Built my first PC 1-2yrs ago or something and for awhile, everything ran great. Now I'm starting to have some random freezing that's occurred from moving files between external HDD's to working in Photoshop with Chrome running or iTunes running (nothing extreme really). No BSOD's just a freeze/lock up. I've been running some tests before replacing anything, so far its passed everything (Prime 95 is in its 19th hr and passed everything). One thing I haven't been up on, is updating my MB's BIOS. So that's the next thing Ill be doing when Prime 95 is done.

The question I have is probably a dumb question, but there are a couple BIOS updates out since I bought the MB. They all have "improve system stability" but an earlier update has "Improve memory capability" (originally thought my RAM was the issue) and the newest has "Enhance compatibility with some USB devices". If I update with the newest BIOS, does it also include the updates from earlier versions as well? Or would I need to update with earlier versions first to get those specific feature updates?

Thanks!

 

Just upgrade to the latest bios. It will include all new and old revisions. Make sure that you do an offline bios update and when it says improves memory capabilities it involves either what speed your motherboard can handle or the ability to control it better.

 

TBH, sounds like hard drive or ram failure, Did you check your RAM with prime 95? or was it just a CPU stress test?

for hard drives, check the SMART status in your bios if it was enabled. If not, there are a variety of free and paid programs that can scan for bad sectors.

Same with your ram, stress it and see if it crashes.

I doubt a MB Bios flash will fix anything, but yes, the newer bios versions will incorporate all the fixes and upgrades from previous version. If you do end up flashing, just get the newest version.

 

when you stress test... dont just do it for 5 minutes btw.. do it for a while and see what happens.

RAM Tester:
memtest86

HDD Tester:

Depending on the manufacture they offer free stress testers for the most part on their support page..

 

Thanks guys! I was pretty confident the latest BIOS covered previous versions, but the smaller file size through me off.

As far as testing, I used Prime 95 for the CPU/stress test, memtest 86 for the RAM, and FurMark for the GPU. All have passed (Prime 95 is going into its 22nd hr of testing and passed everything so far) without freezing/BSOD/failures. Definitely need to look into HDD testing to see if their the problem.

 

I also think you should test your HDD first. HDD is much less of a headache to replace vs flashing BIOS or replacing your motherboard if you're unlucky with flashing like myself.

 

bios flashing is really straightforward nowadays... replacing a HDD is more of a pain imo, with having to reinstall all the drivers and programs and setting it all up again.

I wouldnt trust a ghosted partition from a faulty previous installation

 

Passed Prime 95 completely, updated BIOS and so far everything is running fine. Only issue now is that even though my SSD with Windows and everything is selected as the boot drive, I have to go into the MB Utility to actually select it to run windows. Such a pain

Now to find a HDD tester for my Corsair SSD. Anyone happen to know if Corsair makes their own? Or is it pretty much third party software?

 

start > cmd > chkdsk

you WILL get some bad sectors, it happens with all SSD's, and it is considered part of wear and tear. only problem is when the drive gets too full/old and the controller is unable to remap the cell to one of the extra cells.

 

The last time I flashed a bios............................ I used a floppy hahahhahahahhaa

 

Ran "chkdsk" and received the following:

"Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

117115903 KB total disk space
95446068 KB in 282856 files.
159708 KB in 44662 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors
549203 KB in use by the system.
65535 KB occupied by the log file.
29278975 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
29278975 total allocation units on disk.
5240231 allocation units available on disk."

There's all the enough from each stage processed if any of that is relevant.

 

Nevermind, believe that is another HDD. Put in the command for it to scan the C: drive and said it could only be done when restarting the computer due to it being in use. Scanning the SSD now haha

 

SSD came back clean (message on black screen after chkdsk ran and restarted computer). I had to run downstairs so I didn't see the final totals count like I posted earlier, so I'm going to run it again to see if I can see if there were any bad sectors.

 

If it's still clean, I would do a fresh install as a last resort. You can always create an image of your current hard drive and back it up to a different drive, then install windows on your ssd and see if it still has issues.

GL

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