Hi all,
Been reading a lot of threads here, including an older thread on Windows 10 freezing with ASRock ep2c602-4ld16, but I think I have an issue with the latest versions of Windows 10 & Windows 2016 Server. Sorry for long thread, but I need to ask around as the issues I'm experiencing mean Windows 10 & Windows 2016 Server are completely unusable on fairly standard enthusiast server hardware.
Background
Wanted to offload server duties off a game-oriented 6 core 4930k machine and free up its becoming-redundant 980 ti card (because it was doing server duties). The 4930k will become a secondary games machine (primary is an overclocked 5960x with a 1080 ti card).
My Background
Work as a chief architect for a large international company, been building my own computers since 12. programming since 7.
Purpose
Have 48tb of home movies, media, game images etc --> DAS and diy-SAN.
Have home services: DHCP, DNS, AD via Samba.
Need workstation capabilities: Virtualisation for AI and other memory hungry, thread intensive applications I build.
Setup
Bought the ASRock ep2c602-4ld16 for the 16 RDIMM slots and needed the 4 x pci-e x16 3.0 slots for:
2 x LSI 2307e SAS expander cards
1 x LSI 2307i SAS expander card (8 internal drives)
1 x old 780 ti card I had in reserve (on-board graphics is rubbish)
1 x pci-e usb 3 card (on the x4 slot)
256GB 1066MHz ECC RDIMM (bought a while ago at a not-to-be-missed price).
2 x Xeon E5-2670v2 (bought some QS after researching to ensure maximum compatibility).
1050 gold-certified PSU (spare).
The Problem
After assembling the computer, Windows 10 install proceeded OK. Once in Windows 10, and about to start my scripted-auto-install of all software I use, I attached the pci-e cards (as above) and that's when all the troubles began. Random hard freezes. No BSOD, no crash, no reboot - just a hard freeze (no numlock change etc, reset not working, only hold-down-power-button reset).
After reset, the system would last between 30 seconds and 20 minutes before freezing.
I removed all but 4 sticks of RAM, no effect.
I removed one CPU and 2 further sticks of RAM, no effect.
Removed all the pci-e cards, no effect.
Ran bootable memtestx86+ for many hours, no issues.
Now I got more drastic, and acquired 2 x Xeon E5-2670 (v1) chips, not ES to rule out the QS chips I have.
This made matters worse - crash now occurs almost certainly right after boot into Windows 10.
Repeated above (removing all RAM, one CPU, all pci-e cards) - no effect.
Got my UEFI USB Windows 10 install, and it freezes during that too!!!
Remembering an earlier thread about lockups in Windows 10, tried Windows 2016 Server. That won't make it past the install either.
What did work?
Getting desperate as I was eliminating all items, I had two more options and following wise words "Once you eliminate the obvious, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
* Motherboard?
* OS?
New motherboard and RMA existing means proving it, so I attacked OS first.
Installed latest Ubuntu linux bootable. That worked.
Did various light tasks in linux. That worked.
Got mem test and cpu test packages (stress) to stress RAM and CPU. Ran all day on CPU test - max temp 50C, no problems, all 16 [32] cores [threads]. Ran all night on memory test - 16GB chunks across all 256GB. No issues.
Theories
Windows 10 & Windows 2016 Server share many components and development. Clearly something in the latest builds is causing issues on my machine. I have tried many combinations, but I only have the Samsung memory and the one server motherboard, so I can't vary those to validate.
Anyone else got this problem?
*Edited for minor spelling mistakes.
Been reading a lot of threads here, including an older thread on Windows 10 freezing with ASRock ep2c602-4ld16, but I think I have an issue with the latest versions of Windows 10 & Windows 2016 Server. Sorry for long thread, but I need to ask around as the issues I'm experiencing mean Windows 10 & Windows 2016 Server are completely unusable on fairly standard enthusiast server hardware.
Background
Wanted to offload server duties off a game-oriented 6 core 4930k machine and free up its becoming-redundant 980 ti card (because it was doing server duties). The 4930k will become a secondary games machine (primary is an overclocked 5960x with a 1080 ti card).
My Background
Work as a chief architect for a large international company, been building my own computers since 12. programming since 7.
Purpose
Have 48tb of home movies, media, game images etc --> DAS and diy-SAN.
Have home services: DHCP, DNS, AD via Samba.
Need workstation capabilities: Virtualisation for AI and other memory hungry, thread intensive applications I build.
Setup
Bought the ASRock ep2c602-4ld16 for the 16 RDIMM slots and needed the 4 x pci-e x16 3.0 slots for:
2 x LSI 2307e SAS expander cards
1 x LSI 2307i SAS expander card (8 internal drives)
1 x old 780 ti card I had in reserve (on-board graphics is rubbish)
1 x pci-e usb 3 card (on the x4 slot)
256GB 1066MHz ECC RDIMM (bought a while ago at a not-to-be-missed price).
2 x Xeon E5-2670v2 (bought some QS after researching to ensure maximum compatibility).
1050 gold-certified PSU (spare).
The Problem
After assembling the computer, Windows 10 install proceeded OK. Once in Windows 10, and about to start my scripted-auto-install of all software I use, I attached the pci-e cards (as above) and that's when all the troubles began. Random hard freezes. No BSOD, no crash, no reboot - just a hard freeze (no numlock change etc, reset not working, only hold-down-power-button reset).
After reset, the system would last between 30 seconds and 20 minutes before freezing.
I removed all but 4 sticks of RAM, no effect.
I removed one CPU and 2 further sticks of RAM, no effect.
Removed all the pci-e cards, no effect.
Ran bootable memtestx86+ for many hours, no issues.
Now I got more drastic, and acquired 2 x Xeon E5-2670 (v1) chips, not ES to rule out the QS chips I have.
This made matters worse - crash now occurs almost certainly right after boot into Windows 10.
Repeated above (removing all RAM, one CPU, all pci-e cards) - no effect.
Got my UEFI USB Windows 10 install, and it freezes during that too!!!
Remembering an earlier thread about lockups in Windows 10, tried Windows 2016 Server. That won't make it past the install either.
What did work?
Getting desperate as I was eliminating all items, I had two more options and following wise words "Once you eliminate the obvious, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
* Motherboard?
* OS?
New motherboard and RMA existing means proving it, so I attacked OS first.
Installed latest Ubuntu linux bootable. That worked.
Did various light tasks in linux. That worked.
Got mem test and cpu test packages (stress) to stress RAM and CPU. Ran all day on CPU test - max temp 50C, no problems, all 16 [32] cores [threads]. Ran all night on memory test - 16GB chunks across all 256GB. No issues.
Theories
Windows 10 & Windows 2016 Server share many components and development. Clearly something in the latest builds is causing issues on my machine. I have tried many combinations, but I only have the Samsung memory and the one server motherboard, so I can't vary those to validate.
Anyone else got this problem?
*Edited for minor spelling mistakes.
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