I'm thinking IMC failure... what says you?

Tute

Tute

Tute

Soldato
Joined
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Posts
22,593
Location
Devon, UK
Hi all, just looking for a second opinion on a problem.

I started having problems with my PC on Friday. I'd just done a Windows reinstall the night before on the basis of getting a new SSD, Windows was in a state of total freshness - no updates bar W7 SP1, and no drivers.

Fast forward to the next morning, and I started to install Windows updates - but it was exceptionally slow, often hitching on certain updates and generally taking a long time.

After about the third or fourth run at Windows update, it began to crash completely whilst installing, requiring a total reset of the PC to bring it back to life. Then Windows got very unstable - IE would hitch up, crash, and give BSODs. Installing anything was impossible as the machine would just lock up or BSOD.

The BSODs were all MEMORY_MANAGEMENT errors at 0x0000001A. A quick Google showed this as possible faulty RAM, so I got online on my laptop and flashed a USB stick with Memtest86+. Booted off it and started testing.

HUNDREDS of memory errors, on a range of tests. It literally couldn't fill the screen fast enough.

I started by going into the BIOS and giving the RAM an extra 0.1V to see if maybe it had just become unstable. This made little difference. After slacking off the frequency and timings a lot I managed to get the errors down into the tens rather than the hundreds but it wasn't stable.

I swapped out individual sticks of RAM but it made no difference. Nor did swapping RAM slots.

After having a chat with Jokester on messenger I tried Windows Memtest, which failed almost instantly, then crashed. Prime95 will run on Small FFTs with the odd core crash but if I set it to Blend FFT then it fails instantly.

Now i'm looking at RAM, motherboard, or CPU failure here. I'm thinking that something has gone a bit bonkers with the CPU's IMC as neither RAM stick will work - and surely the chances of both sticks failing at once are very low?

The system is as follows:

Intel Core i5-3570K
Intel DH77DF
16GB Geil Black Dragon DDR3 (2x8GB)
Sapphire ATI Radeon R9-290
256GB Samsung 840 Evo
1TB Samsung M8
Antec Kuhler H2O-620
nCase M1 w/Silverstone ST45SF-G

None of the parts have been over clocked - this isn't that kind of motherboard and the options are very limited. Everything like CPU and RAM settings are just left on Auto.

I'm just checking here that people agree that i'm right to suspect the CPU over the RAM? The CPU is about 18 months old and has never given me any problems before.
 
Has the CPU ever been overclocked? Have you tried reseating the CPU and clearing the BIOS? Just to be sure. It sounds fairly chronic though. Normally if a CPU is faulty, it'll be pretty clear in the first few days of use.


Hope you get it sorted, but I'd personally say it's more likely to be the RAM / Motherboard. If it wasn't for the fact you've already had failures running Memtest, I'd suggest checking the HDD, as memory management errors can also related to a faulty drive.
 
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Sadly I don't have any spare DDR3 at the moment and won't be able to put my hands on any until next weekend.

[Edit] Also I pulled all drives out to run Memtest as I wanted to eliminate as many factors as possible. I also switched back to Intel HD graphics to remove the 290 as a possible problem.
 
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I guess there's a slim chance of a bad batch of memory? Does sound like something else is at fault though.

The problem is until you can eliminate the memory you're going to be a bit stuck.

Looks like waiting for the weekend unless you can afford to order some memory with the possibility of dsr'ing it?
 
try a touch more cpu/vtt or vccio,not sure what its labelled as on an intel board,it will be stock 1.05v up it to 1.10v for 16gb

doubt its faulty imc,probably not enough imc voltage or poor bios support for that make/model of memory
 
coupe69 said:
I guess there's a slim chance of a bad batch of memory? Does sound like something else is at fault though.

The problem is until you can eliminate the memory you're going to be a bit stuck.

Looks like waiting for the weekend unless you can afford to order some memory with the possibility of dsr'ing it?
Click to expand...

Ordinarily I would do that but I am absolutely stone cold broke. Plus it's not really fair on the retailer.

I can wait... I think. Plus, read below.

wazza300 said:
try a touch more cpu/vtt or vccio,not sure what its labelled as on an intel board,it will be stock 1.05v up it to 1.10v for 16gb

doubt its faulty imc,probably not enough imc voltage or poor bios support for that make/model of memory
Click to expand...

Stock volts on the RAM is 1.5V. I tried all the way up to 1.65V, no dice.

Then, I tried reseating the CPU. With both sticks it is still unstable, but with one stick in either socket it is now stable. Doesn't seem to matter what stick, either.

I'm in Windows now, it's been Prime95 ing Blend test for about an hour with no issues at all. And no crashes or BSODs. But only with one stick. If I put both in, despite both being fine on their own, I get thousands of Memtest errors.

Does this mean I can rule out the RAM?
 
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This is what I'm presented with:

photo_1.jpg


photo_2.jpg


photo_3.jpg


I don't think it's any of those?
 
Today I managed to get my hands on a working replacement CPU and it has made absolutely no difference to the way the system behaves. I still get tons of errors in dual channel.

So I was wrong, it doesn't look like IMC failure after all.
 
Tute said:
Ordinarily I would do that but I am absolutely stone cold broke. Plus it's not really fair on the retailer.

With both sticks it is still unstable, but with one stick in either socket it is now stable. Doesn't seem to matter what stick, either.
Click to expand...

Stupid question, but did you test them in the same slot?
 
did you post all the bios screen for voltages?

can do a simple test by pulling 8gb out and just run with 8gb,then see if it still plays up,if not you know its imc voltage related
 
If I run with one stick it's sometimes stable, sometimes not. I've had it go for 3 hours Memtest stable with one stick, I reboot and run the test again without changing anything and suddenly it's totally unstable.

Doesn't matter which stick or slot I use, I get the same behaviour.

Motherboard fault? It's the same with both CPUs I have.
 
Tute said:
If I run with one stick it's sometimes stable, sometimes not. I've had it go for 3 hours Memtest stable with one stick, I reboot and run the test again without changing anything and suddenly it's totally unstable.

Doesn't matter which stick or slot I use, I get the same behaviour.

Motherboard fault? It's the same with both CPUs I have.
Click to expand...

Very distinctly a possible mobo problem.
 
Still playing around whilst I wait for the new motherboard. Something I have just noticed - I can manually set the RAM timings in the BIOS but it's utter pot luck as to whether it applies them or not.

For example, If I set it to XMP-1600 I can get anything from 6-6-6-18 to 9-9-9-21. It's meant to be 11-11-11-28 according to the sticks! I cannot get it to take those settings though, not by setting it to Auto or Manual.
 
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