AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

[MlogStryker]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

Well after playing for 4+ hours I thought everything was a-okay, and that maybe a combination of disconnecting and reconnecting the atx power cable from the psu and the updates to the game solved my problem. But alas here we are again, my computer is not powering on. Same thing, and same situation, but I had previously gone though that situation many times during that 4 hour span and didn't run into any problems.

Being that I hadn't run into any problems, I start increasing settings to their normal states. I increased the min and max power settings back to 100%. No problems. I enabled intel power boost, no problems. Then, just when I thought things were fixed, it happened again. And everything was running really smooth, up until it powered off.

Whenever that skill is used for the first time in a map my fps drop to ~10, aside from that it is always at ~144, because v-sync is on.

I tried unplugging everything connected to the mobo / psu and trying to power it back on and nothing works.

The power supply is cool to the touch, and none of the temps (mobo, cpu, gpu) ever reached above 52 degrees during that 4 hour period.

I am going to go to pick up a new psu tomorrow, if it still has problems would any of you point to the cpu or motherboard as the culprit?

Thanks for any advice you can give me

[parsec]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

Thanks for the responses parsec, and profjim. This morning it happened again, under the same exact circumstance. The game in question is Path of Exile (and it only happens when playing this game), when i use the skill Discharge, my frame rate spikes from ~140 to 1. I had been using this skill several times, but I like to use it right when a bunch of guys spawn, and when i pressed the button on the keyboard to activate Discharge it was like I pressed the switch on the power supply.

Someone on the PoE forums had stated that PoE does have a fair amount of cpu processing, and that the power boost from the intel chips sometimes has issues with PoE on newer intel chips.

Is it possible that the cpu load spikes up to the point the power boost kicks in, and that extra instantaneous load on the psu is causing the power rails in the psu to trip (like a surge protection)?

I am going to unplug one of the 4 pins going to the cpu, and I would also like to disable the power boost feature but I'm not sure where the setting is for that, can anyone help with that?

Also about the power button, I will always press the case power button first, before the mobo power button, I haven't been doing that in the past (only when the computer is in its current state, otherwise the power button works normally), so its quite possible that the case power button is just fine, I was just impatient and thought that button was different for some reason.

Going from past experience I won't be able to turn the computer on for a few hours, and being that it is sunday I'm going to watch some football, so I won't be back until later in the day, but any help is very much appreciated.

I'm fascinated by a game that has an option/feature that when activated can cause such a stress on the CPU, video card, or both, that is causes the PC to shutdown.

If that happens with the CPU running at stock/standard speed, then I can't help but think it is a power issue of some kind. Since the shutdown problem occurred when you had both eight pin CPU power cables connected, that makes me suspect the PSU itself, or the cable connections between the PSU and the board and video card.

An EVGA 780ti is rated to use 250W of power, and reviews I checked don't contradict that spec by any significant degree. You must connect two PCIe power cables to that card, one eight pin and one six pin, which I assume you have done.

I see that the AX850 has dual PCIe style power cables combined into one connector that plugs into the PSU itself. Do you use one of those dual cables for the 780ti's power? That should be fine, just wondering.

One question, in a post of yours after the one I quoted here, you mentioned, "When I unplugged the 20pin atx cable from the mobo...". Is "20pin" just a typo and you meant 24 pin? Probably is, but if not it is important to use the full 24 pin connector plugged into the board. Sorry, had to ask.

More on the 24 pin power cable, at the PSU itself, this cable has two connectors that plug into the PSU, one above the other. I use PSUs with this design, and it can be difficult to get both of the connectors into the PSU sockets securely. I would check that those two plugs are seated fully in place.

On to the CPU, the eight pin CPU power cable looks identical in many ways to the eight pin PCIe power cable, but they are wired quite differently. They cannot be substituted for each other, even if they fit into the board.

One of the two eight pin CPU power cables supplied with the AX850 has a PSU-end connector that is the same as the PCIe power cable. It would be rather difficult to mix those two cables up, since one is the two cable into one connector PCIe power cable. Yet another simple yet significant detail that is possible in theory to be wrong.

Myself and many others have over clocked our CPUs which requires that Turbo Boost be enabled in the BIOS. None of the boards I've ever owned had two eight pin CPU power connectors, and I've never had a problem like yours. Running the CPU at stock clocks takes much less power than when it is over clocked, so I can't believe that it is a power delivery system problem (except for bad connections), rather than a power source problem, which is what my guess is.

[MlogStryker]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

So I am 3 for 3 on causing this crash and the more and more it looks like it is related to the game, and not hardware, but I am going to pick up a new psu and see if there is some sort of issue with this one.

I have found how to power on the system right away after this happens. If I unplug the power supply, and unplug the atx cables from the power supply it can turn back on in a matter of minutes. Does that shed any light on what could be wrong?

[MlogStryker]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

I'm fascinated by a game that has an option/feature that when activated can cause such a stress on the CPU, video card, or both, that is causes the PC to shutdown.

If that happens with the CPU running at stock/standard speed, then I can't help but think it is a power issue of some kind. Since the shutdown problem occurred when you had both eight pin CPU power cables connected, that makes me suspect the PSU itself, or the cable connections between the PSU and the board and video card.

An EVGA 780ti is rated to use 250W of power, and reviews I checked don't contradict that spec by any significant degree. You must connect two PCIe power cables to that card, one eight pin and one six pin, which I assume you have done.

I see that the AX850 has dual PCIe style power cables combined into one connector that plugs into the PSU itself. Do you use one of those dual cables for the 780ti's power? That should be fine, just wondering.

One question, in a post of yours after the one I quoted here, you mentioned, "When I unplugged the 20pin atx cable from the mobo...". Is "20pin" just a typo and you meant 24 pin? Probably is, but if not it is important to use the full 24 pin connector plugged into the board. Sorry, had to ask.

More on the 24 pin power cable, at the PSU itself, this cable has two connectors that plug into the PSU, one above the other. I use PSUs with this design, and it can be difficult to get both of the connectors into the PSU sockets securely. I would check that those two plugs are seated fully in place.

On to the CPU, the eight pin CPU power cable looks identical in many ways to the eight pin PCIe power cable, but they are wired quite differently. They cannot be substituted for each other, even if they fit into the board.

One of the two eight pin CPU power cables supplied with the AX850 has a PSU-end connector that is the same as the PCIe power cable. It would be rather difficult to mix those two cables up, since one is the two cable into one connector PCIe power cable. Yet another simple yet significant detail that is possible in theory to be wrong.

Myself and many others have over clocked our CPUs which requires that Turbo Boost be enabled in the BIOS. None of the boards I've ever owned had two eight pin CPU power connectors, and I've never had a problem like yours. Running the CPU at stock clocks takes much less power than when it is over clocked, so I can't believe that it is a power delivery system problem (except for bad connections), rather than a power source problem, which is what my guess is.

The 780ti has 1 eight pin and 1 six+two pin connected, the + two is not connected. Those are together is one cable sleeve, the other end of that is a 12 pin psu connection. There are 2 of those connections on the psu and I have not moved that to the other connection. I can try that, but I assume they are both connected to the same rail.

Yes it is a 24pin atx cable, sorry for the confusion. When this power shutdown happens, to get the computer to restart I must remove the 2 cables plugging into the psu that make up the 24 pin atx connection. Not sure if that is indicative of the problem or not, but I have found this to be the only way to get the computer to turn back on (unplugging the power supply from the wall does not work - I had it unplugged from the wall for hours and it wouldn't turn on, when I unplugged, and reconnected these connections it powered on right away)

The cpu has a 2 four pin connection, the other end of that cable is a solid eight pin and I have that end connected to the psu (there is only 1 eight pin connection on the psu). I assume that is the proper way to have that cable installed. There is a second cpu cable that has the same 2 four pin connection on one end and a 12 pin connection on the other (with the extra four pins empty on the 12 pin side). I am not using this cable anymore.

All other pci cables supplied are a six + two connection on one side and a six pin on the other.

The psu has many six pin connections, although I am only using 2 of them. 1 for a few molex connections (fans and a case xdock that I am not using currently) the other is for my 2 ssd's.

[parsec]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

Your power cable connections all sound right.

The need to remove the two connectors for the 24 pin, main ATX cable is ridiculous, I've never had to do such a thing, and never heard of that before. Given that, IMO it's either the PSU or the board itself has some odd issue. What disconnecting and reconnecting those cables does is beyond me, but you should not need to do that.

Testing the board with a different PSU is a given IMO, I know you will be doing that, so good luck!!

[MlogStryker]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

Your power cable connections all sound right.

The need to remove the two connectors for the 24 pin, main ATX cable is ridiculous, I've never had to do such a thing, and never heard of that before. Given that, IMO it's either the PSU or the board itself has some odd issue. What disconnecting and reconnecting those cables does is beyond me, but you should not need to do that.

Testing the board with a different PSU is a given IMO, I know you will be doing that, so good luck!!

Being that this corsair ax850 is already the second psu I have used does that lean to more of a motherboard issue? The reason I got rid of the cooler master silent pro 1000 was because It's fans and the case fans would randomly go to full speed. That happened both during gaming and at idle, could both of these situations be caused by the same thing - a fault in the mobo, but each psu handled it differently?

[parsec]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

Normally a PSU's fan speed is determined by its temperature, which increases due to a higher load on the PSU, it's putting out more power. The same goes for the case fans, if they are connected to the board and are speed controlled by temperature. I have no idea how your case fans are connected and configured.

The same thing causing the CM PSU to run its fan at high speed, and causing the Corsair PSU to shut down? I thought the use of that special option when you were gaming was causing the Corsair PSU to shut down?

If your frame rate drops when you use that Discharge skill, that is mainly the video card being stressed out, don't you think? Games vary on how much CPU usage they require, but usually CPU load is not an issue with games. But the things you did to keep the CPU power usage down, which then stopped the shutdown (right?) have me wondering about the board now.

I forgot, did limiting the CPU speed consistently keep the PC from shutting off?

It seems like under certain conditions the board might be drawing high amounts of power from the PSU. That would normally be for providing power to the CPU, since the board does not supply much power to a video card. So that might be a problem with the board's voltage regulation stage (usually called the VRM) for the CPU, an out of spec part causing more power to be drawn from the PSU than is really necessary, similar to a short circuit, when it heats up or passes a threshold of some kind. ONLY a theory, that is not a known, common problem for mother boards.

A problem like this is also why you were asked to run a CPU stress test, which also puts stress on the PSU and VRM. Since it survived that with great CPU temperatures, the mystery only gets worse.

Normally a high end video card like yours uses the most power compared to all other parts of a PC. I also wonder about VSync, since it is a new feature we don't know much about in terms of its affect on PC hardware, if it even does affect it. VSync is done in the monitor, right?

Testing with a third PSU will be interesting, I literally wish I lived nearby you so I could have you try some of the PSUs I have, just to see what happens.

BTW, I tried to check out a "cooler master silent pro 1000" PSU, but found multiple models, Bronze, Gold, and Platinum 80+ types, as well as the "M2", so not sure which one, not that it matters really.

[MlogStryker]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

Normally a PSU's fan speed is determined by its temperature, which increases due to a higher load on the PSU, it's putting out more power. The same goes for the case fans, if they are connected to the board and are speed controlled by temperature. I have no idea how your case fans are connected and configured.

The same thing causing the CM PSU to run its fan at high speed, and causing the Corsair PSU to shut down? I thought the use of that special option when you were gaming was causing the Corsair PSU to shut down?

If your frame rate drops when you use that Discharge skill, that is mainly the video card being stressed out, don't you think? Games vary on how much CPU usage they require, but usually CPU load is not an issue with games. But the things you did to keep the CPU power usage down, which then stopped the shutdown (right?) have me wondering about the board now.

I forgot, did limiting the CPU speed consistently keep the PC from shutting off?

It seems like under certain conditions the board might be drawing high amounts of power from the PSU. That would normally be for providing power to the CPU, since the board does not supply much power to a video card. So that might be a problem with the board's voltage regulation stage (usually called the VRM) for the CPU, an out of spec part causing more power to be drawn from the PSU than is really necessary, similar to a short circuit, when it heats up or passes a threshold of some kind. ONLY a theory, that is not a known, common problem for mother boards.

A problem like this is also why you were asked to run a CPU stress test, which also puts stress on the PSU and VRM. Since it survived that with great CPU temperatures, the mystery only gets worse.

Normally a high end video card like yours uses the most power compared to all other parts of a PC. I also wonder about VSync, since it is a new feature we don't know much about in terms of its affect on PC hardware, if it even does affect it. VSync is done in the monitor, right?

Testing with a third PSU will be interesting, I literally wish I lived nearby you so I could have you try some of the PSUs I have, just to see what happens.

BTW, I tried to check out a "cooler master silent pro 1000" PSU, but found multiple models, Bronze, Gold, and Platinum 80+ types, as well as the "M2", so not sure which one, not that it matters really.

I had not been playing this game when I had the CM PSU, so it is undetermined if the 2 issues are related. The case fans are plugged into a molex cable from the psu, and connected to the case for speed control. So I would assume if the CM PSU was having issues and causing extra voltage to run through that molex cable would be the only way for the fans to increase on their own. That issue didn't happen long because I removed the psu and RMA'd it in case it was going to harm my components.

Yes, when I had lowered the cpu max speed I didn't experience any shutdowns, and I had gone through several very close repeat situations. (the issue seems to come from using Discharge when a Rare Stongbox spawns enemys, I used Discharge on both normal and magic strongboxes with no issues, but I don't believe I tried it on a Rare one.) All the stongbox's are random and it was only after having reset the cpu to max settings I cam accross a Rare one, and figured that was the trigger.

I currently have an Antec HCG 850M running, and I am in the process of trying to find another Stongbox to see if I can trigger the fault again.

I will keep you posted.

[MlogStryker]

Re: AsRock z97 Extreme 9 wont power on

So I was able to almost entirly recreate the circumstances and I didn't have any issues this time. I did open a Rare Stongbox, but (for some reason it didn't dawn on me until now that I can make the stongboxes I come across rare) being that I made it rare it was identified, as opposed to me not knowing what mods are on the Strongbox.

It seems like under certain conditions the board might be drawing high amounts of power from the PSU. That would normally be for providing power to the CPU, since the board does not supply much power to a video card. So that might be a problem with the board's voltage regulation stage (usually called the VRM) for the CPU, an out of spec part causing more power to be drawn from the PSU than is really necessary, similar to a short circuit, when it heats up or passes a threshold of some kind. ONLY a theory, that is not a known, common problem for mother boards.

I agree with your thought that it is possible that under certain conditions the board might be drawing high amounts of power from the PSU, coupled with the fact that the gpu is drawing quite a bit of power from the PSU and there are all the over voltage / current protections, is it possible that with the AX 850 having 1 +12V rail, something peaked it and tripped an internal PSU protection. The new PSU the Antec HCG 850m has 2 +12V rails, so is it possible that the GPU / Board / CPU are still drawing that peak Voltage / Current but being that the load is spread between 2 +12V rails there is more "bandwidth" in the PSU to absorb that draw?

Unless I run into another crash I will consider my problem fixed and won't keep this thread updated, unless replying to others comments.

Thanks for all your inputs parsec / profjim, I really do appreciate it.