Myself and others have been struggling with a different hard lock problem with Skylake and we have ran out of options but to assume it is a CPU fault/issue. Does anyone have any comments or feedback?
The long thread is over here, but I will summarise. New Skylake Build Randomly Freezing/Crashing - Page 7 - windows 10 - Windows 10
Our systems hard lock randomly but appears on the most part to be when IDLE or next to IDLE. The hardlock can come when playing video, browsing (reading) or mostly when not interacting at all. Some (like myself) noted that they seem to occur more often if you are doing a large amount of disk IO (partition move for example or copying 40+ GB of data disk to disk).
Hard locks happen in either Windows (7,8,10) or Linux.
With CStates on, the crashes are often and usually within 10 minutes of IDLE. With CStates disabled completely most find that the system remains "mainly" stable for days. Generally, no one has reported locks when gaming or under high CPU load (so I do not think this is the Prime95 example but then, since compilers / drivers use the latest instructions (according to CPUID) I cant be sure).
The symptoms happen on many different manufacturers motherboards, RAM types and setups. We have successfully removed or replaced all components and the only change that seems to make a difference is CPU for a few. CStates off in the BIOS is absolutely a guarenteed way to stabilize significantly but not fix.
I changed CPU (after trying everything else) and find it now mostly stable with CStates ON. I must be clear that my system is 100% identical, CPU #1 crashes all the time and must have CStates off, CPU #2 does not crash so often even with CStates ON. One may argue this is a problem with my PC, a fault, but with so many people having the exact same issues I cant believe it is a defect. And with Cstates/SpeedStep so specifically (a known new part of Skylakes architecture), I remain convinced that this is something real.
Others were not so lucky, a replacement CPU did not make the situation better. Batches from different factories as well etc etc
My new CPU has hard locked but not when IDLE like the last one (not yet anyway). Mine can lock when under full load, video transcoding, but not more than 1 in 10 sessions. Cstates ON seems equally stable on this CPU as OFF.
Thanks for any suggestions you can give.
