- GPU: MSI RTX 2070 ARMOR 8G
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
- RAM: G.Skill 16GB (2 x 8GB) Ripjaws V, DDR4 3600 MHz, CL16, 1.35V (XMP enabled, @3600)
- PSU: Seasonic Focus Plus 550W Gold (SSR-550FX)
- MOBO: Gigabyte X570 UD (Ultra Durable, BIOS F32)
- STORAGE:
- Samsung NVMe SSD 970 EVO Plus 1 TB (OS)
- Kingston A400 1 TB
- Kingston A400 500 GB
- OS: Windows 10 Home (64-bit)
I have been experiencing a myriad of problems with this 1-year old setup, which was built on-demand by a local independent PC shop. The problems have historically consisted of BSODs and crashes that have occurred since I got the PC.
For the better part of the year, I have been getting BSODs with varying error codes with a frequency of about one or two once a week. (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, to name a few). Usually these crashes would happen while gaming. Sometimes these bluescreens could be preceded by some ominous signs such as my Firefox tabs or games crashing to desktop randomly, sometimes several times in a row, hours before a crash.
I initially suspected the memory, but neither Windows' own Memory Diagnostic tool or Memtest86 found any errors with the RAM, at least not initially. Prime95 ran fine for 6 hours and I couldn't seem to replicate any crashes by running GPU benchmarks.
A month ago, I experienced a series of Firefox tab crashes and game CTDs that made me re-test the RAM that same day. This time, Memtest86 found an error within the first pass. My rationalization was that I had caught the memory on a "bad day", and that my problems were most likely RAM related after all.
I ordered a new RAM kit and sent the old one to be RMA'd. The current RAM is listed with my specs. The old kit was a G.Skill 16GB (2x8GB), Ripjaws V, DDR4 3200MHz.
Initially, things seemed to have improved: I did not suffer any Firefox tab crashes for several weeks, and the overall system stability seemed to have improved. However, I continued to experience semi-frequent crashes to desktop in one of my most played games: ARMA 3. I have gotten at least one other CTD in Squad, both quite demanding games that aren't known for their stability to begin with-- which makes it hard to determine if this is a software or a hardware issue.
Despite the game crashes, I have not had any issues with my Firefox tabs crashing as of late. I did not receive blue screens or any sort of system crashes for about a week after installing the new RAM.
Last weekend, I experienced a system crash while playing ARMA 3: I saw a blue screen for about a split second, but before any message could load, the PC shut down and restarted unexpectedly. The screen was black and my fans were blasting at full force: despite waiting for several minutes, the computer did not post or boot back into Windows, forcing me to restart it manually.
The computer restarted and took a few extra seconds to post, but booted into Windows this time. My fans continued to blare loudly, so I once again shut down the PC to look at my fan settings in the BIOS. The PC had cleared the CMOS settings and I had to redo all my fan profiles. This was new, all of my previous BSODs restarted cleanly and saved a dump file, this one did not.
I am at a loss for what my issue could be after already having changed the RAM. The variety of problems I have experienced now have me suspecting that the motherboard itself, or the GPU or PSU might be faulty. I've tried the usual things for general troubleshooting:
- reinstalling Windows several times
- trying different GPU drivers
- updating my BIOS
- reseating components
- changing Windows power settings
- buying a new NVMe SSD and moving the OS there
- running malware scans (Malwarebytes and HitmanPro have always been clean)