC or on the RAM? Really would appreciated some guidance here as I'm no longer sure it's a straight up RAM fault. Am I missing something that's pointing to a different source entirely?
MOBO - ASRock H170M-ITX/ac
CPU - Intel Core i3-6100
RAM - Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x8GB DDR4
HDD - Seagate 1TB
The issues started about a week ago. I went to the PC and noticed it was on but the monitor was off, however, mouse and keyboard had no effect. I have it set to go to sleep after 30 minutes inactivity and turn the monitor off after 5 minutes. I held the power button until it shutdown and proceeded to restart - at startup I recieved 4 beeps. After finding the beep codes (not in the ASRock manual to my surprise) it stated the following error: "4 short ------------ System timer failure ------- The system clock/timer IC has failed or there is a memory error in the first bank of memory". Since then it has worked intermittently with me coming to it several times now and finding it has locked up - during which I've had the same 4 beeps a few times and as many single beeps (1 short ------------ DRAM refresh failure -----The programmable interrupt timer or programmable interrupt controller has probably failed). Last night I found it in this state:
I had ran memtest after I built the system and everything passed fine but I figured I'd run it again as the codes seem to suggest a RAM problem. Ran it and during test #7 system froze with 1 error (9 minutes in). Whipped out the stick of RAM in the B1 slot and ran memtest on the single stick in A1 for about 5 hours without any errors. To check it's not a problem with the slot I then took the stick that had been tested for 5 hours in slot A1 and put it in the empty B1 slot which I again ran fine for ~4 hours. To check I hadn't just got lucky and pulled the dodgy stick of RAM out, I took out the stick I had tested solo in both slots and put back in the second stick into the A1 slot to try and confirm it was the problem component. Now the test is running fine on the second stick leaving me a bit lost as to where the issue lies.
It appears that having both slots populated is when the issues appear but having tested both sticks individually and both slots does this rule out a motherboard fault. Could it be something with the integrated memory controller, should I try bumping some voltages perhaps for the IMC or on the RAM? Really would appreciated some guidance here as I'm no longer sure it's a straight up RAM fault. Am I missing something that's pointing to a different source entirely?
