Strange problems with my intel I5 build

[spiral out]

Hi, I've been having intermittent issues with this computer since I built it. Thanks for reading as its a long post.
New Parts
Motherboard MSI B85M-E45
CPU Intel Core i5 4570
RAM Corsair vengeance 2x4gb 1600

Reused
Corsair power supply
Sandisk extreme 120gb SSD drive

First problem I ran into back in Feb/Mar was with the computer blue screening and the ssd drive disappearing from the bios, it got so bad even the motherboard stopped posting and i just got no signal on the screen. Got it posting again and ran some tests on the RAM and put it down to the auto ram timings and the fact that the voltage of 1.5v was slightly undervolted in the bios, upped the voltage to over 1.5v and reinstalled windows 7 and all was fine till july when i had a few crashes with steam but running chkdisk seemed to solve it initially.

A week or so later I was browsing the web and the screen just went black. rebooted machine all fine for an hour or two then same thing, it happened a couple more times and then the computer just point blank refused to load into windows, it would post and windows would show the loading screen but as soon as windows was loaded it went blank, tried a different DVI cable and same thing, eventually tested on another monitor and it loaded fine with both DVI cables just no longer with the viewsonic monitor I was using.

Tested the viewsonic monitor on all three of the other pcs in the house over dvi and no problem, tried a Ubuntu live disk again with the DVI connection and it worked fine with the viewsonic monitor, so reinstalled windows 7 got to the point of reinstalling the intel graphics drivers and same problem would post and show loading screen then blank, works fine over DVI with other monitor so used that over the summer holidays while trying to find a solution, contacted MSI and they asked me to reinstall the drivers and haven't got back to me since, looked at the Intel forums and I see there are a lot of similar problems with there integrated graphics (would have gone AMD route if I had been aware) but still unable to solve it.

Bought a new monitor and its been working fine for the last week and bam today I'm having the original problem that I had with the computer of the SSD drive disappearing from the bios, moving to a different sata port resulted in the drive being seen again but after three times of doing this the windows 7 installation is corrupted again. Other mechanical storage drive that I have in the machine is working fine.

So in summery I thought it was a RAM issue initially but running that at the right timings and correct voltage resulted in a pass in memtest back in March, computer ran fine with no more major crashes till July.

I also tried swapping sata cables but same problems are back again.

Installed the latest bios on the motherboard in Aug and ran memtest again beforehand for the time suggested on the MSI forum, which it passed once again so assume RAM is fine still.

Problem with blank screen on the viewsonic monitor also happened with windows 7 installation I have on an older mechanical hard drive which I installed when testing the problem back in march.

I assume these two issues are unrelated, and am still unsure if it's a faulty motherboard or CPU. I don't have another i5 build to swap out components, but am getting closer to buying a new motherboard but am hesitant as I don't want to get stuck with this faulty motherboard if it is the case. .

Can anyone suggest anything else that I can try? as this is first time I've been stumped and I'm actually board of reinstalling windows 7 now.

[MrRockliffe]

Any new bios updates for motherboard?

[spiral out]

I updated to the latest bios a few weeks back, I don't think there have been anymore since.

[MrRockliffe]

So does the system work fine with a mechanical hard drive?

[spiral out]

I'm just about to plug it back in to test, it definitely didn't work with the view sonic monitor, that seems to be a hardware issue of some sort.

Edit
Ok back old Samsung hard drive, guess i'll use it for a few weeks and see how things go. It's so slow in comparison.

Will put the SanDisk extreme in another computer to run some tests on it, pretty sure it passed the tests previously though, do SSD drive fail differently to older had drives?

[Bonebreaker777]

SSD controllers sometimes have incompatibility problems.

What does your S.M.A.R.T. say?

Is your SSD this > http://m.hexus.net/tech/reviews/stor...eme-ssd-120gb/

If yes,you have your culprit. SandForce controllers are famously problematic. (Try to sell and buy a different SSD like Crucial MX100 or SanDisk Ultra Plus).

[spiral out]

Ok i think i have got to the bottom of it, i error tested it with HD tune and it had 8% bad sectors and i have just now found sandisks own dashboard utility, i was using the older toolkit which didn't do anything.

Ran the short smart test in the Dashboard utility and it confirmed the errors found in HD Tune and running the long smart test made the drive disappear from windows. I guess thats my answer to that issue.

Wonder if sandisk are giving out newer drives as a replacment now.

Anyone heard of a graphics adapter no longer working with a certain monitor though, when both work fine with other equipment?

[Agent]

running the long smart test made the drive disappear from windows. I guess thats my answer to that issue.

That's a classic Sandforce problem.

If the drive drops from the BIOS / Windows, it's time to backup and RMA it. Just check you're on the latest firmware before you do.

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I have installed the latest firmware and was going to secure erase before giving up completely. Just waiting on sandisk to reply.

[Bonebreaker777]

Wonder if they will give you a refurbished unit or a new SanDisk of the same capacity (hope it is the second).

[spiral out]

They've offered me a brand new 120gb extreme ll and they are collecting the faulty drive at there own cost. I was dreading an rma with them because I'd read so many bad things about sending back my faulty sansa clip (that i didn't bother in the end) but this may restore my faith in the company.