Is my CPU dieing ?

[dholdi]

Firstly, a little background.
Around 9 months ago I decided to upgrade to the following :-

Intel Core i9-13900K (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail

Order Intel Core i9-13900K (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard

Order Gigabyte Z790 Gaming X AX (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-60800C36 7600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G7600HC36DDC01)

Order TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-60800C36 7600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G7600HC36DDC01) now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Following the build I had issues with games crashing, BF2042 wouldnt play unless I slowed down the CPU, Forza H5 and Wolfenstein TNC would crash randomly.
Memtest revealed multiple errors so I spoke to OCCS and they recommended that the ram was too fast for the board and on their advice I downgraded to :-

TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G6000HC30DC01)

Order TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G6000HC30DC01) now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

I also later in the year changed the motherboard to this one I picked up from the MM :-

Asus ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WIFI II (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard

Order Asus ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WIFI II (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

And added an extra:-

TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G6000HC30DC01)

Order TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C30 6000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FF3D532G6000HC30DC01) now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Due to a busy summer I didnt do much more gaming but when I did it seemed to be stable.
I recently started playing Sniper Elite 5 quite often and after a couple of months that also started to crash quite regularly.
I also noticed that other programs I use started behaving differently ( CCTV for eg would hang and not display camera feeds without restarting ) and I would get the occasional BSOD.
So I thought right, time for a fresh windows install and thats when I suspected something was really amiss.
It took 4-5 attempts before windows would install, with numerous BSOD during the process.
Some of the BSOD were that quick I didnt get chance to write them down but ones I did were Memory Management, System Services Exception, Page Fault in Non Paged Area.
Now I've managed to get windows to install it runs terribly, drivers wont install and just hang or BSOD, programs that do install hang or BSOD.
When the PC goes to sleep it wont wake up without rebooting.
So after a little research I have run the following tests :-

Memcheck86 - Took 15 hours and returned almost 4000 errors.
OCCT - CPU test for 1 Hour and returned 120,000 errors across most cores ( couldnt check which as it crashed on completion )
LinpackExtreme - fails in under a minute.

What I have noticed whilst running these tests is that the CPU immediately goes to 100degC as soon as the test starts, it doesnt gradually build up, but is there within a couple of seconds.
Other hardware is a Dark Rock Pro 4 cooler, Superflower 1000W PSU and a Gigabyte 3080TI.
So apologies for the long post but I knew you would want to know most of this before commenting.
Is there anything else I need to be checking or should I just be contacting OC ?

Thanks in advance

 

[Tetras]

Umm, on the face of it, your memory sounds bad again, but.. it looks like you went from super fast memory to then using 4 sticks, which is generally regarded as a bad idea with DDR5.

What testing have you done while only running 2 sticks and with XMP disabled (which I assume puts your memory at 4800)?

What I have noticed whilst running these tests is that the CPU immediately goes to 100degC as soon as the test starts, it doesnt gradually build up, but is there within a couple of seconds.

That's not uncommon with air coolers when you use heavily threaded benches, is your CPU power unlocked?

 

[Doco]

Just curious - what's the airflow like for the system? You say the cpu hits 100 - which isn't the worst these days, I think cpus will climb in temperature and be fine more than before

But I'm wondering if any other components are running hot? And if the RAM in turn could be overheating and that's why you are geting memory errors in tests/crashes etc, just a thought.

 

[tamzzy]

my 2p:
1) a 13900k is a *very tough* ask for a dark rock pro 4 to cool when the 13900k is running at full pelt. you'd really need a 360mm aio to cool the beast.
2) you have a dud IMC on your 13900k this would explain why it struggles to run ram at higher speeds and/or higher capacity. all your random crashes BSODs are related to this. (the alternative is the RAM being defective, but from what you've already described and without further testing...my money is on the IMC being the most likely culprit)

What testing have you done while only running 2 sticks and with XMP disabled (which I assume puts your memory at 4800)?
That's not uncommon with air coolers when you use heavily threaded benches

what tetras said.

 

[sx_turbo]

Remove 2 sticks of ram first.

 

[ATIorNvidia]

It's going to be faulty sticks or a faulty IMC on the CPU. I would start by testing with only the 2 sticks that you most recently bought, ideally one at a time if you have the patience.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

step 1 do memtest from a cd/usb boot tester. if it gets errors then dont bother with loading an os on it.

 

[Tetras]

or a faulty IMC on the CPU

Afaik Intel's rated speed for 4 sticks is only 4400 with 13th gen, so if the OP is running the new sticks all together @ 6000 C30, it wouldn't be considered faulty 'officially'.

I'm not sure what the average speed people get is with 13th gen & 4 single rank 16GB sticks, but 6000 C30 would be on the optimistic side, I'd have thought.

Intel has increased its DDR5 memory support up to 5600 MT/s if you use one DIMM per channel (1DPC), a big increase over the prior 4800 MT/s speed with Alder Lake. Just as importantly, Intel increased 2DPC speeds up to 4400 MT/s, an improvement over the previous-gen 3600 MT/s. Raptor Lake also continues to support DDR4 memory, which Intel predicts will coexist in the market with DDR5 until the end of 2024. This approach ensures a value option for Intel platforms, unlike AMD's all-in approach with DDR5.

Intel Core i9-13900K and Core i5-13600K Review: Raptor Lake Beats Ryzen 7000

The Raptors are out of the cage!

www.tomshardware.com

 

[ATIorNvidia]

Afaik Intel's rated speed for 4 sticks is only 4400 with 13th gen, so if the OP is running the new sticks all together @ 6000 C30, it wouldn't be considered faulty 'officially'.

OP is on his 3rd RAM kit and 2nd Motherboard with his issues beginning before he ever added 4 sticks.

 

[Tetras]

OP is on his 3rd RAM kit and 2nd Motherboard with his issues beginning before he ever added 4 sticks.

Yeah, at first he was running 7600 which is pretty high-end (not sure how common it is to run those with no issues and a 13th gen CPU, but OCUK suggested he downgrade), then switched to 2x 6000/C30 and it isn't entirely clear from the description how stable this was and what the timeline was, with adding the new sticks.

We know that DDR5 systems currently don't like 4 sticks very much. So, while the CPU's IMC might be faulty, it could also be a case of overly optimistic usage. There's no mention of XMP on/off either, which I'd need to know to assess 100% what the test errors are due to.

If the OP does what you suggested and run with only 2 of the 4 sticks, or one at a time, it'll help to figure it out.

 

[dholdi]

Firstly, thanks to you all who've taken the time to respond, its much appreciated.
To address a couple of the queries that have been made :-
The initial 7600 ram kit when running under XMP, Memtest gave multiple errors but with XMP disabled gave 0 errors.
I changed to the Asus MB purely because I've always used them in the past, but was unable to justify the cost until one came up on the MM, not because I suspected issues were with the Gigabyte MB.
I dont think airflow is an issue as I have 3 extract and 2 supply fans and system / gpu temps seem to be normal.
Following the suggestions made after my initial post I have tried the following :-
Removed the later set of RAM and turned off XMP, Memtest has returned 0 errors.
I've then reinstalled Windows, which seemed to install fine, updated everything drivers wise which also went fine and played SE5 for 2 hours without a single crash.
I'm going to re enable XMP and run the test again overnight.
I'm then going to try the later set of RAM again with and without XMP enabled.
I do feel that having experienced the same issues with 3 different sets of RAM that I'm not convinced the RAM is the issue, however the article Tetras has posted would suggest that the CPU isnt capable of running any of the RAM I have tried under XMP and therefore a CPU RMA would be declined because of this.
If this is the case then I'm disappointed OCCS would suggest this RAM although I also blame myself for not researching this enough prior.
Hopefully I will get a chance to update tomorrow, but I'm off to Lanzarote Wed morning so might not have time because of packing cases etc.
If not, I will update when I get back and once again thanks to you all.

 

[tamzzy]

CPU isnt capable of running any of the RAM I have tried under XMP and therefore a CPU RMA would be declined because of this.

RAM overclocking is considered overclocking as it puts an abnormal (ie not normal) stress on the IMC, so intel will decline the RMA.
the IMC is rated to run at 5600, so anything faster is literally a lottery, which in your unfortunate case, you have drawn a lemon.

 

[Tetras]

however the article Tetras has posted would suggest that the CPU isnt capable of running any of the RAM I have tried under XMP and therefore a CPU RMA would be declined because of this.
If this is the case then I'm disappointed OCCS would suggest this RAM although I also blame myself for not researching this enough prior.

Just to be clear about what I said: I was referring to 4 sticks of 6000 CL30 (with Intel's official rating of just 4400).

2 sticks is still beyond the stock rating for 2 sticks (as tamzzy said, that's 5600), but realistically, I'd expect most K CPUs are able to handle 2 single rank sticks of 6000 CL30.

If they can't do it, I'd have thought some minor adjustments (e.g. looser timings) would solve the problem.

From what I've seen with 4 sticks, everyone has problems and needs to do some tweaking, but what 4 single rank sticks typically achieve with your CPU, I don't know.

I do feel that having experienced the same issues with 3 different sets of RAM that I'm not convinced the RAM is the issue, however the article Tetras has posted would suggest that the CPU isnt capable of running any of the RAM I have tried under XMP and therefore a CPU RMA would be declined because of this.

It isn't a 100% rule, but I would normally expect faulty RAM to produce errors even at stock, with XMP disabled. When you run @ 7600 or with 4 sticks of DDR5, it makes it hard to troubleshoot where the problem lies, because they're both likely to be troublesome.

If you find that you can enable XMP with 2 sticks of 6000 CL30 and run games stably and get no errors with memtest, I think your IMC is just..., well, average.

With 4 sticks, I'd suggest only trying something like 5200 and see if you can go up from there.

 

[ATIorNvidia]

The initial 7600 ram kit when running under XMP, Memtest gave multiple errors but with XMP disabled gave 0 errors.

Just to clarify, when you're running XMP off, are you still setting the RAM manually to 7600 or leaving everything auto? What's the actual memory speed?

 

[dholdi]

RAM overclocking is considered overclocking as it puts an abnormal (ie not normal) stress on the IMC, so intel will decline the RMA.
the IMC is rated to run at 5600, so anything faster is literally a lottery, which in your unfortunate case, you have drawn a lemon.

Hopefully not as the further tests refered to above with XMP enabled on 2 sticks resuled in a pass.

 

[dholdi]

Just to be clear about what I said: I was referring to 4 sticks of 6000 CL30 (with Intel's official rating of just 4400).

2 sticks is still beyond the stock rating for 2 sticks (as tamzzy said, that's 5600), but realistically, I'd expect most K CPUs are able to handle 2 single rank sticks of 6000 CL30.

If they can't do it, I'd have thought some minor adjustments (e.g. looser timings) would solve the problem.

From what I've seen with 4 sticks, everyone has problems and needs to do some tweaking, but what 4 single rank sticks typically achieve with your CPU, I don't know.


It isn't a 100% rule, but I would normally expect faulty RAM to produce errors even at stock, with XMP disabled. When you run @ 7600 or with 4 sticks of DDR5, it makes it hard to troubleshoot where the problem lies, because they're both likely to be troublesome.

If you find that you can enable XMP with 2 sticks of 6000 CL30 and run games stably and get no errors with memtest, I think your IMC is just..., well, average.

With 4 sticks, I'd suggest only trying something like 5200 and see if you can go up from there.

The 2 sticks on XMP have been running fine since yesterday, I know thats not a long test period but an overnight memtest passed and a couple of hourss of gaming didnt produce any errors..

 

[dholdi]

Just to clarify, when you're running XMP off, are you still setting the RAM manually to 7600 or leaving everything auto? What's the actual memory speed?

The 7600 ram was returned a year ago, the tests I have been running are with the ram at stock settings or with XMP enabled so 4800 or 6000.

 

[dholdi]

Once again, thanks to you all for your input it is very much appreciated.
I'm pretty happy that all seems fine with 2 sticks and XMP enabled @6000.
When I get back from a bit of rays I will try the newer sticks to see if they give the same results and report back.
Take care

 

[Tetras]

The 2 sticks on XMP have been running fine since yesterday, I know thats not a long test period but an overnight memtest passed and a couple of hoursds of gaming didnt produce any errors..

Cool, it sounds like you either have 2 faulty sticks of the 4, or your CPU's IMC poops out when running 4 @ 6000/C30, which probably isn't that unusual. A bit of tweaking to the xmp settings might get them all stable.

 

[dholdi]

Apologies, I should have reported back earlier than this but life got in the way.
I tried the other set of ram and there were no issues with that either.
However, things did get worse, random crashes when both gaming and just browsing, all sorts of errors in event log.
So I decided to reinstall windows from scratch and log everything as I went.
I experienced muliple crashes during the windows installation.
After it finally managed to complete there were further crashes / errors when downloading / installing programs.
Just as an example, I downloaded chrome browser and it refused to install, downloaded again, refused again, downloaded again, refused again.
All 3 downloads were the same size, after a number of attempts it decided to install from the first dl.
This happened with a number of different programs.
The random crashing and programs shutting down continued.
To try and cut an already long story short I contacted overclockers customer services.
I explained all of the above and the history already outlined in this thread and after a couple of questions answered I received an RMA.
I sent the CPU back on a Monday afternoon and received a replacement on Wednesday afternoon.
All seems well with this one so I guess the answer to the thread title was yes.
Also, thanks to OC's for excellent after sales support much appreciated.