ASRock Z77 Extreme 6 shutdown, need help!

Guttzu

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So In the past 2 weeks my computer has shut off randomly twice... I just built this thing 3 months ago. I have an ASRock Z77 Extreme 6 MB and a Corsair HX850 that is 4 years old so the PSU is aged. I was playing WoW and everything just shut off, no BSOD, nothing... just totally shut off. Everything boots fine and there doesn't seem to be any issues now. I ran LinX to test my OC on my CPU which is an i7 3770K at 4.1ghz and it's stable. Here are my two questions:

1: Is the PSU dying where I might have to look into a new one and if so what would be a good replacement?
2. The Dr. Debug LED on the ASRock motherboard is showing AA... is that the normal operating code it shows? I checked the manual for LED codes and it says AA is "Reserved for ASL"... No idea what that means...

Thanks for any help you can give! Could the CMOS battery be dead, just though of that?
 
All that and no load temps?

Is the 850 blowing out hot air during load testing? If it isn't, not the PSU. I've tried sucking 1200w through mine and that's the only time it ever shut down on me. Just as old as yours, except it was running a 5GHz 3960x and 2 overclocked 580s.

I do not know the debug codes. You'll have to email ASRock for that.
 
All that and no load temps? Is the 850 blowing out hot air during load testing? If it isn't, not the PSU. I've tried sucking 1200w through mine and that's the only time it ever shut down on me. Just as old as yours, except it was running a 5GHz 3960x and 2 overclocked 580s. I do not know the debug codes. You'll have to email ASRock for that.

Load temps on the i7 are in the high 50's at 4.1 OC and the GPU never gets above 35 while gaming. The watercooling loop does well. I checked around for the debug code and it is ok since it boots up fine and it just goes to that code so no worries there. I literally found another thread that had the same exact issue with the debug code and ASRock told that person that it was fine since it loaded windows and booted up fine. It shut down on me again over the weekend while gaming and streaming while playing WoW. I had Xsplit running, WoW running, chrome running with pandora. It seems to only shut down when I first start gaming within the first 15 minutes. It will shut down, no blue screen, then restart itself and give me the screen that says windows was shut down and how to load it. I can check the PSU under load through. Any other ideas on it?
 
Does it shut down on any actual loading programs like Kombustor or Prime? Maybe we can pinpoint what it is because I've had that same issue with RAM before but usually it's an OC issue.

Edit: Should check GPU temps too, and do the hand test on the PSU. Load the PC up both GPU and CPU and see if it's pumping out an abnormal amount of hot air. There's warm (which is normal) then there is almost on fire which is what I got.
 
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Does it shut down on any actual loading programs like Kombustor or Prime? Maybe we can pinpoint what it is because I've had that same issue with RAM before but usually it's an OC issue. Edit: Should check GPU temps too, and do the hand test on the PSU. Load the PC up both GPU and CPU and see if it's pumping out an abnormal amount of hot air. There's warm (which is normal) then there is almost on fire which is what I got.
Thanks for the info. No it hasn't shut down during load tests but I'll test it again tonight on LinX and push it hard. I know that if LinX crashes and gives a blue screen that there are two reasons, one is the core voltage is too low and the other is the ram voltage being low so I'll push LinX. I haven't overclocked the ram at all. I just set the XMP to the base clock and timings on the ram with the stock voltage. I'll check the PSU exhaust while testing to see if it's on fire. Thanks. I'll post results here. I'd hate to have to replace the MB since that means screwing in the CPU block again lol.
 
Do GPU and CPU at the same time. Kombustor, and I suggest Prime95 rather.

If you're not crashing with running Linx then we can say, it's not that. If the RAM is running XMP and stock, it's not that either because LinX stresses RAM too.

So at this time, I would run Kombustor by itself to see if you get a crash. If temps are ok (as in 90C or less at 100% fan) and you don't crash we can assume it isn't GPU either.

Move on from there to both at the same time and then do the hand test. I know this sounds silly, but if a PSU is really being overloaded it'll crank out a ton of heat. The HX850 runs warm due to its design, so you will know what scorching hot I'm talking about. Like as hot as your GPU pushing out 90c on a reference cooler, maybe warmer. That's what you'll be looking for. BTW, if you only have one GPU, there's no way that the HX850 is being overloaded. I can't remember what GPU setup you have.

If you don't get a crash while testing both at the same time, then we can assume you're all stable. The last thing to look at is the game itself. Prime95 and Linx both test for CPU and RAM stability if you select the "high RAM usage" on both. While Kombustor is fully testing your GPU. That leaves either the PSU or the game, but if both heavy stress testers (WoW won't max that CPU) don't crash your system in 15 minutes then it's for sure the game. In theory, if it's a stability issue anywhere, doing both tests would cause it to shut down faster.
 
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Do GPU and CPU at the same time. Kombustor, and I suggest Prime95 rather. If you're not crashing with running Linx then we can say, it's not that. If the RAM is running XMP and stock, it's not that either because LinX stresses RAM too. So at this time, I would run Kombustor by itself to see if you get a crash. If temps are ok (as in 90C or less at 100% fan) and you don't crash we can assume it isn't GPU either. Move on from there to both at the same time and then do the hand test. I know this sounds silly, but if a PSU is really being overloaded it'll crank out a ton of heat. The HX850 runs warm due to its design, so you will know what scorching hot I'm talking about. Like as hot as your GPU pushing out 90c on a reference cooler, maybe warmer. That's what you'll be looking for. BTW, if you only have one GPU, there's no way that the HX850 is being overloaded. I can't remember what GPU setup you have. If you don't get a crash while testing both at the same time, then we can assume you're all stable. The last thing to look at is the game itself. Prime95 and Linx both test for CPU and RAM stability if you select the "high RAM usage" on both. While Kombustor is fully testing your GPU. That leaves either the PSU or the game, but if both heavy stress testers (WoW won't max that CPU) don't crash your system in 15 minutes then it's for sure the game. In theory, if it's a stability issue anywhere, doing both tests would cause it to shut down faster.

Thanks for the info. Is it maybe Xsplit that is causing it to crash? Xsplit being the program I use to stream WoW? I just run the setup wizard on Xsplit which selects the settings for you based on your connection and PC specs. I have a single GTX 680 with a minor OC like +100 on the core clock and +150 on the memory. CPU is OC'd to 4.1 which is nothing on an i7 3770k. What could I change in game to prevent the crashing if it is that? I'll test tonight then post results.
 
Thanks for the info. Is it maybe Xsplit that is causing it to crash? Xsplit being the program I use to stream WoW? I just run the setup wizard on Xsplit which selects the settings for you based on your connection and PC specs. I have a single GTX 680 with a minor OC like +100 on the core clock and +150 on the memory. CPU is OC'd to 4.1 which is nothing on an i7 3770k. What could I change in game to prevent the crashing if it is that? I'll test tonight then post results.
FRAPS was instantly crashing FSX for me just the other day, so it's very possible.

As for the settings and programs, I can't really help there. If it's a program causing it, it's just a matter of trial and error to figure out what the culprit is.

An OCd 3770k and single 680 is no match for an HX850.
 
FRAPS was instantly crashing FSX for me just the other day, so it's very possible. As for the settings and programs, I can't really help there. If it's a program causing it, it's just a matter of trial and error to figure out what the culprit is. An OCd 3770k and single 680 is no match for an HX850.
Yeah I figured as much for the PSU but it's possible the capacitors could be going bad... Long shot but it's possible I guess. Also the corsair PSU has a 5 year warranty...
 
Yeah I figured as much for the PSU but it's possible the capacitors could be going bad... Long shot but it's possible I guess. Also the corsair PSU has a 5 year warranty...
It's possible, but I doubt it. Not unless you've gone through some bad storms or your PSU was abused in that way. Mine is an older model too and I damn near blew it up trying to pull a retarded amount of power through it, but it still chugs.

If you feel you should replace it, go ahead, to have a new unit before the warranty is up.
 
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