Freezing/Hanging - Mobo Issue (P67A-GD65)?

Question

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Chassis - COOLER MASTER Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 Black Steel / Plastic Computer Case
Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
CPU - Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52400
Mobo - MSI P67A-GD65 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
PSU - RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-630SS 630W ATX12V V2.2/ EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Modular LED Power Supply
RAM - Patriot Gamer 2 Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model PGD38G1333ELK
GPU - EVGA 02G-P3-1386-KR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
CD Drive - Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
---------------After reading CPU temps--------------
Upgraded CPU Fan - XIGMATEK LOKI SD963 92mm HYPRO Bearing CPU Cooler bracket included I7 i5 775 1155 AMD and dual fan push pull compatible
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Alrighty everyone, so this might end up being a fairly lengthy article, but I want to make sure I give you all of the information so you can correctly assess.
Earlier in the year, I decided that I needed a desktop for college. I had seen people do it before and I was fairly adept at computers, so I put the computer together with the above components from newegg.
Originally, I put the desktop together in about five hours and hooked it up. Worked great, except on startup it gave (and still gives) me an error of saying "No Hard Disk Detected", however the opposite could not be truer as it found my hard drive when I loaded the OS; Windows 7. I then tested it that night with Starcraft II and it worked great; no minor bugs, nothing. The following day, I pull all of my games/programs on it including skype. Here is where things started to get weird. On Borderlands, everything went great and without a hitch, however when I started Civilization V, after playing for about an hour, it froze. And this freeze froze everything; the keyboard, the monitor, the mouse, etc. A buzzing sound came from the speakers and a hard restart was necessary. This freeze also happened again during the Multiplayer for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Starcraft II (after about an hour), League of Legends and even Skype, while using my webcam. Also, in the Windows reliability program and windows events, no freeze is registered.
So I thought "oh, this is obviously overheating or a voltage problem" (the cpu temps were getting between 85-90 C's). So I fixed the RAM's voltage so it fit exactly what it needed (it required 1.65 volts, but the auto detect only gave it 1.5, so it was around .15 off). While waiting for the fan and thermal paste to come, I reinstalled Windows 7, reinstalled the drivers for all of my components and checked event viewer (which I ended up needlessly fixing an event 3011 and 3012 for corrupt performance readers).
My fan and paste came in yesterday and applied both, making my cpu super-cooled leveling off at a max of 50 C's at full load and 25-30 C's idling. The hottest component is now the GPU which usually hits 65-70 C's under full load.
At this point, I figured "great, I have been freeze-free for 2 days, let's retest", so I played two games of league of legends last night (around 1.5 hours) on skype and it froze. Again. Once I restarted my desktop to let everyone know what happened (and loaded skype and rejoined the conversation) I only got in two words before it froze again.
In summary, basically under stress, especially under games/programs requiring the internet, the computer has a full freeze, requiring a hard reset. I tried to fix the voltages (RAM) as well as cool the computer, which seemed to work only for a short while. Further once the computer freezes, whenever I turn it back on, it is more prone to freezing unless I leave it off overnight.
I'm not even necessarily looking for an answer, just an idea of where to start. Thanks again, I would really appreciate some help on this one.
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Update: I used Prime95 to test it as well as Intel Burn Test. No freeze during IBT, and for Prime95 it usually gets hit on the In-Place Large FFT or Blend Test. Hasn't frozen on Small FFT. I also just updated the the mobo's BIOS again to the latest one. Also, with the update, if I put the RAM's voltage at 1.65 (or anything above Auto), it won't boot the OS.
Any ideas welcome.

Answer 1

Quote from: bspeir on 08-August-11, 04:15:04
Right, saw this in my email inbox and thought I would respond, being the OP and all. I asked MSI what the problem was (giving all issues I had) - the response I received was
"We have to suggest you contact your reseller (The place you bought this MB from) and have them test the MB completely for you to check if this MB is faulty or not, then ask for some help.
If the reseller for some reason cannot help, we have to ask you to contact MSI distributor or MSI office near your place to seek further help" about 2-3 weeks ago (took them a month to get back).
The only problem with this, is I am a college student and half about five days left to get back to school and I NEED this desktop for school. So giving back the computer, allowing them to run tests, then waiting to return it seems like an entirely long and not necessary considering the desktop WORKS, but only on 4GB of RAM as opposed to 8GB.
However, I AM willing to check the c-state, but I will need some information first to make sure my desktop won't explode if I do this wrong.
1) What does the C-State do?
2) How do I disable it?
3) Is this really an option I should check into?
Thanks again, this community has honestly been more helpful than MSI's actual customer support.
It won't help you with your problem but I've tested C-state for a while and you can read what it will do in the link HU16E provided. I've noticed that in Idle state the usage of power drops a couple of watts, so when you have your PC in idle a lot of time and you care about power saving it's worth trying. When overclocking it can be unstable however. I have a CPU that handles all cores set to 46 with all energy settings on and auto Vcore completely stable, when going to 47 I have to compensate. The first thing I have to do is disable C-State because it will BSOD when in idle for a while. So I will suggest that if you use stock settings and care about power saving you try it and otherwise disable it.