Question B550I Based System keeps crashing, cant figure out culprit

[Henry1050]

I need help troubleshooting my PC, which has been experiencing issues recently. It's been running smoothly for about a year and a half until I started encountering problems while playing Baldur's Gate III. The system would reset unexpectedly, returning to the BIOS splash screen and then loading back into Windows whenever I attempted to launch the game. Even simple tasks after the reset would lead to crashes.

System Specs:

• CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX AM4
• GPU: EVGA FTW GeForce GTX 1080, GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1070 (for troubleshooting)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3600 MHz
• SSD: Intel 660p Series M.2 2280 1TB PCIe NVMe 3.0
• PSU: CORSAIR CX650 80 Plus Bronze Semi Modular
• HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB
• Optical Drive: Digital Pioneer BDR-212V Blu-ray SATA

Initially, I suspected a power supply issue and cleaned the PSU with compressed air. No improvement. I then cleaned and checked the GPUs and even swapped them out for a working GTX 1070. Still, the issue persisted. Additionally, one of the RAM slots stopped functioning, limiting me to a single 8GB stick. I meticulously tested each component, all to no avail.

I couldn't test the CPU or motherboard directly, but upon inspection, I found thermal compound residue on both. After cleaning them with IPA, the system seemed more stable with all of the thermal compound removed. However, the crashes persisted, even after reinstalling the graphics card drivers.

I'm stumped and uncertain about the next steps. It appears to be a motherboard or power delivery issue, but I'm open to suggestions for further troubleshooting. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Additional Notes:

• The GTX 1080 has noticeable coil whine.
• I have both an SSD and HDD, but the BIOS seems to require the HDD for booting, despite Windows being installed on the SSD.

 

[DaleH]

I need help troubleshooting my PC, which has been experiencing issues recently. It's been running smoothly for about a year and a half until I started encountering problems while playing Baldur's Gate III. The system would reset unexpectedly, returning to the BIOS splash screen and then loading back into Windows whenever I attempted to launch the game. Even simple tasks after the reset would lead to crashes.

System Specs:

• CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE B550I AORUS PRO AX AM4
• GPU: EVGA FTW GeForce GTX 1080, GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1070 (for troubleshooting)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3600 MHz
• SSD: Intel 660p Series M.2 2280 1TB PCIe NVMe 3.0
• PSU: CORSAIR CX650 80 Plus Bronze Semi Modular
• HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB
• Optical Drive: Digital Pioneer BDR-212V Blu-ray SATA

Initially, I suspected a power supply issue and cleaned the PSU with compressed air. No improvement. I then cleaned and checked the GPUs and even swapped them out for a working GTX 1070. Still, the issue persisted. Additionally, one of the RAM slots stopped functioning, limiting me to a single 8GB stick. I meticulously tested each component, all to no avail.

I couldn't test the CPU or motherboard directly, but upon inspection, I found thermal compound residue on both. After cleaning them with IPA, the system seemed more stable with all of the thermal compound removed. However, the crashes persisted, even after reinstalling the graphics card drivers.

I'm stumped and uncertain about the next steps. It appears to be a motherboard or power delivery issue, but I'm open to suggestions for further troubleshooting. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Additional Notes:

• The GTX 1080 has noticeable coil whine.
• I have both an SSD and HDD, but the BIOS seems to require the HDD for booting, despite Windows being installed on the SSD.

It could still be the power supply. Cleaning it would not be likely to resolve a problem - temporarily replacing with a known good unit for troubleshooting purposes would be good.

 

[Henry1050]

It could still be the power supply. Cleaning it would not be likely to resolve a problem - temporarily replacing with a known good unit for troubleshooting purposes would be good.

Sorry for not including this, I also tested with another known working 600w power supply from another system. Same crash pattern occurs.