I think my P8Z68-V mobo is bad. Looking for input.

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Xen0n27

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Dec 29, 2005
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A little over 2 weeks ago I finally upgraded my rig with an ASUS P8Z68-V, i5-2500K, 8GB G.Skill DDR3 (CAS8), and a CM Hyper 212+. After waiting for so long to upgrade, I was pretty happy with my build. About a week ago I started having instability problems.

It started with intermittent blue-screens and whenever I would reboot my main hard drive would run a chkdsk. Yesterday I finally sat down to spend a couple hours of casual gaming (DDO), and I discovered that my system would either have a bluescreen error or my video would lock up after less than 30 minutes of gaming.

My first thought was that the problem was with my hard drive. I got my main hard drive and SSD replaced via a RMA a couple months ago, and I hadn't gotten around to reinstalling on the SSD. So I spent the next couple hours reinstalling on the SSD.

After the reinstall, I was able to play DDO for about 40 minutes until the video lockups and bluescreens starting again. The bluescreen errors looked like they could be memory related, so I ran memtestx86 on my system (off of an OpenSUSE 11.4 DVD) - which would immediately lock up. Ah ha I thought, it must be memory.

So I went to Fry's this morning and picked up a Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB/1600mhz kit. With my memory settings all to Default/auto (which would detect the memory as 1333mhz), I ran memtestx86 again. It freaking locked up on me again! After rebooting and went into the UEFI, for some reason I got an "overclocking error", which is odd because I was running at stock speed.

So now I'm left with not too many other components that could be causing the problem. #1 on my list would be the motherboard. #2 would be the power supply (and only because it consistenly makes a high-pitched noise whenever I start up a game).

I'm looking for some input from the experts out there. If you had this problem, would you replace the motherboard next? Seems logical, but I wanted to get at least a second opinion before I start disassembling my rig and deal with the 20 questions from the Returns guy at Frys.

Thanks.
 
Have you set mem to XMP profile in bios?
Tried one stick in A2 or B2?
Ram all the way down seated?
You can see your Mem profiles in CPUID/SPD tab - overclocking failed is usually RAM
You could turn off CPU spread spectrum and manual set BCLK to 100.0, PLL overvolt to disabled
tried loosening the 4 nuts on the Hyper 212 to just finger tight?
Make sure none of the 4 red LEDs on mobo on- CPU HDD MEM VGA?
Also full CMOS reset - PSU unplugged

$40, but very handy at times
http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-Automated-Supply-Oversized-Supplies/dp/B005F778JO
 
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I would take the board back and swap it for another. There could be something wrong with the motherboard.

It doesnt sound like CPU or RAM and hell it could be the memcontroller on the CPU because the board isnt supplying the right amount of electricity or who knows what.
 
Thanks for the responses guys.

I did swap out the board. That resolved most of my problems, no blue screen errors or odd overclocking error messages in the UEFI. Not one error at all until I ran 3DMark11 to put a heavier load on my system. It made it through most of the tests fine, then bombed out in one of the last ones.

On a hunch I disconnected a spare old 1TB hard drive that I hadn't gotten around to using yet. After that I was able to get 3dMark11 to run fine. Looks like I had both a motherboard problem and an over-taxed power supply. Jeez... at stock speeds you'd think that 650W would be enough to run my rig. Not a huge deal. At least I know what to do now to get by until I can get a bigger power supply.
 
I can't imagine that system was really overtaxing a 650W power supply, unless there was something wrong with it.
 
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