my computer started crashing to a completely black display where it would try and restart immediately. First it was happening during a game only and i thought it was some memory leak within the game that was causing it. After a day i tried again and everything was back to normal.
But then tonight it started happening all the time and it even crashed once while i was in the BIOS. This obviously helped a lot with the diagnosis because i now i know for a certainty that it's hardware related.
So i tried to play around with the RAM, i own 12 gigs of ram half of which are around a year older than the other half. So i played around with the DIMM orientations till finally it kept happening even when i was down to 6 gigs of ram. Mind you at one point i had 6 gigs installed but only 4 gigs showing up as usable, which is what lead me to believe it was the RAM or the DIMM.
I currently have 4 x 2gig triple channel memory sticks installed, but windows only shows 6 gigs, of course it should show 8. I had previously thought it was one of the DIMM channels, but now it seems to be random.
As a result, I am now a bit stumped.
I know its not my gfx card, the chances of a CPU malfunction are extremely slim, and i've had normal temperatures always, i run a liquid loop too.
I've ruled out the RAM sticks that i own, well not all of them, but the random DIMM slots malfunctioning doesn't seem to be fit that situation.
My last two places to turn my attention are the motherboard and my PSU. I own an ASUS Rampage III Extreme and i know these things are notorious for causing problems from nowhere. My PSU is a Corsair HX 1000W and i'm more inclined to thinking that its not the PSU but i'm not sure, i just trust corsair more.
Also, there are no Error reports, only sometimes does Windows report that something bad went wrong, i'm sure there are memory dumps, but i'm not sure what you guys would need.
My Specs:
Windows 8 Professional 64-Bit.
i7-950 - Stock speed for now.
GSkill -12 gigs 1600Mhz RAM.
GTX 580 from EVGA.
128 Gb SATA 3 Samsung 830 series.
Essence Xonar STX.
2 x 320 Gb Samsung F4s in RAID 0.
H75 Corsair Liquid Cooling System.
Corsair HX1000W.
If you guys can think of anything, i would greatly appreciate it. TIA