Question Any idea why multiple cores would cause freezing?

[neosiotype]

2 months of troubleshooting for me to find that out. Enabling more than 1 core in the BIOS causes freezing+looping sound with sometimes a rare shutdown. If I using iGPU instead of the GPU there are visual artifacts instead of the freeze. Can happen anywhere. Before POST, in the BIOS and in W10.

And it's a weird freeze because after I hard restart it tends to get stuck again around wherever it froze before. Multiple power cycles can move it around. Temperatures are fine.

I replaced the power supply and it actually works less than my old one. Gets stuck on the CPU or VGA led and doesn't post at all. I don't know it it's "too much clean power" for my old hardware or I got multiple broken things to deal with.

Maybe I should mention I replaced the heatsink+thermal paste a couple weeks prior to the problem. Also got some new RAM but I ruled that out when testing my last 1 good stick after a jumper reset.

So yeah, that's what I learned. This is all old hardware, i7-3770K and the P8Z77 motherboard. It would probably be better just to buy new stuff but... that's kind painful, lol. I'm not really expecting a solution here, maybe some insights about why having more than 1 core enabled would do this.

 

[stonecarver]

Maybe I should mention I replaced the heatsink+thermal paste a couple weeks prior to the problem

So the Pc was working fine before before CPU heatsink / paste job.

That's where I would go back and start there. It could be a bent pin to as simple as backing off the CPU cooler screws and re tightening. Maybe the CPU cooler is to tight or not sitting just right. Some times there a pain.

But that's where I would start.

 

[neosiotype]

Oh, I did consider that. Haven't done anything because it was a nightmare installing.

I know I'm going to have a hard time getting the fan clips off when I get around to it. The screws are underneath.

It's one of those Thermaltake. Pretty cheap construction (what can I say for the price?) but otherwise I was really happy with the temperatures.