New-ish i7 build dying after 6 months!

Hello

About 6 or 7 months ago I built a system with

i7 920 @ 4ghz
patriot viper 6gb ddr3 ram
gigabyte x58a-ud3r
intel 80gb ssd
asus 5870
corsair 750hx
windows 7 64 pro

the system has been fine up till now, i was away for 1 month and upon returning there were random lockups in windows when left on its own for 5-10 mins. i ran prime and it failed after 5-10mins so increased vcore to 1.25v, only to have the same problems. dropped vcore and clocks to 3.8, still having the same problem.

now the pc will randomly restart itself even during web browsing - when attempting to reset the bios to stock, even the bios locked up and needed restarting! it also hung once at post screen. Now the cpu is at stock clocks and the system still randomly locks up and restarts in windows, and when running prime. it crashed after 8 minutes of furmark also, but since it could crash after 8 minutes of doing nothing it doesnt tell me much.

i ran memtest86 yesterday and it was fine (although in the last day the system has been getting worse, perhaps now that may even fail)


Any idea what the problem could be? I dont have extra equipment to swap components around with, so I have no idea what the problem could be. I am leaning towards PSU or motherboard (in other systems in the past I have had problems with these)....perhaps CPU...but how can I be sure so I can RMA the right part?

Thanks

singh_uk said:

Any idea what the problem could be? I dont have extra equipment to swap components around with, so I have no idea what the problem could be. I am leaning towards PSU or motherboard (in other systems in the past I have had problems with these)....perhaps CPU...but how can I be sure so I can RMA the right part?

Click to expand...

The symptoms you've described are all over the place. It could be the CPU, the GPU, the mobo, or the PSU. If you want to be sure that you're RMA'ing the right part, you're gonna have to start swapping out parts. Or just RMA the CPU, GPU, mobo, and PSU and hope for the best.

I reset the BIOS to stock and it seemed ok for a while. I left for the weekend and on returning - same problem again. Reset the CMOS from the back of the motherboard and the problem has disappeared again - do you think this makes it more likely to be the motherboard?

I am going to try a different PSU to check it out - that would narrow it down to CPU, RAM and mobo I think. Not convinced it is GPU. Ive heard CPUs dont fail often so would it be best to RMA just RAM and mobo?

Thanks

Test and/or swap everything you can out before you RMA anything. Better yet, perform a barebones bench test (read the troubleshooting stick for details) to help narrow down potential trouble areas.

I'm having real problems narrowing this down.

At some times, the PC passes memtest, furmark, orthos and IBT fine for hours, it seems especially when I leave it for a period of time (few days) without use, then come back and use it, its completely unstable and continuously crashes after 5-10mins in windows.

The problem is definately not the PSU, it cant be CPU or RAM as they pass tests when the system is stable, so it must be the mobo, surely? Anyone else with problems on a GA-EX58A-UD3R? Should I try a BIOS update before RMA-ing or is the stock one most likely to be best? Thanks.

I would try reseating the CPU and RAM and possibly the power supply connections as well.

How do you know that it isn't the PSU? It could have a cap or two starting to flake out. Did you test the system with a known good power supply?

I would definitely update the BIOS to the latest one but only after it is running stable at stock speeds.