problem with msi not supplying the latest drivers, among other things

[zelldeb]

I have an MSI 990FXA Gaming (MS-7893) motherboard, with an MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB video card. It has an AMD FX 9590 4.7Ghz CPU. The motherboard has 4 - 8GB sticks of Mushkin 997125 PC3-17000 RAM. I run Windows 10 Ultimate 64-bit.

Since I first put this PC together I have had a rare issue with the PC freezing up. At first this only happened every few weeks, and would only occur when I was trying to do quite a few multiple things at once. At first I did not see any similarities with what was running when the freezes happened. When the freeze up happened the screens were frozen with the image on the screens unchangeable. I was unable to use either the mouse or keyboard, the only way I could get the PC todo anything was to hard reset it. My first thought was that I had a bad stick of RAM and after running both windows memory tests and Memtest86 I found no problems with my RAM. At first since this issue only happened once every month or so I dealt with it for about 6 months.

During this time I had a separate and seemingly unrelated issue when I purchased a new TV and tried to connect it to my PC but was unable to successfully do so. While talking to MSI tech support about this issue they had me download software called Kombuster and run tests on the video cards ram to see if it had any issues. After running the tests MSI determined that there was no issue with my video card. I am still waiting for the television tech support to email me back, I have since given up and just used a chrome cast to stream files from my PC to the TV. I only mention this because it determined that there are no issues with the video card.

Later I got a new USB 3.0 hard drive i transferred some video files to this drive and when I would try to play them after a few minutes the PC would freeze. especially when i would try to play multiple video files simultaneously I was able to recreate the issue. At first I thought this was only the USB hard drive, but I also started having the problem when playing videos from my internal SATA drives. When these more frequent freezes happened I would actually get a BSD about 1 out of 3 freeze ups but the system would not reboot on its own and had to be hard rebooted manually from the BSD. The BSD error I got most often was Unexpected Kernel Mode Trap but i also got whea_uncorrectable_error acouple of times too.

I contacted MSI technical support and they told me that all my drivers were up to date and it could be a faulty motherboard, but that I should contact the technical support for the Mushkin RAM to verify the ram because that could cause this too.

After contacting Mushkin technical support, they first had me download and run HCI MemTest. This software also said that there were no issues with the RAM. They then told me that the MSI web site did not have the most updated AMD 990 FX chipset drivers. I downloaded this driver and it did stop the frequent freezes, but then 3 days later my system froze up again with no BSD, and again a couple of days later. They then told me that while I bought 4 sticks of PC17000 ram, they did not have the same timing, latency, or voltage. They said that this could be the cause of my issue. This only occurred because the second pair of ram sticks was an afterthought on my part. I found them on sale and didn't really think about it when I bought them because they were so inexpensive I just bought them on impulse. Mushkin however was kind enough to RMA all 4 sticks and replace them all with RAM sticks with identical specs. The new is the RAM i mentioned in the beginning of this is what Mushkin just sent me.

I just put the new RAM in this morning, so far so good, but because of the fact the MSI is not keeping the most updated drivers on their web site I thought it might be a good idea to try to track down more updated drivers, aside from the motherboard chipset drivers I found a more updated Realtek audio driver and a more updated LAN driver.

I also noticed that the motherboard has 3 different USB chipsets. First was an AMD® SB950 Chipset, which covers the back panel usb2.0 ports. This driver, according to the AMD website should have also been updated when I updated the motherboard chipset drivers.

Second is VIA® VL806 Chipset. this controls the 2 internal usb 3.0 connectors, which i am assuming means the ones that are the ones that i am able to plug my case into and use from the front panel.
On the http://www.via-labs.com/driver.php site I found a VIA_XHCI_Driver_V4.40E_AP.zip, and a VIA_XHCI_Driver_V4.90A_AP.zip driver, both of which say that they are for the 806 usb host controller and for windows 7/8 64 bit OS.

The third is Asmedia® 1142 Chipset. This controls the 2 backpanel usb 3.0 ports.
This one I was unable to get a connection to the asmedia.com website. I did find a driver on the station-drivers.com website, which actually says it is an unofficial firmware update on the webpage. The link to the updated firmware is http://www.station-drivers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1744:asmedia-asm-1142-firmwares&catid=16:articles&Itemid=171&lang=en

Is it worth downloading and installing the new usb chipset drivers for the VIA and the ASmedia? If it is, do you have any idea which VIA driver is the one I should get or if station-drivers.com is a reputable place to find a driver and if i should try to download their updated firmware?

Thanks for any input you all have.

 

[Zerk2012]

That board/AM3 socket is at end of life their not going to keep giving updates to drivers or BIOS.
I would bet your main problem is that massive 220 watt processor.
Sounds more like the motherboard and/or processor overheating that is a common problem with that CPU that AMD should of never released.

 

[zelldeb]

I run the hwinfo software. According to that there have not been any heat issues. I also do not use the stock heat sink or fan for the cpu. I have a cooler master.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

My case also has good ventilation and many fans.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147169

I originally purchased the case in september of 2013 and recently replaced all of the case fans last year when i put this system together.

I used arctic silver 5 heat paste.

i am pretty sure heat is not the problem here. That was one of the first things i checked when i started having this issue along with testing the RAM.

I havent done it in a few months but i used to leave hwinfo running and logging so that after a freeze i could check temperatures. I never saw anything above what the manufacturers web sites or their tech support said were safe operating temperatures. I also never saw any spikes in temperature even within the recommended range.

 

[zelldeb]

after doing a little more reading about operating temps for my cpu, i downloaded the amd overdrive software. according to this software my average idling thermal margin was about 25-30 degrees C. i usually allow the msi command center software to regulate my fan speeds, but i went into this software and set all my fans to 100%. I then ran the stability test on the amd overdrive program. it ran for about 5 minutes then the system froze. when it froze it showed the thermal margin was at 18 C. hwinfo said the cpu was 49 degrees C.

from what i understand the temperatures should have been within safe operating ranges. could something else have caused the system to hang? any advice or info? thanks

 

[Zerk2012]

Just looked at your cooler it has no chance to cool that processor it's rated for about 150 watts nothing close to the 220 watts. It takes like h100 water cooler or a top of the line air cooler.

Run OCCT to stress it and you need to look at the CPU temp and motherboart temps.

 

[zelldeb]

after some more research i decided to go with a water cooler
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZCSMPS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
newegg was out of stock.
my hwinfo logs never shows the processor going over 75-80 watts during peak usage. however a techie friend of mine had the idea that due to the fact that the temps are reaching 60C or more during this time that the cpu might not be able to function more effectively. it could be slowing itself down when it reaches a certain temp. i have no idea if this is true or not, it is just speculation on our part

however i have been tossing around the idea of building a new desktop anyway using a 6 core haswell i7. the cooler i bought will work for that chip too, so if this doesnt do the trick i will just build a new pc after tax season and use the water cooler on the new build. unless i find some other way to fix the issues anyway.

Thanks a lot for your help with this by the way, i appreciate you taking the time.