Once upon a time I had major PC freezing issues.
Hardware
Motherboard: ASUS M5A97
CPU: AMD FX-6100 Zambezi 6-core 3.3GHz
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD7850
RAM: 12GBs Crucial
(All other hardware was superfluous and was ruled out through meticulous troubleshooting methods)
Operating System
Windows 8/8.1
When I first built this PC I had absolutely no problems with it. Over time, with updates and changing the OS from XP-64bit to Windows 8 something changed. I occasionally would get random hard hangs while running video/gaming content. A problem like this was extremely hard to diagnose but through an iron will and a ton of time I was able to figure it out.
Testing
The freezes would occur usually during extended gaming sessions(as much as 10+ hours) but sometimes less. Since it was random, the only way to reliably test for it was to just let it run for a ridiculous length of time.
Through testing, I eventually ruled out heating issues and all non-essential hardware. I checked the PSU to see if it was going bad.
I ran Memtest to check the RAM(and I actually found a bad stick that was replaced with the lifetime warranty). Hoping that was the problem I eagerly awaited its return. Unfortunately, no luck. Still froze.
I ran Prime95 and some GPU burn-in testing software to test the respective components. No issues. Still froze.
I returned the motherboard to ASUS for a diagnostic. No damage or problems detected on their end.
I looked into every possible driver, no matter how tiny it might be, and updated it if possible. No dice. It was still freezing on me.
I even tested power outlets thinking dirty power could be a culprit. Again, no luck.
Rolling back the OS to XP-64bit literally solved all of the freezing issues. So, the issue seemed like it was some kind of conflict with Windows 8/8.1. What, though, was the issue? I had tested literally everything under the sun. I even turned off the dynamic tick-rate or whatever it was called in Windows 8.1. I was out of ideas.
Solution
Well, funny stuff happens sometimes. While on the phone to Crucial's tech support I was talking about my issue(ruling out the hard drive at the time) and I was reading off BIOS options to him to see if anything rang any bells for him. There was one tiny, seemingly innocuous, option called AMD Turbo Core. He said he always shut that off on any systems. I wrote it down for later testing and forgot about it until much later.
Fast forward a bit and I was out of options besides building a totally new machine. I had not tried turning off that AMD Turbo Core setting, though. So I thought, what the hell, why not? I do not like messing around with BIOS settings I do not understand. Searches on the internet turned up almost nothing on it so it was a totally blind run.
AMD Turbo Core was the cause of all of my frustrations with hard hangs/freezing on this PC. Something with this setting and Windows 8/8.1(maybe even 10 if you have a similar issue with similar hardware) do not agree. If you have a configuration like mine, maybe try turning that setting off. It might be labeled something slightly different if your mobo brand is not ASUS but it's worth checking.
Many times people told me to just build a new PC. My problem with that was, what if I ran into the same problem? I had no idea what was causing the issue so it is possible it could happen again. Fortunately, the problem had a solution. No techs anywhere were able to help me out with this. I contacted literally everyone relevant and came up empty handed. However, I did randomly come across the answer totally by accident.
I hope that this information can possibly help someone out in the future. Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment