Best MOBO upgrade for FX-8350 and Sapphire r9 380 Nitro 4gb

[karpath1a]

Hey guys! I built this pc a while ago and things were working great, until my graphics card [edit: MSI 7850 Twin Frozr II] died and I decided to get a new one. I bought the Sapphire Nitro r9 380 4gb and it worked great for a couple weeks. Then I started getting mad errors with blue screens and crashes. Keep in mind my computer ran 100% perfectly before the graphics card upgrade. I have tried many different solutions and have landed on the verdict that it's definitely a hardware issue. [The card is in perfect working order. This is a tested card RMA'd to me when I thought it was the original issue].

I've done extensive research and testing on my computer and it seems that in HWmonitor, my 5v power is low and my 12v is high. A friend suggested that it's probably my motherboard. I'm currently using the MSI 970a-g46, which after reading reviews the past few days, seems like it may be the issue. So I'm looking for a new upgrade! I'd like decent performance but compatibility is a MUST as I don't overclock a whole lot and just need something stable for a change. Once again my current setup is:

AMD FX-8350 8-core Processor
MSI 970a-g46 Motherboard
Sapphire Nitro R9 380 4gb
2x G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL10D-16GBXL Memory
Corsair CX600 Power Supply
Antec Computer Case (not sure of model, but has top fan, back fan, and two front fans)

Of course, if any of you have specific experience with this problem and don't think it's the motherboard, I'd love to hear it because this is my last option. Thanks!

 

[maxwellmelon]

are you sure its not a driver issue? amd has relased several updates in the last few weeks.

are you sure the PSU is good? and that all the plugs are pluged in good.(easy to knock a plug loose when changing cards.)

 

[madmatt30]

Hard call because these problems sound PSU related but may not be.
I don't suppose you have a spare PSU or can borrow one to try ??
I'm not going to dive straight on the Cx PSU's because personally I don't think they're as bad as they're made out to be & a cx600 would barely be stressed with your components.

The g46 board?? Yes it's god awful for running an 8 make no mistake at all (as in known to catch fire awful) but a gpu upgrade should not have suddenly started these issues , I would have thought they'd have been there before.

Unless of course your new 380 is allowing your CPU more usage in games & the board now can't cope with added voltage & heat .
This is a possibility if these occurrences are mainly under heavy gaming loads etc??

 

[madmatt30]

You need to do some testing mate really

See if the system is stable under a prime 95 test
Then check the gpu with furmark.

Both these test will push those components to 100% usage.

If the tests prove stable then you need to run both simultaneously to test the whole system load.

 

[karpath1a]

Hard call because these problems sound PSU related but may not be.
I don't suppose you have a spare PSU or can borrow one to try ??
I'm not going to dive straight on the Cx PSU's because personally I don't think they're as bad as they're made out to be & a cx600 would barely be stressed with your components.

The g46 board?? Yes it's god awful for running an 8 make no mistake at all (as in known to catch fire awful) but a gpu upgrade should not have suddenly started these issues , I would have thought they'd have been there before.

Unless of course your new 380 is allowing your CPU more usage in games & the board now can't cope with added voltage & heat .
This is a possibility if these occurrences are mainly under heavy gaming loads etc??

The occurrence can happen in BIOS, boot from CD, safe mode, and Windows installations. I noticed it freezes sooner upon boot if I don't give a solid few minutes before restarting after the last freeze. Honestly, PSU was my first thought. I don't have a spare, but I'll go scoop one. And due to the "catch fire awful" mention on the mobo, I'm gonna go ahead and grab a new motherboard too.

What motherboard/PSU would you recommend with my setup? I looked at the best AMD motherboards page on TH, and it seems that the two boards listed that have AM3+ sockets are the MSI 990FXA Gaming and the Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 If it's possible to go a little cheaper and still get a solid board, I'd do that if possible.

Thank you guys for your time.

 

[madmatt30]

What country are you in matey ??

 

[maxwellmelon]

Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 I have this board. to me its a good board.

 

[karpath1a]

What country are you in matey ??

USA good sir!