Thomas_Alex

Reputable
Dec 6, 2016
24
1
4,525
Hey,

After many years of using an AMD FX-8320 CPU, I've decided to move on to a newer, faster CPU, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Box. In order to achieve this, I've changed a few other components of my pc. To be more specific, apart from the CPU mentioned above, I've also bought a new MOBO, MSI B450 Tomahawk Max, a set of G.Skill RipjawsV 16GB DDR4-3200MHz (F4-3200C16D-16GVKB) and a Samsung 970 Evo plus M.2 500GB NVMe ( MZ-V7S500BW). So, my current build is:

  • CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Box
  • MOTHERBOARD - MSI B450 Tomahawk Max
  • RAM - G.Skill RipjawsV 16GB DDR4-3200MHz (F4-3200C16D-16GVKB), Placed on slots DIMMA2 & DIMMB2 (that's the recommended position)
  • GPU - Palit GeForce® 1060 DUAL 3GB, Placed on PCIe 3.0 x16 slot
  • SSD - Samsung 970 Evo plus M.2 500GB NVMe ( MZ-V7S500BW)
  • CPU COOLER - CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo (with a second corsair fan Installed on the heatsink)
  • PSU - Corsair VS Series™ VS650 — 650 Watt 80 PLUS®
  • HDD 1 - WD Blue 1TB PC Hard Drive - 7200 RPM Class
  • HDD 2 - WD model from 2000s 160 GB
  • KEYBOARD - Microsoft Basic Keyboard 1.0A
  • MOUSE - Razer Deathadder Elite
  • EXTENAL SOUND CARD - M Audio M-TRACK PLUS
  • CASE - Corsair Carbide Series™ 300R
  • DISPLAY - Asus VG248QE
So, what's the problem with all these? After assembling the computer and turning it on, I've faced a couple of issues.

Firstly, the computer was displaying some random visual "noise" while on BIOS screen or booting logo. I don't have a picture of that sadly, but you'll understand what I'm talking about later. Apart from that, the PC couldn't recognize the SSD, no matter what. So I decided to open the case, and see if I've made any mistakes while installing the GPU and/or the SSD. I reinstalled both of them, removed all the other SATA connections of both HDDs (the SATA cables were connected on ports 1&2 which according to MSI are OK when an NVMe SSD is installed) and the SSD finally appeared! The graphics issues though persisted.

I've decided to go on and install Windows 10 (via USB), and it worked perfectly. While on installation loading screen though, the screen was looking like this guy's screen (click me). Also, the visual noise I've described before, looked a lot like the picture on that link. The system rebooted and boom! No Windows for you mate! Back to BIOS screen, with the SSD missing again! I didn't know what to do, so I decided to use my laptop to flash the latest BIOS update to the Motherboard, like many others on the forum did. After a successful flash, the PC rebooted and all of a sudden, it recognized both the SSD and the HDDs (which I've reconnected) AND all of the graphical glitches were gone! Then, I went on to setup my Windows Offline profile, and installed the latest Nvidia Drivers for my graphics card. What caught my attention though, was the not so smooth mouse visual movement (it looked like watching someone else's mouse on a YouTube video). After that, I restarted the PC in order activate the A-XMP 1 profile (so as to get the clocks of my RAM to 3200 from 2133) and turned off the PC to call it a day.

Today, I've turned on the computer, (which was disconnected from power during the night) and while on loading screen, the same glitches reappeared during boot up. When Windows loaded, they stopped. And that's where the fun begins. I've opened Edge to browse the web, and when I've opened a heavy site, the Edge window was partially covered for a second with some black boxes (like a pattern of a chess table). After that, I've decided to go on and open many more sites to see how will the PC react. After a few pages, some weird random colored boxes appeared on top of the screen and they either remained visible or disappeared depending on whether I moved or not the Edge's page up and down (click me). After I closed the page, the glitches disappeared and never appeared again on any website. Also, the "not so smooth" mouse remains an issue and loading content heavy websites takes some time (for the visual elements to appear), like I'm using a pretty slow internet connection. Last but not least, while I was typing those lines, the PSU made the sound of shutting down, but no power loss occurred, nor the PC restarted.

On the whole, I'm experiencing many different issues, and I don't know what might be the root of the problem. If you have any ideas on what might be the case here, PLEASE, drop me a line!

Thanks!
Thomas
 

Thomas_Alex

Reputable
Dec 6, 2016
24
1
4,525
test with a different psu or gpu?
Hey rgd!

As the day progressed, I've tried to remove the GPU and clean it. I've applied new thermal paste and reassembled the whole thing, but the problem got worse. So worse that the PC restarted after crashing from visiting a content heavy site. Also, changing pci ports didn't help. Tomorrow I'm going to try the GPU on a different PC. Furthermore I'll try to use an alternative GPU on my PC. I've started to think that the GPU and PSU problems aren't related actually. I'm not posting any screenshots, as you can imagine how my screen looks. What got my attention though was that at some point, windows 10 notified me that there's something wrong with the graphics card or driver, but I can't really remember the exact notification message.

Last but not least, I have to note that the graphics card was working perfectly fine on my old build. The problems started when I've installed the GPU on the new build. What did I do between the old and new build? I've disassembled and cleaned the GPU, applying fresh thermal paste on the graphics processor. Also another person who was using the computer, confirmed that the PSU did the same "shutdown sound" a few days ago while it was still used on the old build. This sound didn't affect the performance of the PC (When it happened, he was playing GTAV Online).

UPDATE: I've tested the GPU on another system which is also using a 1060 with windows 10 and it malfunctioned there as well. So it seems like the card is definitely problematic.
What about the MOBO though ? Maybe it is faulty as well and that's what rendered the GPU useless in the first place. What's your thoughts on this?

Thanks!
 
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