Persistent lock ups and BSODs.

[nickbayley]

Hi guys, long time since I posted on here but I've been having an issue with my computer for a while now and it is starting to bug me.

Here are my specs. The computer is a few years old and was bought from OverClockersUK, "Ultima 9100i Viper" Intel 4.00GHz Quad Core System.

I'm not 100% sure on my motherboard or cpu, but I can find out when I get home.
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
OCZ Agility 3 120GB (added later)
1TB Seagate HDD (for data)
Corsair Dominator 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz (added later)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 Vapor-X OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express

Anyway, on to the problem.
First of all, this seems to happen randomly and I can't find a pattern for what causes it. Sometimes it doesn't happen for days, then next it happens twice in 20 minutes.

I will be doing my usual (watching twitch or youtube, surfing the internet, playing games) and the next thing is one of my open programs becomes unresponsive. Then another and then another. This affects everything, so networking processes can die and I'll lose my network connection for example. This continues until the system completely locks up. At this point, if it is left, it will eventually BSOD.

The time between the "crash" starting and finishing can vary. Could be a few seconds, could be 15 minutes.

When on the BSOD, if it gets restarted (via the reset switch or automatically), the computer will get stuck on "verifying DMI pool data". To get it to boot again, I have to disconnect the HDD from the motherboard, let it get past the "DMI screen", then I can shut down and reconnect the HDD and it will boot the next time. If I hold the power down on the BSOD, I don't experience this.

What I've tried to fix it:

• Re-installed Windows on HDD
• Re-installed Windows on SSD
• Used no HDD, just played around with just my SSD connected
• Used different HDD's
• Used different RAM modules, single RAM modules etc
• Updated drivers for everything I can think of

Other stuff I've done not related to trying to fix it:

• Re-seated the CPU
• Re-wired and organised the computer
• Turned off the OC, re-enabled OC profiles etc

From what I have said, does anybody know the main culprit or at least a way of diagnosing what is causing this?

Thanks very much in advance and sorry if this is in the wrong area.
Regards,
Nick

 

[wazza300]

what bsod code 0x00000124 for example

and what motherboard? need to find out how much qpi/vtt voltage is being used

 

[nickbayley]

what bsod code 0x00000124 for example

and what motherboard? need to find out how much qpi/vtt voltage is being used

Hopefully I'll get a crash tonight when I get home and I'll record the BSOD code.
I'll let you know the motherboard as well.

Thanks.

 

[wazza300]

it looks like the code above,a series of 0's followed usually by a two or three digit number

 

[dwskillz]

Load up whocrashed

http://www.resplendence.com/downloads

Click the analyse button and tell us what it says

 

[OracIe]

Or look in c:\windows\minidump and use BSOD Viewer to get the hex debug code.

(Assuming you've set windows to dump)

 

[nickbayley]

Motherboard: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
CPU: i7 930 2.80GHz

This is my crash dump analysis, although, only two show from back in May.
http://pastebin.com/j2iEP31y

 

[wazza300]

how much qpi/vtt voltage is it set to in the bios?

 

[nickbayley]

how much qpi/vtt voltage is it set to in the bios?

My bad, forgot to check that.

BIO shows;
QPI/Vtt Voltage = 1.175V

 

[wazza300]

if its 1.175v then that's probably your issue,manually set it to 1.3v and then see if any bsod's crop up

had mine set to 1.32v for years on my x58 ud5

qpi/vtt is for the integrated memory controller inside the cpu,more ram/higher oc the more qpi/vtt you need,max safe is 1.4v but you wont need that much

 

[nickbayley]

I'll try it out wazza300, thanks.