I7 14700K Intel Windows machine crashes a lot

think2 · Oct 13, 2024

I bought a brand new Intel I7 14700K Windows PC from a leading tech shop here a few weeks ago and it's been crashing ever since I got it. It just restarts for no reason and event viewer says "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first." The workload is very low and it's not overclocked. It's seemed to crash mostly when it's doing nothing. I installed a new BIOS from gigabyte a few days ago with the 0x12B microcode and my machine has crashed twice since - both times were when it was doing nothing at all. Why does my machine still crash when it's doing nothing if the new microcode stops the over-voltage problem? If the CPU is damaged wouldn't it be more likely to crash when it is busy. Is there any way to tell if the CPU is damaged?

It has a 12 month warranty and the shop will investigate if I return it but I thought there might be some knowledge of the Intel CPU bug or of how to diagnose the crashes.

I've had two BSOD crashes but mostly just silent restarts. The two BSOD crashes had bugcheckcode 300 - Windows decided it had got lost when accessing a Samsung USB drive with exfat format so it restarted to prevent damaging the filesystem. I reformatted the drive as NTFS and had no more BSOD since. Strange to get two BSOD the same if the problem is a damaged CPU caused by over-voltage.

The RAM IS G.SKILL Ripjaws S5 32GB DDR5 F5-6000J3636F16GX2-RS5K running at 4800 - deliberately not as fast as it could as it's a development machine, not gaming.
I didn't want to hand over the machine to the shop and deprive myself of its use without understanding a bit more about what could cause the crash and I especially don't want a new CPU fitted without trying to find out more about why it crashes.

Steltek · Oct 13, 2024

What hardware components make up your system? I'm presuming that you have run the standard checks like SFC /scannow, a file system check and a DISM health check?

think2 · Oct 13, 2024

SFC and memory tests always pass. I didn't know about DISM. Should I try that using the instructions here

How to use DISM command tool to repair Windows 10 image

When there's a missing or corrupted file on Windows 10, you can fix the problem using the DISM and SFC command tools, and here's how.

www.windowscentral.com

The PC is
be quiet Pure Base 500DX RGB White Mid Tower Case
be quiet Pure Power 12 M 650W Power Supply 80 Plus Gold
Kingston KC3000 2TB M.2 NVMe Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4
Gigabyte Z790 UD AX ATX Motherboard Socket LGA1700
G.SKILL Ripjaws S5 32GB DDR5 Desktop RAM Kit
NOCTUA NH-D15S Chromax Black CPU Cooler 1x 140mm PWM Fan
Intel Core i7 14700K CPU
Windows 11 pro

plus two USB drives - Samsung 256 GB SSD and Seagate 4TB HDD One-touch with hardware encryption.

think2 · Oct 13, 2024

Just ran DISM and it reports no problems.

Steltek · Oct 13, 2024

No video card?

I don't think I'd bother with DISM if SFC isn't finding errors and the memory subsystem tests are passing.

think2 · Oct 13, 2024

Nope, no video card. Integrated graphics seems fine. I never play games on it. Forgot to mention - I have two monitors - Dell U3415W 34 inch and Lenovo T2454PA 24 inch, one on display port, one on HDMI.

Steltek · Oct 13, 2024

If you haven't done so, you might pull the cover off and check to make sure the 24 pin and auxiliary power cables are properly seated on the motherboard.

Also, after you updated the BIOS, did you load the Intel default settings profile in the BIOS to apply all the Intel recommended settings?

think2 · Oct 13, 2024

When I first updated the BIOS for the 0x129 microcode I selected "Intel Default Profile" but I don't remember what I actually did. I just now took some photos of some of the BIOS settings. It shows "Intel Default Settings" with "performance" selected - other choice is disabled. I'll try and check the wiring now.

Z790 BIOS

12 new items added to shared album

photos.app.goo.gl

Steltek · Oct 13, 2024

I think that those are the right settings for the BIOS. If you hit the DISABLE button on that screen, it uses Gigabyte's own performance settings. You don't want to do that -- you instead want to select the Performance button which I believe should use the Intel default performance profile. The reason for that is that there are reports on some motherboards disabling the Intel default settings causes the microcode update to not work.

I'm guessing you haven't noticed any overheating issues with the CPU or motherboard?

think2 · Oct 13, 2024

No I haven't noticed any overheating though I might not notice if it did. The fans hardly ever turn on. I've read that this CPU gets really hot though.

Steltek · Oct 13, 2024

If the motherboard didn't include any monitoring software, you might try something like Core Temp, Speccy, or HWINFO64. Make absolutely sure the case and CPU cooler fans are properly working before you start doing any significant load testing.

If it isn't overheating, I think I'd be more concerned that you might have gotten a faulty out of the box PSU. The motherboard is passing the memory tests which I wouldn't expect if it was faulty.

Sure, the CPU could be degraded; however, you really haven't had it that long and you aren't putting it to heavy use compiling shaders for games or running heavy workloads like y-cruncher or OCCT. And it is entirely possible that the BIOS it was delivered with was Intel's prior release to the one you just installed (which did allegedly resolve the overvolting issues).

One of the things you run into with a custom pre-built like yours is that the unit is warranted as a whole by the builder. There are things that you could do to test for faults on your own builds that you wouldn't want to do with that system out of fear the builder could find an excuse to void your warranty. Most builders aren't like that, but these aren't normal times with the aftermath of this Intel CPU debacle either.

think2 · Oct 13, 2024

I've installed hwinfo 64 and now doing some logging as suggested by Gemini.

think2 · Oct 14, 2024

oh, missed some of your previous post. I've actually installed two BIOS. The one it came with was the at-risk version without any Intel fixes I think - from May 16, 2024 - version F10. I first installed F11, then 3 or 4 days ago I installed F12 and F12 was the one that fixed the over-voltage during light activity. I'm in no rush to have it fixed so I'm happy to monitor it to try and get more information. Chances are the hwinfo logging might keep it busy enough to stop it crashing - but I hope not.

think2 · Oct 14, 2024

I got another crash but the hwinfo log is missing the last 30 seconds of data leading up to the crash. Gemini tells me there is nothing unusual in the log data leading up to the crash.

Steltek · Oct 14, 2024

Yeah, I think you either have a PSU issue or a CPU issue. Time to consider taking advantage of your builder's warranty and have them take a look at it.

If you can't figure out how to reliably reproduce the problem, you can go into Event Viewer and filter the system log for warnings and errors. Look for Event 41 warnings/errors. Each one you find will likely correspond to a shutdown event. By doing this, you can show the builder exactly what is going on. You should also be able to view the Windows Reliability application history and get something similar.

I suspect they will have to do some part swapping to get you straightened out.

BTW, the Noctua NH-D15S CPU cooler is a pretty heavy chuck of metal attached to your relatively fragile motherboard. Be careful when transporting the system to and from the builder so you don't end up with a damaged motherboard. Were it my system, I'd suggest laying the system on its side such that the cooler is standing up vertically for transport.

think2 · Oct 14, 2024

Thanks. I'm calling in to the shop today to see what they think. With the machine on its side, that would make the motherboard lying flat down and the fan on top of that - is that correct?

Steltek · Oct 14, 2024

think2 said:
Thanks. I'm calling in to the shop today to see what they think. With the machine on its side, that would make the motherboard lying flat down and the fan on top of that - is that correct?

I would just make sure to lay the case in the car so that the CPU heatsink is standing vertically up and down as opposed to 90 degrees horizontally to the motherboard.

It probably isn't that big a concern, no farther than you are likely taking it, but bouncing it around with the CPU heatsink sticking out horizontally imparts a rotational force on the socket and motherboard at the attachment points. And, Noctua's larger heatsinks have a significant amount of mass to them.

think2 · Oct 16, 2024

The best desktop technician the shop has is away for the next couple of weeks so I plan to switch to another PC and try running some test software on the I7 14700 at home for a few days. Do you know of any software that I can run on the PC to stress test it that runs continuously. If it crashes fairly quickly it might help the shop to diagnose the problem and make it easier to see if swapping the CPU fixes it. So far the machine has run for up to a week without crashing.

Steltek · Oct 16, 2024

OCCT is probably a good one for stability testing since you don't have a GPU.

Just make sure you monitor your temps during any extended testing sessions because OCCT stress testing can generate some serious heat from the CPU on the small dataset test. The large dataset test isn't as bad on the CPU, but in turn will stress the memory subsystem more.

Similarly, a lot of overclockers use y-cruncher. Again, make sure to watch your temps.

think2 · Oct 16, 2024

Thanks. I decided to run prime95 to start with, while I'm still using the PC. hwinfo reports 3 or 4 temps of around 100C and highlights in red. Supposedly that is normal for this CPU.

When I run OCCT what do I look for regarding temps - does it display temperatures and do I need to manually shut it down if it gets too hot?

BoomerD · Oct 17, 2024

think2 said:
Thanks. I decided to run prime95 to start with, while I'm still using the PC. hwinfo reports 3 or 4 temps of around 100C and highlights in red. Supposedly that is normal for this CPU.

When I run OCCT what do I look for regarding temps - does it display temperatures and do I need to manually shut it down if it gets too hot?

When the CPU hits 100C, thermal throttling begins. Makes me wonder if your cooler/paste application is good.

think2 · Oct 20, 2024

I had no spurious restarts for 3 days but today I tried connecting with Remote Desktop Connection and it restarted/crashed twice at the instant I tried connecting with an invalid password. I tried the OCCT CPU test but it instantly hit 100 degrees C so I've changed it to run the cpu plus RAM test and test one core at a time, cycling every 3 seconds. The active core being tested shows around 65 to 75 degrees and I have the test set to stop at 85 degrees. I really need a reproducible crash before I can take it back to the shop and get them to try a different CPU.

BoomerD · Oct 20, 2024

think2 said:
I had no spurious restarts for 3 days but today I tried connecting with Remote Desktop Connection and it restarted/crashed twice at the instant I tried connecting with an invalid password. I tried the OCCT CPU test but it instantly hit 100 degrees C so I've changed it to run the cpu plus RAM test and test one core at a time, cycling every 3 seconds. The active core being tested shows around 65 to 75 degrees and I have the test set to stop at 85 degrees. I really need a reproducible crash before I can take it back to the shop and get them to try a different CPU.

Sounds like you have a cooler issue.

think2 · Oct 20, 2024

According to this discussion my temperatures are as expected
community.intel.com

think2 · Oct 20, 2024

I just ran the GigaByte control center to check the fan speeds and found that the selector for the fans mode was set to manual, The fan was running at 1200 Hz or so. After asking Gemini I set the fan mode to "normal" but the fan speeds and temperatures didn't change. I suspect it was running in auto mode anyway as no-one had ever selected the mode. It certainly wasn't me who set it to "manual" mode and I think the Gigabyte control center wasn't on the PC when I got it.

I7 14700K Intel Windows machine crashes a lot

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