BSODs due to faulty hardware?

[cluelessguy91]

Hi everyone, I bought some new hardware a few months back (mainboard, CPU, GPU), installed it and after a few weeks I randomly started getting BSODs. Exclusively IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL and during all kinds of programs (games, browser, media player, sometimes just in idle with the crash dump then naming things like my antivirus or the graphics driver). This happened on average every 2-4 weeks, so I didn't feel like dealing with it as I was writing my thesis at the time. I thought it was probably faulty RAM because that was one of the components I did not switch in the upgrade and I know memory sticks can get defects quickly when taking them in and out. The last BSOD I got before everything went to s**t was MEMORY MANAGEMENT. Then 2 weeks ago out of the blue my PC just started giving me BSOD after BSOD in a single day, either IRQL or MEMORY. I decided I had to test the RAM and put my sticks into the PC of my roommate while I put his into my mainboard. His ran perfectly fine for many hours with all possible programs while mine just died completely. Crashed within minutes/seconds of booting to desktop. As at this point I couldn't even make a backup as everything instantly crashed, I couldn't save my memory dumps that I had been collecting. Safe to say they all usually named memory corrupton and ntoskrnl.exe as the culprits. I formatted the my SSD harddrive and reinstalled windows hoping it was just software. Nope. Withing a minute of booting I got bluscreens. All kinds, IRQL, SYSTEM SERVICE EXCEPTION, PAGE FAULT IN NON PAGED AREA, MEMORY MANAGEMENT... I know this is a longshot asking but does anyone have a clue what this could be. It's obviously the hardware but which one? The RAM seems to be fine. I think possibly the mainboard, but I don't want to buy a new one just to have the same shit happening because it's something else...

This is/was my setup:

MB: Asus H170-PLUS D3 Intel H170 So.1151 Dual Channel DDR3 ATX
CPU: Intel Core i5 6600K 4x 3.50GHz So.1151 WOF
Graphics: 4096MB MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4G Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16
RAM: 16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3-1600 DIMM CL9 Dual Kit
HD: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD
PS: some old bequiet 600W
OS: Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

Thanks so much!

 

[jonespwns]

It's possible the memory controller on the MOBO is going bad. but before you jump to that kind of stuff, id'e look into downgrading or upgrading on a driver (chipset driver and video) or two and see if that resolves the issue.

 

[cluelessguy91]

It's possible the memory controller on the MOBO is going bad. but before you jump to that kind of stuff, id'e look into downgrading or upgrading on a driver (chipset driver and video) or two and see if that resolves the issue.

I don't know if its a driver though, I completely wiped the hard drive and did a fresh Windows install, haven't even gotten around to installing chipset or graphics drivers since the system now crashes within about 30-60 seconds after booting to the desktop.

 

[Crazysealions]

It's possible the memory controller on the MOBO is going bad. but before you jump to that kind of stuff, id'e look into downgrading or upgrading on a driver (chipset driver and video) or two and see if that resolves the issue.

I don't know if its a driver though, I completely wiped the hard drive and did a fresh Windows install, haven't even gotten around to installing chipset or graphics drivers since the system now crashes within about 30-60 seconds after booting to the desktop.

Do you get the same problem in safe mode? I guess so, Anyways I doubt it`s driver related especially since you did a fresh install, like Jonespwns said I would suspect the memory controller on the motherboard.

 

[cluelessguy91]

It's possible the memory controller on the MOBO is going bad. but before you jump to that kind of stuff, id'e look into downgrading or upgrading on a driver (chipset driver and video) or two and see if that resolves the issue.

I don't know if its a driver though, I completely wiped the hard drive and did a fresh Windows install, haven't even gotten around to installing chipset or graphics drivers since the system now crashes within about 30-60 seconds after booting to the desktop.

Do you get the same problem in safe mode? I guess so, Anyways I doubt it`s driver related especially since you did a fresh install, like Jonespwns said I would suspect the memory controller on the motherboard.

Actually it stayed steady for longer in safe mode.

 

[jonespwns]

It's possible the memory controller on the MOBO is going bad. but before you jump to that kind of stuff, id'e look into downgrading or upgrading on a driver (chipset driver and video) or two and see if that resolves the issue.

I don't know if its a driver though, I completely wiped the hard drive and did a fresh Windows install, haven't even gotten around to installing chipset or graphics drivers since the system now crashes within about 30-60 seconds after booting to the desktop.

That's why i said DOWNGRADING the driver. Try an earlier version and see if you get any issues. A newer driver could be causing it.

 

[cluelessguy91]

It's possible the memory controller on the MOBO is going bad. but before you jump to that kind of stuff, id'e look into downgrading or upgrading on a driver (chipset driver and video) or two and see if that resolves the issue.

I don't know if its a driver though, I completely wiped the hard drive and did a fresh Windows install, haven't even gotten around to installing chipset or graphics drivers since the system now crashes within about 30-60 seconds after booting to the desktop.

That's why i said DOWNGRADING the driver. Try an earlier version and see if you get any issues. A newer driver could be causing it.

Alright, so I reinstalled Windows 7 on an older hard drive I still had and then tried to install older drivers from the mainboard's support CD as well as the graphics card CD. It got most drivers installed such as USB, LAN and chipset but failed to install things like Realtek Audio drivers and .NET Framework. The NVIDIA drivers for the GPU worked except on the first try it gave me a BSOD "The driver is mismanaging system PTEs". It worked on the second try. It failed to install a lot of other things as well like AVG. Usually already gave me errors at the extraction part. I honestly no longer know what to make of this. Considering all the problems it has with driver installations and the previous memory issues, I reckon it does indeed have something to do with the mainboard. I think the HDD and RAM are fine since I tested those out on other systems. I don't think its the GPU? That leaves only mainboard and CPU. Any last suggestions? Thanks so much guys.