Blue screen after stability testing my overclock

[joseph.wilkinson369]

My setup is an i5 4690k, asus z97-a motherboard, cm hyper 212+, a 550w psu from Rosewell, 16gb ddr3 Hyper x fury ram 4x4(no oc on the ram yet). I overclocked my 4690k to 4.6 ghz at 1.185v, and I used prime 95 v 26.6 small ffts for 24 hours to test my stability. My computer ran into no problems and no blue screens during the stability test, and my temperatures stayed well below 80C(using Core Temp to monitor temps). After using my overclock for a couple of days my computer randomly blue screened on me while I was watching youtube. It only happened that one time, and its been two days since I got that blue screen and it hasn't happened again. I am probably going to up the voltage a little(haven't yet), but I was wondering if there is something wrong with how I stability tested by cpu. Why didn't my pc blue screen while under 100% load, but ended up blue screening while watching youtube which doesn't put it under very much load? Is my overclock stable??

 

[terry4536]

The overclock could be stable, and the problem is something different.

I would first check out the error log in the event viewer. Then troubleshoot any significant error code.

 

[terry4536]

On the other hand, you can reset the BIOS to the defaults (wiping the overclock) and see if the blue screen returns.

 

[joseph.wilkinson369]

I used default cpu clocks with all default settings and I got one more blue screen and my pc froze once within the time fram of about 1 week

 

[terry4536]

Then I would suggest that something has been corrupted. From what you posted, it was stable for a week?

If so download the latest motherboard chipset drivers and install. Then do the same for the motherboard BIOS. Then update and install the graphics driver directly from the AMD or Nvidia (if you use a graphics card - it wasn't listed).
Then evaluate the system. Don't overclock anything for the time being.

If it blue screens again, do a fresh install of the operating system.

 

[Karadjgne]

P95 26.6 is best for max baseline usage temps, basically the worst situation you can put the pc through (during stable operation). However, it's not so good with stability as it only really uses the cpu, it doesn't stress the gpu, pcie buss, Sata buss, USB buss, ram buss etc.

For stability testing use Asus RealBench instead, it'll give the pc a full workout of all systems.

Most pc is not 100% stable, most, at best, is only 99% stable and thats mostly because it's tested with p95 for stability, which consequently misses any compatability issues in the subsystems.

1% possible glitch (and consequent bsod) may not sound very large, but that's a 1% possibility for every single instruction, every single pass through, every single transaction between any 2 components. Considering the billions of such opertunities every second, the pc will win that lottery and bsod sooner or later.

 

[joseph.wilkinson369]

I already updated all of my drivers. I was going to update my bios, but the Asus website says version 3503(the newest one) is still in beta. I currently have version 2801(2nd newest one) which is the one directly before version 3503. Should I update my motherboard to version 3503 because its the newest or should I avoid updating my bios because version 3503 is still in beta?

 

[joseph.wilkinson369]

@karadjgne I will try testing my system using Asus Realbench, thanks for the feedback.

 

[joseph.wilkinson369]

When using RealBench Stress Test, should I have it use all of my available ram? and how long should I test on RealBench to ensure 100% stability?

 

[Karadjgne]

Most will do around 1/2 to 1 hr for the basics,until they think they've got it down good, then a solid 4-8hrs just to ensure it's actually perfect. If you can pass 8hrs of RealBench, you can basically pass anything you could ever throw at it.

 

[terry4536]

I already updated all of my drivers. I was going to update my bios, but the Asus website says version 3503(the newest one) is still in beta. I currently have version 2801(2nd newest one) which is the one directly before version 3503. Should I update my motherboard to version 3503 because its the newest or should I avoid updating my bios because version 3503 is still in beta?

Yes, update the BIOS. At this point the it is to exclude any corrupted files or drivers. Any drivers that were updated before the blue screening and freezing are suspect. When you say that you updated all of the drivers, when was that? And did that include the motherboard drivers (people seem to forget those)?

 

[terry4536]

On the BIOS, I ran into a problem installing a graphics card on my system. Sometimes it would recognize the graphics card sometimes it wouldn't. In the Device Manager under Display Adapter the graphics card would show up either by it self or with the generic display adapter. And at times it didn't recognize the card at all (then only the generic display adapter would be listed).

Each time the graphics card was listed, I would try to update the graphics driver. And each time I did the system would black screen (after the restart). Then I would have to recover the system. This went on for over a week until I returned the graphics card, and got a new one. But the new card did exactly the same as before.

My point is at that time, (I could use the integrated graphics) I already had the latest motherboard BIOS. So I hadn't updated it again. Then more as a last ditch effort, I updated the BIOS with the same latest version. And the graphics card updated fine on the very first try after that.

I did everything I could think of to try (apart from updating that BIOS again), including updating other drivers and reinstalling the operating system. But apparently that BIOS became corrupted at some point.

 

[joseph.wilkinson369]

I updated all of my motherboard drivers a few weeks ago