Chronic System Crashing Potential Overheating Problem (AMD FX-9370)

[elitej13]

In short my problem is this:
Frequently and seemingly randomly my computer will freeze up. Mouse stops moving, keyboard isn't responsive, sound often glitches, and all video freeze frames indefinitely. The only sign of life lies in the jet engine of fans that sometimes even ramp up after freezing. It doesn't seem to be specific to any application, especially so since it sometimes happens on the desktop with nothing open, with it even having happened once in the bios. Often times when it does freeze hard resetting will result in another freeze, sometimes even mere seconds after getting back to the desktop. This of course seems very symptomatic of an overheating problem.

My specs are as follows:

• MSI 990FXA Gaming
  AMD FX 9370
  ASUS Strix R9 Fury
  Corsair RM850x
  Corsair H115i
  16GB DDR3 RAM
  240GB SSD
  1TB HDD

In long here's some more stuff:
I have been monitoring the temperatures regularly for the past few days now using HW Monitor, and I haven't seen the temperatures in the CPU rise above 72C, while the last time it actually froze with the monitor window in view, the CPU was only 60C. This was while I was doing some openGL programming and so 60C didn't seem at all unreasonable whilst doing some light rendering.

My first thought has been to under-clock my CPU especially since the AMD Turbo Core Technology is set to 4700 MHz, however, all options in bios to do so seem to be grayed out, is there a work-around for this? Alternatively, is it safe to disable cores to try to rule out certain things and would that even help? So what should my first go-to benchmark/test to run to narrow down the possible issues? I don't have much clue when it comes to debugging hardware. I recently installed a fresh copy of windows 10 to try and rule that out. Since I have done a deep clean of the internals of my computer removing dust from fans and well as re-seating the CPU and GPU with fresh thermal paste for the CPU. I have done reinstalled/updated drivers many times once even using guru3d I think it's called. Any help would be very appreciated, at this point I'm not very concerned with performance, I just need some stability back in my life, this is driving me insane, especially nearing the end of a semester with lots of projects due.

In even longer some additional info you might not care about:
In the past I have had regular issues with AMD Wattman crashing, however, when that occurs it usually crashes and restores. Whereas with these freeze instances it stays frozen indefinitely. So it's probably mostly unrelated. Although if there is anyone knows how to clear that up it would be helpful as well. But my primary concern is with the freezing deal.

I've been experiencing this problem for about a year now, however, it's never been too much of a problem for me to spend any more than an hour tinker with\pondering. It now is getting a bit out of control and I would appreciate help, in fact if anyone manages to come up with an answer that truly helps I'd be happy to send some money via papal your way (say 20 bucks), because you'd really be helping me out. I don't think offering money violates forum policy but if it does I'm so sorry.

Thanks a ton for any and all help!

 

[Geekwad]

For the sake of thoroughness, before you start down the CPU/Mobo troubleshooting road, if you haven't done a memory and drive integrity test....do those first......however it sounds to me as though this may be your motherboard starting to go.

What I would try, as you mentioned, is down-clocking the CPU (say to 4.2GHz), and under-volt as necessary. As your motherboard is only truly rated for the 140watt and lower CPUs, and not the 220w '9' series FX CPUs, I think the stress over time has started to destabilize your power delivery under even moderate loads.

I imagine that if you 'disable' Turbo Core Technology, then your options will start to open up for setting items manually, including being able to manually adjust your CPU ratio. Before you do though, this would be a helpful guide to look through:

http://www.amd.com/Documents/AMD_FX_Performance_Tuning_Guide.pdf

And then pull up your motherboard owners manual to help with finding to corresponding setting in your particular BIOS menus.

 

[elitej13]

For the sake of thoroughness, before you start down the CPU/Mobo troubleshooting road, if you haven't done a memory and drive integrity test....do those first......however it sounds to me as though this may be your motherboard starting to go.

What I would try, as you mentioned, is down-clocking the CPU (say to 4.2GHz), and under-volt as necessary. As your motherboard is only truly rated for the 140watt and lower CPUs, and not the 220w '9' series FX CPUs, I think the stress over time has started to destabilize your power delivery under even moderate loads.

I imagine that if you 'disable' Turbo Core Technology, then your options will start to open up for setting items manually, including being able to manually adjust your CPU ratio. Before you do though, this would be a helpful guide to look through:

http://www.amd.com/Documents/AMD_FX_Performance_Tuning_Guide.pdf

And then pull up your motherboard owners manual to help with finding to corresponding setting in your particular BIOS menus.

Thanks a ton for your quick reply.
The option to 'disable' Turbo Core Tech is grayed out and set to 'Auto'. Any ideas why, and how to get around this?

I should add that a lot of options are grayed out, including but not limited to; 'Adjust CPU Ratio', 'Adjust CPU Frequency', 'AMD Turbo Core Tech', 'Adjust Max Turbo Core Ratio', and 'CPU Voltage'.

Update:
I just finished a mdsched and a chkdsk and neither came up with any errors.

 

[Geekwad]

Thanks a ton for your quick reply.
The option to 'disable' Turbo Core Tech is grayed out and set to 'Auto'. Any ideas why, and how to get around this?

I should add that a lot of options are grayed out, including but not limited to; 'Adjust CPU Ratio', 'Adjust CPU Frequency', 'AMD Turbo Core Tech', 'Adjust Max Turbo Core Ratio', and 'CPU Voltage'.

Update:
I just finished a mdsched and a chkdsk and neither came up with any errors.

In your BIOS, does selecting and saving 'restore defaults' change anything? What version of the BIOS are you running?

 

[elitej13]

In your BIOS, does selecting and saving 'restore defaults' change anything? What version of the BIOS are you running?

Not that I can tell, other than the boot priority everything seemed unchanged. I checked for a BIOS update earlier and it seemed I'm running the latest - V1.4 (E7893AMS).

 

[Geekwad]

In your BIOS, does selecting and saving 'restore defaults' change anything? What version of the BIOS are you running?

Not that I can tell, other than the boot priority everything seemed unchanged. I checked for a BIOS update earlier and it seemed I'm running the latest - V1.4 (E7893AMS).

What about any 'auto' overclocks or other motherboard 'performance' customizations? Some of them have a gimmicky menu item for optimization or performance that needs to be disabled to enable manual control.

Saving a missed option like this, then I'd either move to clearing the CMOS to see if manual control is reestablished in the menu settings or conclude that it's doing this on purpose because of the 220w CPU in the 140w rated board. MSI customer service may be able to shed some light on this too.

 

[elitej13]

In your BIOS, does selecting and saving 'restore defaults' change anything? What version of the BIOS are you running?

Not that I can tell, other than the boot priority everything seemed unchanged. I checked for a BIOS update earlier and it seemed I'm running the latest - V1.4 (E7893AMS).

What about any 'auto' overclocks or other motherboard 'performance' customizations? Some of them have a gimmicky menu item for optimization or performance that needs to be disabled to enable manual control.

Saving a missed option like this, then I'd either move to clearing the CMOS to see if manual control is reestablished in the menu settings or conclude that it's doing this on purpose because of the 220w CPU in the 140w rated board. MSI customer service may be able to shed some light on this too.

No such luck after poking around the bios for a while or after clearing the CMOS. I guess I'll have to ask customer support about that. Do you think there's a chance some software still could underclock despite being locked out of the bios?

 

[jaslion]

In short my problem is this:
Frequently and seemingly randomly my computer will freeze up. Mouse stops moving, keyboard isn't responsive, sound often glitches, and all video freeze frames indefinitely. The only sign of life lies in the jet engine of fans that sometimes even ramp up after freezing. It doesn't seem to be specific to any application, especially so since it sometimes happens on the desktop with nothing open, with it even having happened once in the bios. Often times when it does freeze hard resetting will result in another freeze, sometimes even mere seconds after getting back to the desktop. This of course seems very symptomatic of an overheating problem.

My specs are as follows:

• MSI 990FXA Gaming
  AMD FX 9370
  ASUS Strix R9 Fury
  Corsair RM850x
  Corsair H115i
  16GB DDR3 RAM
  240GB SSD
  1TB HDD

In long here's some more stuff:
I have been monitoring the temperatures regularly for the past few days now using HW Monitor, and I haven't seen the temperatures in the CPU rise above 72C, while the last time it actually froze with the monitor window in view, the CPU was only 60C. This was while I was doing some openGL programming and so 60C didn't seem at all unreasonable whilst doing some light rendering.

My first thought has been to under-clock my CPU especially since the AMD Turbo Core Technology is set to 4700 MHz, however, all options in bios to do so seem to be grayed out, is there a work-around for this? Alternatively, is it safe to disable cores to try to rule out certain things and would that even help? So what should my first go-to benchmark/test to run to narrow down the possible issues? I don't have much clue when it comes to debugging hardware. I recently installed a fresh copy of windows 10 to try and rule that out. Since I have done a deep clean of the internals of my computer removing dust from fans and well as re-seating the CPU and GPU with fresh thermal paste for the CPU. I have done reinstalled/updated drivers many times once even using guru3d I think it's called. Any help would be very appreciated, at this point I'm not very concerned with performance, I just need some stability back in my life, this is driving me insane, especially nearing the end of a semester with lots of projects due.

In even longer some additional info you might not care about:
In the past I have had regular issues with AMD Wattman crashing, however, when that occurs it usually crashes and restores. Whereas with these freeze instances it stays frozen indefinitely. So it's probably mostly unrelated. Although if there is anyone knows how to clear that up it would be helpful as well. But my primary concern is with the freezing deal.

I've been experiencing this problem for about a year now, however, it's never been too much of a problem for me to spend any more than an hour tinker with\pondering. It now is getting a bit out of control and I would appreciate help, in fact if anyone manages to come up with an answer that truly helps I'd be happy to send some money via papal your way (say 20 bucks), because you'd really be helping me out. I don't think offering money violates forum policy but if it does I'm so sorry.

Thanks a ton for any and all help!

THe 990fxa is a board from before the 9 series cpu's was launched so it very likely can't really handle the cpu's increased power draw well. TRy downclocking it. Also 72c is the thermal limit for the fx series and the 9 series has an even lower limit.

Best thing to try is to underclock it to fx 8350 levels and if thats stable keep it there.

 

[Geekwad]

No such luck after poking around the bios for a while or after clearing the CMOS. I guess I'll have to ask customer support about that. Do you think there's a chance some software still could underclock despite being locked out of the bios?

If MSI can confirm that the options are BIOS-locked because it's an officially unsupported 9-series CPU, the software solution/workaround would be a modified BIOS. I absolutely do not recommend this if this machine is at all important to you though, and the data it contains or goes through it (as the right BIOS from the wrong source can open up a security hole the size of truck).

The best/easiest/quickest workaround is probably to flip the processor out and hope this helps in getting to the end of the semester. An FX 8320e is the cheapest new solution, (especially if you live by one of these stores):

http://www.microcenter.com/product/486115/FX_8320E_Black_Edition_Vishera_32_GHz_8_Core_AM3_Boxed_Processor

but I'm sure an 8-series FX CPU on eBay would be even less expensive.

You could also look for pre-owned CPU/mobo combo that uses DDR3 to preserve most of your system, with plenty of Haswell i5's (4th Generation processors) on the market to choose from.....which would offer better performance than the FX in almost all cases.

 

[mjslakeridge]

Have you tried using AMD Overdrive to underclock the CPU? I have done this with my FX6300, just to see if it can be done. I don't know if it will work with your BIOS selections being grayed-out, but worth a try.

 

[elitej13]

Have you tried using AMD Overdrive to underclock the CPU? I have done this with my FX6300, just to see if it can be done. I don't know if it will work with your BIOS selections being grayed-out, but worth a try.

Last night while I was trying to do this my computer wouldn't stay on long enough for me to download it. However, today I tried again, managed to poke around with some under-clocking and it seemed like I was able to turn off Turbo Core Tech within the program. It seemed to be working seeing as HW Monitor read that the cpu wasn't hitting higher than 4000MHz, but when I restarted the system and checked the bios it registered no change. Then after logging back on and openning the program it also had reset the settings. Is there some special way I need to permanently save changes and not just apply them? Thanks again!

 

[mjslakeridge]

If by the program you mean AMD Overdrive, then yes there is a way to make the changes "permanent" until you manually change them. After making the changes, click on the Green Dot in the upper right hand corner of the AMD Overdrive screen. It will turn red and the settings will be applied. Also, I think if you go into settings in AMD Overdrive, there is a place to select "apply last settings upon restart" or similar language. I don't have AMD Overdrive installed right now, as I had to revert to a disk image from about 6 months ago due to a problem with Windows updates, so I am going by memory.

 

[elitej13]

Yeah, I did mean AMD overdrive. I suppose I could have just googled that. Thank you though. I'm currently in class right now, but I'll run some stress tests later tonight with it underclocked and post the results.

 

[mjslakeridge]

I had typed in a response but when I went to submit it, I got logged out of Tom's so hopefully I can remember what I submitted and try again.

In AMD Overdrive, under Performance Control, under Clock/voltage, lower the CPU core multiplier and possibly the CPU VID (voltage). You will then see the Target speed (frequency) for each core change. When you hit the green button, it will lock in the changes and your current speed and target speed should be the same.

Then go to Preferences (next to the Green dot) and click on settings and check "Apply my last setting when system boots." Then the next time you boot up, launch Overdrive and check that the frequencies are what you set them to.

Good luck.