BSOD - GA-78LMT-USB3 causing it?

[fudjy]

First post, so bear with me!

I currently have the following hardware running Windows 10 64-bit:
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard
AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core Processor
2x4GB DDR3 Value Select RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 GPU
Corsair CX500 PSU

I've recently been getting WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR BSOD errors, bugcheck does 0x124 (0xFFFF9D09F0C6D028, 0xB0800000, 0x60151), file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll. WhoCrashed gives me the following information:

Spoiler

On Fri 29/12/2017 00:51:44 your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\122917-32046-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: hal.dll (hal+0x3BF1F)
Bugcheck code: 0x124 (0x0, 0xFFFF9D09F0C6D028, 0xB0800000, 0x60151)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA).
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This problem might also be caused because of overheating (thermal issue).
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.

Event viewer gives a little more information than WhoCrashed was able to give me, with the following error and details:

Spoiler

A fatal hardware error has occurred.

Reported by component: Processor Core
Error Source: Machine Check Exception
Error Type: Cache Hierarchy Error:
Processor APIC ID: 2

And the XML details of the event:

Spoiler

- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
- <System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-WHEA-Logger" Guid="{C26C4F3C-3F66-4E99-8F8A-39405CFED220}" />
<EventID>18</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2017-12-29T00:53:01.990884300Z" />
<EventRecordID>1797</EventRecordID>
<Correlation ActivityID="{4190D6E7-A2A9-4104-B75A-36578B1EF12A}" />
<Execution ProcessID="3284" ThreadID="3656" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Tudge-Desktop</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-19" />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data Name="ErrorSource">3</Data>
<Data Name="ApicId">2</Data>
<Data Name="MCABank">1</Data>
<Data Name="MciStat">0xb080000000060151</Data>
<Data Name="MciAddr">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="MciMisc">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="ErrorType">9</Data>
<Data Name="TransactionType">0</Data>
<Data Name="Participation">256</Data>
<Data Name="RequestType">5</Data>
<Data Name="MemorIO">256</Data>
<Data Name="MemHierarchyLvl">1</Data>
<Data Name="Timeout">256</Data>
<Data Name="OperationType">256</Data>
<Data Name="Channel">256</Data>
<Data Name="Length">928</Data>
<Data Name="RawData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ata>
</EventData>
</Event>

I tried some basic troubleshooting myself:
- I've checked temperatures using CoreTemp and NZXT's CAM and can see that my CPU and GPU generally don't get above 40°C, so I can't see that they're getting too hot
- I used the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to check RAM, and can't see that there's any issues there

- I checked my drivers, all seem up to date. However, when checking my motherboard drivers, I noticed that there are no drivers available for my motherboard (revision 4.1) for Windows 10. Does this mean that my motherboard isn't compatible? I've been running Win10 on this board for at least a year, why am I only just seeing this? Is this likely to be the cause of these BSODs, and will replacing it at a cost I can't afford definitely fix this?

If you need any more information please let me know.

Thanks in advance,
Matt

 

[jr9]

Well if you try to run a game that is too old for a PC it won't cause complete system crashes like that it would just run badly or the game itself may crash but not a machine check error like that. Sometimes older hardware fails and something like shaking it up a bit like reinstalling a DIMM fixes it. I have an old sandy bridge board that it takes 4-5 installations for it to accept a new video card. Hardware issues cause inconsistencies like that and sometimes hardware partially fails or sometimes fails completely at random times then fixes itself. FX8350 is the route if you want to be super cost effective but honestly more often then not for people on AM3 I recommend Ryzen or Core i5.

That builds looks fine. Lines up good with a 960GTX. Huge upgrade still. Down the road you could swap the Ryzen 5 for the next next gen ryzen (AMD promised to stick with AM4 until Ryzen generation 3) and upgrade the GPU in a couple years. 4 Core processors are starting to lag behind a touch in high end gaming which is why for most gaming builds that arent Intel based I recommend Ryzen 7. The RAM is fine 8GB is solid and RAM is expensive ATM so 16GB is more luxury and most gaming machines don't NEED it.

 

[fudjy]

Well if you try to run a game that is too old for a PC it won't cause complete system crashes like that it would just run badly or the game itself may crash but not a machine check error like that. Sometimes older hardware fails and something like shaking it up a bit like reinstalling a DIMM fixes it. I have an old sandy bridge board that it takes 4-5 installations for it to accept a new video card. Hardware issues cause inconsistencies like that and sometimes hardware partially fails or sometimes fails completely at random times then fixes itself. FX8350 is the route if you want to be super cost effective but honestly more often then not for people on AM3 I recommend Ryzen or Core i5.

That builds looks fine. Lines up good with a 960GTX. Huge upgrade still. Down the road you could swap the Ryzen 5 for the next next gen ryzen (AMD promised to stick with AM4 until Ryzen generation 3) and upgrade the GPU in a couple years. 4 Core processors are starting to lag behind a touch in high end gaming which is why for most gaming builds that arent Intel based I recommend Ryzen 7. The RAM is fine 8GB is solid and RAM is expensive ATM so 16GB is more luxury and most gaming machines don't NEED it.

While the FX8350 would be a cheaper solution, I figured I'd be better off replacing my motherboard to catch up with DDR4 and newer sockets like AM4. If I bought the FX8350 I'd be tying myself down to AM3+ again which I thought was fairly old and not used much anymore, so I'd only find further down the line that I need to move to AM4 (or another more recent socket) anyway.

The Ryzen 7 looks to be around another £100 which doesn't sit very well with my budget, which is why I went for the Ryzen 5. Should I be looking at Intel or elsewhere instead?

 

[jr9]

I only suggest an FX chip is you are on an extreme budget. Sometimes people from other parts of the work cannot do a full $1500 build and are more looking to replace their Core 2 Duo with Core 2 Quad in 2017.

If you can afford Ryzen it is a good chip. Based on your graphics card you are looking at midrange so something like Ryzen 5 1600 would probably be perfect. Just avoid the X versions they aren't economical and you can easily overclock non X versions if desired. Ryzen 7 I only recommend to people doing streaming, encoding, things that use a lot of cores which normal gaming doesn't just yet. More cores will not give you more FPS in most current games. The alternative is something like a Core i5.

The other paths are Ryzen 3 or Core i3 unless you are looking for cost cutting. These builds would work with very little future proofing or ability to do workstation tasks (encoding, streaming, production, virtualization).

 

[fudjy]

I used my PC all day yesterday with no issues, but today playing AC Syndicate my PC has restarted itself randomly again after about 10 minutes of play. Looking at WhoCrashed it left the same error as the BSODs were doing, but didn't display a BSOD before restarting. Interestingly the error shown in Event Viewer has changed this time:

Spoiler

A fatal hardware error has occured.

Component: AMD Northbridge
Error Source: Machine Check Exception
Error Type: 11
Processor APIC ID: 0

Previously, component was showing as 'Processor Core', and error type was showing as 'Cache hierarchy error'. I assume AMD Northbridge is still referring to my CPU?

 

[jr9]

Changed something and got a different error, always fun. I'd try that GA-MA770T-UD3 you salvaged with the Phenom 2. There is no way that two different processors aren't working properly and AMD Northbridge points right at the motherboard. There isn't another primary component it could be. At the end of this the BSOD - GA-78LMT-USB3 is the only suspect left. It's not CPU, GPU, PSU, RAM, PSU (unless both you tried were very low wattage), hard drive, or Windows or software.