For me it seems to have been the residual ram instability (finally discarded the Crucial modules and haven't seen a hard lock since) and Win10 FastBoot feature (knocking out my s/w raid 1 sync on startup).

[QUOTE=s1riker;425082]Fair enough, but to have it only affect idle operation, and to have 2 PSU's exhibit the exact same behavior? Seems odd to me. I'm still not confident this will actually be the end of it. Next week can't come fast enough :)[/QUOTE]

How good is your upstream UPS? Is it "online" or "offline"?

How good is your mains (read: electrical power) provider? To share, mine is absolute crap. They often go beyond the allowed voltage ranges allowed by the regulator, and sometimes even go out of the promised 50 Hz.

Depending on where you are, your PSU may be covering your provider's behind.

[QUOTE=chalsall;425113]How good is your upstream UPS? Is it "online" or "offline"?

How good is your mains (read: electrical power) provider? To share, mine is absolute crap. They often go beyond the allowed voltage ranges allowed by the regulator, and sometimes even go out of the promised 50 Hz.

Depending on where you are, your PSU may be covering your provider's behind.[/QUOTE]

I suppose that's a possibility. I don't have an UPS connected to this PC, just a good quality surge suppressor. I live in a newish house (10 years old) in Toronto, Canada, where electrical standards are quite good. I've been in this house for all of those 10 years and never had a problem like this with any of my previous builds, let alone any electricity problems at all. But you still could be right, perhaps this EVGA PSU is masking a tiny problem in the electrical distribution, delivering much stabler voltages that Skylake/Z170 depends on in those idle states to stay alive.

I'm on day 10 now of no hard locks.

[QUOTE=s1riker;424162]Try bumping VCCIO up to 1.0V that made my RAM stable even at XMP settings. 48 hours of HCI satisfied me that my RAM is solid.

Yet, still I got another hang this morning at idle. Almost 5 days exactly, the frequency of occurrence is so strange. Going to install new PSU tonight, will report back in about 5 days :)

Also, on a related note, Gigabyte sent me a beta bios with SpeedShift enabled. I'm debating whether I should apply that today, or wait to see how the PSU test pans out?[/QUOTE]

just searching for Gigabyte SpeedShift Bios support and found your post..
can share what motherboard (I would like Gaming 7 Z170)?
also beta bios versión build?
for example I see in gigabyte site latest for my MB is F7g and on this site [url]http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios.html[/url]
even F7K can be found..

also would be nice if you can share if SGX is enabled on this beta bioses..
can check with HWINFO for example to see if enabled..
thanks..

[QUOTE=s1riker;425198]I suppose that's a possibility. I don't have an UPS connected to this PC, just a good quality surge suppressor. I live in a newish house (10 years old) in Toronto, Canada, where electrical standards are quite good. I've been in this house for all of those 10 years and never had a problem like this with any of my previous builds, let alone any electricity problems at all. But you still could be right, perhaps this EVGA PSU is masking a tiny problem in the electrical distribution, delivering much stabler voltages that Skylake/Z170 depends on in those idle states to stay alive.

I'm on day 10 now of no hard locks.[/QUOTE]

I'm in Toronto and I've had two power supplies fry from a single power surge. Surge protectors and UPSes don't protect against everything.

[QUOTE=Mark Rose;425214]Surge protectors and UPSes don't protect against everything.[/QUOTE]

Indeed. And "Online" UPSs are much better than "Offline" in conditioning power because they always convert the power from AC to DC and then back to AC. But they are much more expensive, and less efficient.

"Offline" UPSs try to condition the power as best they can, but extremely fast spikes can still pass through them.

Consumer grade surge protectors are, in my opinion, almost useless for extremely sensitive kit.

Latest post on the Intel forum thread...
 

So, I received this email with relation to the ongoing discussion over on the offical Intel forum:[quote]You should get your live support more informed about this, had to spend one hour just to convince them there was a known "bug" with skylake processors.

Are you planning on doing any changes to the manufacturing of these?[/quote]

But following the [URL="https://communities.intel.com/message/371384#371384"]link provided[/URL] results in "We are improving your Intel community experience. The community is undergoing maintenance. We are working to finish our updates as quickly as possible. Please check back soon to see the latest updates.

Seems some cages were indeed rattled at Intel. And the occupants weren't amused....

[QUOTE=oscarbg;425202]just searching for Gigabyte SpeedShift Bios support and found your post..
can share what motherboard (I would like Gaming 7 Z170)?
also beta bios versión build?
for example I see in gigabyte site latest for my MB is F7g and on this site [URL]http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios.html[/URL]
even F7K can be found..

also would be nice if you can share if SGX is enabled on this beta bioses..
can check with HWINFO for example to see if enabled..
thanks..[/QUOTE]

I have the GA-Z170X-UD3. Gigabyte support sent me a custom build of the F5g BIOS that's available for this model. The build they sent me is not posted anywhere yet as far as I know. I haven't applied it yet to see if SpeedShift actually works or not because I'm doing some testing first of a new PSU first. I'll probably apply it in the next few days. As for SGX, a BIOS update cannot enable SGX on my CPU because from what I understand, it was physically disabled or altogether missing from the 1st stepping.

[QUOTE=chalsall;425263]So, I received this email with relation to the ongoing discussion over on the offical Intel forum:

But following the [URL="https://communities.intel.com/message/371384#371384"]link provided[/URL] results in "We are improving your Intel community experience. The community is undergoing maintenance. We are working to finish our updates as quickly as possible. Please check back soon to see the latest updates.

Seems some cages were indeed rattled at Intel. And the occupants weren't amused....[/QUOTE]

Sorry, I am too dumb to follow: you received an email from whom with what content addressing which bug? Something new?

[QUOTE=pegnose;425294]Sorry, I am too dumb to follow: you received an email from whom with what content addressing which bug? Something new?[/QUOTE]

I think the point is that someone criticized Intel on their official forum, regarding their Help Desk not being up on the Skylake bug. When chalsall went to look, the site was "down for maintenance." It would be fairly ironic if Intel's forum had to go offline, even in part, to do an upgrade. The implication is that the criticism and question really stung somebodies at Intel, and they shut something down until they get their stories together.

[QUOTE=pegnose;425294]Sorry, I am too dumb to follow: you received an email from whom with what content addressing which bug? Something new?[/QUOTE]
I read it like that: He subscribed to the intel forum, so he gets email notifications when someone posts, with the content of the post too. He got such email but when he tried to go to the forum, it was down. Now it is back online, and the message is there. Click on the link.

edit: doh! kladned was faster...