Question Build Advice - Gaming/flight sim/VR New Build ~$3000 for Tower, mostly complete, LOTS of questions - Updated 7/21

[athrowaway2242]

at this point, if all i have to do to get to the BIOS and recovery things is swap monitor modes, i guess thats a lot better than swapping inputs and cables etc. ill submit this all to gigabyte and NVIDIA i guess, but im not confident theres a solution. if i can find another DP cable to try, ill do that, but for now i guess ill stay in 1.4 for daily use and if im in need to access the BIOS or recovery ill switch monitor modes

Does anyone 'need' those high refresh rates, idk. but the card supports it and the monitor supports it then id like to use it i suppose

 

[igor_kavinski]

Does anyone 'need' those high refresh rates, idk. but the card supports it and the monitor supports it then id like to use it i suppose

Some do, especially if they have spent some time playing in the higher refresh rate. Then the brain suddenly starts detecting slow refresh rates, even if those are 60+ but less than 100 Hz.

 

[In2Photos]

Well to make this even more confusing

when i switch display port to v1.1 it works fine. so its an issue with these cards and DP 1.4 for booting the bios. probably needs a firmware fix would be my guess then.

i disable the IGPU and it didnt work on 1.4 but did work with 1.1

i dont have any other DP cables unfortunately
i cannot get into the BIOS that way either with 1.4 DP enabled, it works with 1.1 enabled

Where are you changing the DP version? On the monitor or NVidia control panel?

 

[athrowaway2242]

Where are you changing the DP version? On the monitor or NVidia control panel?

the monitor

 

[In2Photos]

the monitor

Then I'd try a different cable, 1 that's rated for DP 1.4 or even 2.1. the GPU is likely adjusting once the drivers get loaded.

 

[athrowaway2242]

Then I'd try a different cable, 1 that's rated for DP 1.4 or even 2.1. the GPU is likely adjusting once the drivers get loaded.

okay theyre cheap enough. ill order a 2.1 cable itll be here tuesday and can see what happens then.

As an aside - ill take some better pictures after i figure out all the lighting and positioning and share some of the 'in progress' pics later but, she turned out okay despite all the headaches!

 

[lakedude]

I have similar troubles with my monitor going black. Every device seems to be in such a hurry to shut down and not waste power that the darn thing has trouble starting up. I have this trouble with my phone (DEX) and also with my laptop. The only way I have found to make it work is to have a gen 1 ChromeCast on a KVM to wake up the monitor and then switch to the device I want to use. It helped to set Windows on the laptop to external monitor only rather then mirrored.

Man reading all this make me feel lucky to have had our newest desktop system just work from day one. I think it helped buying mid-pack established parts.

 

[lakedude]

ill take some better pictures after i figure out all the lighting and positioning and share some of the 'in progress' pics later but, she turned out okay despite all the headaches!

View attachment 106086

That is one nice looking system!

 

[athrowaway2242]

a few updates - so in fact my windows installation was somewhat corrupted. i did a full reinstall. this didnt fix the weird BIOS issues (though now this issue is intermittent...who the hell knows why the DP doesnt work i cant explain it at all)

a few questions - are there still 'hardware tests' I should run? back the last time i build a computer people insisted on running stability testing software, and things like memtest86, etc. Are there things I should do now that i am fairly stable, installed, drivers, etc to sort of test the computer out a bit?

 

[In2Photos]

I ran cinebench for the CPU and unigine heaven for the GPU. I also ran them simultaneously to stress the PSU as much as possible. There are others as well, y-cruncher and Aida 64 are great for really digging deep into stability testing.

 

[lakedude]

The fuzzy doughnut will stress your GPU...

 

[athrowaway2242]

Some updates - new issues I have been facing

1- razer keyboard double typing after rebooting. randomly will happen. was using synapse beta app thats what it suggested i install. just did a complete remove of all razer drivers device and software and then updated firmware for keyboard and mouse and installed older synapse 3. hopefulyl that will solve it. edit: unfortunately synapse does not recognize my keyboard...just the mouse. wtf. double edit. used razers device troubleshooter and followed all the steps and now it seems to work. - one problem solved yay!

2- TL fans not recognized in l connect. have removed and reinstalled 3 connect a few ties without success. swapped USB headers on the board and it worked briefly. devicde manager has an unknown unrecognizable USB device, guessing its the fan controller. the SL fans work fine, on either header. im going to try the spare TL controller I have next since thats the assumption here. one thing is on boot iup, the LCD screens showw 1-2-3 and the fan spins but theres no lighting which makes me think its the controller is shot somehow.

3- on reboot i randomly get a 0xsomething error code related to explorer.exe and the system reboots. i cannot figure out how to fix this or what is causing it. memory address issue or something. anyone have ideas how to trouble shoot there? ill check the logs and try to find the full log

 

[athrowaway2242]

Log Name:      System
Source:        Application Popup
Date:          8/27/2024 12:17:22 PM
Event ID:      26
Task Category: None
Level:         Information
Keywords:    
User:          SYSTEM
Computer:      A-PC
Description:
Application popup: explorer.exe - Application Error : The instruction at 0x00007FFB7A2A3FAA referenced memory at 0x0000000000000024. The memory could not be written.


Click on OK to terminate the program
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Application Popup" Guid="{47bfa2b7-bd54-4fac-b70b-29021084ca8f}" />
    <EventID>26</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>4</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2024-08-27T16:17:22.6989898Z" />
    <EventRecordID>4431</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="1300" ThreadID="18956" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>A-PC</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="Caption">explorer.exe - Application Error</Data>
    <Data Name="Message">The instruction at 0x00007FFB7A2A3FAA referenced memory at 0x0000000000000024. The memory could not be written.


Click on OK to terminate the program</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

This is the error from event viewer. happens only on log off or shutdown, intermittently.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Download the latest ISO for Win11 24H2 and re-install fresh. You will get a nice performance increase in some games too.

Download Windows Insider Preview ISO

I think the Explorer memory error could be some software that integrated with Explorer as a plugin. After fresh installation of 24H2, try to install only what's necessary.

 

[athrowaway2242]

Download the latest ISO for Win11 24H2 and re-install fresh. You will get a nice performance increase in some games too.

Download Windows Insider Preview ISO

I think the Explorer memory error could be some software that integrated with Explorer as a plugin. After fresh installation of 24H2, try to install only what's necessary.

I’m not sure I’m committed enough to do another full reinstall- after already doing that and just having gotten things running again

I think it’s related to either the razer software or the lian li controller as those were the most recent changes to drivers and software that preceded the error.

Is there any other trouble shooting that can be done or other ways to repair in situ without a full reinstall?


I am currently running the extended windows memory test but I expect to find no issue with the ram from this test. I do agree it’s probably a software issue

 

[In2Photos]

I have both the Razer software and Lian Li software on my machine with no issue, but I'm on Windows 10.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Is there any other trouble shooting that can be done or other ways to repair in situ without a full reinstall?

Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files - Microsoft Support

Describes how to use the System File Checker tool to troubleshoot missing or corrupted system files in Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7 or Windows Vista.

support.microsoft.com

First run this in an elevated (Run as Administrator) cmd: DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Then in same cmd window, type sfc /scannow and enter.

Reboot and hopefully no issues.

 

[athrowaway2242]

Okay more updates

windows memory test completed..i enver saw any errors and last checked it when it was 92% done...there is no log file for thisl i dont know what to make of that

was going to do memtest86 next

i did the system file checker and didnt work.

i replaced the fan controller and now the fans seem to all have their lights and stuff

i got the new displayport 2.0 cable....are these backwards compatible? because after switching cables i now have a persistent VGA light on the board and no picture with this displayport cable.

now i cant get displayport to work at all....HDMI works. the VGA light clears with HDMI

needless to say i am very disheartened and disoriented and frustrated and nearly ready to give up. this is making me quite sad as its such an expensive piece of hardware and none of the issues are leading me towards any particular issue as the culprit. just as im chasing one bug...theres a different species of bug. and seemingly no sense to the issues and why they are popping up.

edit...when rebooting now i dont see the explorer.exe error since fixing the fan controller. maybe that one is fixed one can hope i guess

 

[athrowaway2242]

jesus christ. so i reset CMOS again because why not.

i literally cannot make any sense of what is going on.

so i went bcak to the old displayport cable. got it to work after booting into windows via HDMI from the GPU. then rebooted. it worked on DP1.1. then i switched to 1.4 and rebooted with the new DP cable. it now works AND even shows the bios. so far none of the reboots (now 3 or 4 reboots deep) have thrown a memory error. and the BIOS seems to display. reliably every time. what the hell does any of this mean. currently there is no EXPO profile loaded or high/low latency settings enabled. maybe that was the issue. ill try just EXPO without the high and low latency settings next i guess.

is this what having bad RAM is like? is it something related to memory addresses and getting lucky/unlucky when it boots> ill be honest i dont know how ram works. but maybe more imporant to try memtest now?

ill take any and all thoughts here

spoke to soon - most recent reboot had a memory address error. this problem is now intermittent

rebooting now gets stuck before post with DRAM light on the board. have to turn off power manually to turn back on - this problem seems to have also resolved itself.

and the newest weird glitch - the l connect 'mini system info window' appears to be open and appears to be floating if i alt tab and if i click it in the task bar, however it does not display on the screen at all lol - reinstalling l connect 3 fixed that

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm not sure if your issues are related to the mobo but Gigabyte is problematic in my experience, ESPECIALLY if it does not like the RAM kit.

X670E AORUS PRO X Support | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...

www.gigabyte.com

Your RAM kit F5-6000J3036G32GX2-TZ5NRW does not appear to be on that list. Maybe that's the issue?

You could try putting the DIMMs in the preferred RAM slots. Too lazy to download the mobo manual and see what they are. Your mobo should've some writing on the PCB near the RAM slots saying which slots are recommended.

 

[lakedude]

As much trouble as this build has been I'd be tempted to start over.

This is one advantage of a factory pre-built, a single point of contact. If it doesn't work you just ship the whole thing back.

 

[athrowaway2242]

I'm not sure if your issues are related to the mobo but Gigabyte is problematic in my experience, ESPECIALLY if it does not like the RAM kit.

X670E AORUS PRO X Support | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...

www.gigabyte.com

Your RAM kit F5-6000J3036G32GX2-TZ5NRW does not appear to be on that list. Maybe that's the issue?

You could try putting the DIMMs in the preferred RAM slots. Too lazy to download the mobo manual and see what they are. Your mobo should've some writing on the PCB near the RAM slots saying which slots are recommended.

Hmmmmmmmmm

the DIMMs are in the preferred slots.

I could SWEAR i checked and rechecked the supported RAM lists. I will have to investigate where I found this RAM kit as supported but...that perhaps could be the (an) issue.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I could SWEAR i checked and rechecked the supported RAM lists. I will have to investigate where I found this RAM kit as supported but...that perhaps could be the (an) issue.

Maybe start with a single DIMM and try that in all the RAM slots one by one to see which one it likes? Then take it out and do the same for the other DIMM. Then experiment which two slots they both like better. If it's a kit issue, somewhere during this process, you may see the light.

 

[In2Photos]

It should be A2/B2 for the RAM.

What BIOS are you using? And is everything back to default settings or have you changed anything in BIOS?

 

[athrowaway2242]

Okay so heres a question - there are no white RGB RAM kits that are listed on the QVL to get me to 64GB, and none that have native EXPO

What are my options?

Is there a way to manually find the right timings or settings to use this RAM? is it a problem to not use the approved RAM?