Question Corrupt Windows - hardware failing ?

[marka2049]

Mobo: ASUS ROG STRIX Z490-E GAMING
CPU: Intel Core i9-10900K
RAM: G Skill F4-3600C16-16GVKC x2 (32GB)
Gfx: ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 2080 Ti GAMING OC 11G

Came home to a frozen computer, black screen, but with power on. Reboot and am prompted with a message about automatic repair when windows starts to load. This repair fails and BSOD for CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED. This occurs every single boot and I never get past the loading screen with the spinning circles. No dumps are saved. Tried booting from USB media to repair, and nothing was successful. Could not even boot to safe mode without same BSOD.

Installed Windows (from USB media tool) to secondary drive, which failed 3 times (due to seemingly random BSOD for SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION). Once I was able to get Windows booted on the other drive, I tried to copy over some files from the original drive (~30GB) and BSOD part way through for MEMORY_MANAGEMENT. I had this same issue when trying to copy files from my previous problem (see post linked at bottom).

I think its safe to assume Windows is corrupt, and I know I will need to do another clean install of Windows. My question is why. Could the ram in my system be bad? Could it be a drive issue? Surely I am having some sort of hardware problem.

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Unsure if there is any relevance, but I had a problem with Windows several months ago as well. See my prior post https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...sage-uac-blocking-apps.3686186/#post-22212393

Since that last install, my system has BSOD a handful of times, typically for MEMORY_MANAGEMENT. Not only BSODs, but my system has also frozen with an ear piercing audio glitch on repeat every now and then. Those freezes don't generate any events or dumps.

I will report back with results from memtesting again

 

[Ralston18]

PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition?

Heavy use for gaming, video editing, or bit-mining?

 

[marka2049]

PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition?

Heavy use for gaming, video editing, or bit-mining?

Corsair RM750 80+ Gold. Purchased new in Sept 2020. Unsure exactly what you want for the condition.

Computer is used for gaming. No mining & minimal video editing of small clips. Gaming is a few hours a day at most. Some days see no heavy usage at all. I think I should add that this computer is typically powered on all the time.

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I ran memtest and both sticks are failing. I have tried moving the stick to different slots on mobo to see if any difference, but results are generally the same. One stick fails within 10 minutes while the other takes over an hour.

 

[Bob.B]

Corsair RM750 80+ Gold. Purchased new in Sept 2020. Unsure exactly what you want for the condition.

Computer is used for gaming. No mining & minimal video editing of small clips. Gaming is a few hours a day at most. Some days see no heavy usage at all. I think I should add that this computer is typically powered on all the time.

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I ran memtest and both sticks are failing. I have tried moving the stick to different slots on mobo to see if any difference, but results are generally the same. One stick fails within 10 minutes while the other takes over an hour.

Turn off xmp.
Fit the ram in the proper slots.
Run memtest again.

 

[marka2049]

Turn off xmp.
Fit the ram in the proper slots.
Run memtest again.

Double checked in BIOS -- XMP is off, although it does say XMP in the ram info for mem test. I don't know if that means XMP is on or just XMP ready (stickers on the ram sticks say "Intel XMP 2.0 Ready"). All the speeds shown are same as the sticker as well.

I pulled a couple of sticks (Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400 14-16-16-31) from an older computer and ran memtest. I did not run a complete test, but I had 0 errors in the ~15 minutes I did let it go for. Whereas with the old sticks, they would come up almost immediately.

I am starting to lean toward the sticks of memory being bad, unless I am told otherwise. I do not know why both sticks would go bad like that -- unless they were bad from the start. I believe they should be under warranty, but could another component cause them to do this? For example, could the power supply cause this? Or could inconsistent A/C power provided to the supply cause this? I ask that last question because the power circuit this computer is on does a slight, but noticable dimming (the lights, that is) occasionally when something kicks on (air conditioner, fridge, etc). Nothing would ever shut off from a lack of power, but I am not sure if any of the BSOD or freezes have occurred at the same time as the dimming (I usually have the big light off). Could that be just enough to cause some undesired effects down stream inside the computer?