[SOLVED] Instability issues, what should I upgrade?

[prismagon69]

Hello everyone,
I'm new to forums, so I'm sorry if I mess something up in the process of posting this question.
I'm having long term issues with my gaming PC. Since buying it, I was having instability issues, blue screens of death and boot problems. My frame rate in most games is high, however, I'm having problems with games crashing, or freezing for minutes on end. I also encounter rampant frame drops.
When trying to boot to Windows, I encounter error messages telling me that there is no boot device present and/or winload.exe or other files are either corrupt, or missing.
My question is: If I'm looking to upgrade my RAM to 16GB, higher frequency or my SSD, will it fix the problems?
My specs:
I5-7400
GTX-1050 Ti
HyperX Fury Black 2x4GB 2133MHz
Kingston SSD 120GB (System installed on this drive)
WD Blue 1TB
MSI B350 motherboard

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[punkncat]

B350 is an AMD chipset. You probably mean B250?

I wouldn't suggest throwing new parts at an existing issue without knowing or having some idea what is causing them.

Without knowing more I would check the integrity of your SSD drive, reformat it, and reinstall Windows. Disconnect any other storage drives you have in the machine while you install OS. If these other drives were ever OS drives make sure that all the previous partitions have been deleted.

 

[prismagon69]

B350 is an AMD chipset. You probably mean B250?

I wouldn't suggest throwing new parts at an existing issue without knowing or having some idea what is causing them.

Without knowing more I would check the integrity of your SSD drive, reformat it, and reinstall Windows. Disconnect any other storage drives you have in the machine while you install OS. If these other drives were ever OS drives make sure that all the previous partitions have been deleted.

Thanks for the reply,
My bad I mistook the model of the motherboard. I have already reinstalled the system in the past, worked for a month or so, then the issues got back. I should've also stated that I have asked basically everyone I know, what could be causing these issues and most answers were faulty SSD.
Thanks again for the help

 

[punkncat]

If you are running an XMP profile, turn it off. (I cannot recall if that board will allow or not). Install your OS fresh while XMP is off. Check all your cables and such.

I recall there being a bad run of Kingston drives, but that has been a while.

 

[geofelt]

First of all, run memtest86
https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm
Memtest86 is the gold standard for testing ram.
It boots from a usb stick and does not use windows.
If you can run a full pass with NO errors, your ram should be ok.


A perennial question on upgrading ram:
Here is my stock answer:

Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
The internal workings are designed for the capacity of the kit.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards, can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when more sticks are involved.

If you do buy more disparate sticks, they should be the same speed, voltage and cas numbers.
Even then your chances of working are less than 100%
I might guess 90% success for intel and less for amd.

What is your plan "B" if the new stick/s do not work?

If you want 16gb, my suggestion if you have an intel motherboard is to buy a 2 x 8gb kit that matches your current specs.
Then, try adding in your old 8gb,
If it works, good; you now have extra ram.
If not, sell the old ram or keep it as a spare.

You can run CHKDSK to look for corrupt file links.

When you installed windows on the ssd, was the HDD also connected.
If it was, windows placed a hidden recovery partition on the HDD making it a required device to be able to boot.

As to the freezing issue, here are some possibilities:
Most likely, I think is that your stock intel cooler has come loose, causing throttling.
See my remounting instructions at the end of the post.

120gb is really too small for a windows C drive.
Many things default to the C drive.
As a ssd fills up it will lose performance and endurance.
With the current low ssd prices, see if you can't buy a 500gb or 1tb ssd to hold everything.
Repurpose your 1tb HDD as an external backup.

Sometimes motherboard bios updates address instability issues.
Look at your current bios level and see if there is an update that looks like it might address your problem.
I would not update a bios on just speculation.
A failed bios flash can be difficult to recover from.

---------------how to mount the stock Intel cooler--------------

The stock Intel cooler can be tricky to install.
A poor installation will result in higher cpu temperatures.
If properly mounted, you should expect temperatures at idle to be 10-15c. over ambient.

To mount the Intel stock cooler properly, place the motherboard on top of the foam or cardboard backing that was packed with the motherboard.
The stock cooler will come with paste pre applied, it looks like three grey strips.
The 4 push pins should come in the proper position for installation, that is with the pins rotated in the opposite direction of the arrow,(clockwise)
and pulled up as far as they can go.
Take the time to play with the pushpin mechanism until you know how they work.

Orient the 4 pins so that they are exactly over the motherboard holes.
If one is out of place, you will damage the pins which are delicate.
Push down on a DIAGONAL pair of pins at the same time. Then the other pair.

When you push down on the top black pins, it expands the white plastic pins to fix the cooler in place.

If you do them one at a time, you will not get the cooler on straight.
Lastly, look at the back of the motherboard to verify that all 4 pins are equally through the motherboard, and that the cooler is on firmly.
This last step must be done, which is why the motherboard should be out of the case to do the job. Or you need a case with a opening that lets you see the pins.
It is possible to mount the cooler with the motherboard mounted in the case, but you can then never be certain that the push pins are inserted properly
unless you can verify that the pins are through the motherboard and locked.

If you should need to remove the cooler, turn the pins counter clockwise to unlock them.
You will need to clean off the old paste and reapply new if you ever take the cooler off.
Clean off old paste with alcohol and a lint free paper like a coffee filter.
Apply new paste sparingly. A small rice sized drop in the center will spread our under heat and pressure.
Too much paste is bad, it will act as an insulator.
It is hard to use too little.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[prismagon69]

If you are running an XMP profile, turn it off. (I cannot recall if that board will allow or not). Install your OS fresh while XMP is off. Check all your cables and such.

I recall there being a bad run of Kingston drives, but that has been a while.

I never touched XMP at all. I will check the cables again, just in case I missed something.

 

[prismagon69]

First of all, run memtest86
https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm
Memtest86 is the gold standard for testing ram.
It boots from a usb stick and does not use windows.
If you can run a full pass with NO errors, your ram should be ok.


A perennial question on upgrading ram:
Here is my stock answer:

Ram is sold in kits for a reason.
A motherboard must manage all the ram using the same specs of voltage, cas and speed.
The internal workings are designed for the capacity of the kit.
Ram from the same vendor and part number can be made up of differing manufacturing components over time.
Some motherboards, can be very sensitive to this.
This is more difficult when more sticks are involved.

If you do buy more disparate sticks, they should be the same speed, voltage and cas numbers.
Even then your chances of working are less than 100%
I might guess 90% success for intel and less for amd.

What is your plan "B" if the new stick/s do not work?

If you want 16gb, my suggestion if you have an intel motherboard is to buy a 2 x 8gb kit that matches your current specs.
Then, try adding in your old 8gb,
If it works, good; you now have extra ram.
If not, sell the old ram or keep it as a spare.

You can run CHKDSK to look for corrupt file links.

When you installed windows on the ssd, was the HDD also connected.
If it was, windows placed a hidden recovery partition on the HDD making it a required device to be able to boot.

As to the freezing issue, here are some possibilities:
Most likely, I think is that your stock intel cooler has come loose, causing throttling.
See my remounting instructions at the end of the post.

120gb is really too small for a windows C drive.
Many things default to the C drive.
As a ssd fills up it will lose performance and endurance.
With the current low ssd prices, see if you can't buy a 500gb or 1tb ssd to hold everything.
Repurpose your 1tb HDD as an external backup.

Sometimes motherboard bios updates address instability issues.
Look at your current bios level and see if there is an update that looks like it might address your problem.
I would not update a bios on just speculation.
A failed bios flash can be difficult to recover from.

---------------how to mount the stock Intel cooler--------------

The stock Intel cooler can be tricky to install.
A poor installation will result in higher cpu temperatures.
If properly mounted, you should expect temperatures at idle to be 10-15c. over ambient.

To mount the Intel stock cooler properly, place the motherboard on top of the foam or cardboard backing that was packed with the motherboard.
The stock cooler will come with paste pre applied, it looks like three grey strips.
The 4 push pins should come in the proper position for installation, that is with the pins rotated in the opposite direction of the arrow,(clockwise)
and pulled up as far as they can go.
Take the time to play with the pushpin mechanism until you know how they work.

Orient the 4 pins so that they are exactly over the motherboard holes.
If one is out of place, you will damage the pins which are delicate.
Push down on a DIAGONAL pair of pins at the same time. Then the other pair.

When you push down on the top black pins, it expands the white plastic pins to fix the cooler in place.

If you do them one at a time, you will not get the cooler on straight.
Lastly, look at the back of the motherboard to verify that all 4 pins are equally through the motherboard, and that the cooler is on firmly.
This last step must be done, which is why the motherboard should be out of the case to do the job. Or you need a case with a opening that lets you see the pins.
It is possible to mount the cooler with the motherboard mounted in the case, but you can then never be certain that the push pins are inserted properly
unless you can verify that the pins are through the motherboard and locked.

If you should need to remove the cooler, turn the pins counter clockwise to unlock them.
You will need to clean off the old paste and reapply new if you ever take the cooler off.
Clean off old paste with alcohol and a lint free paper like a coffee filter.
Apply new paste sparingly. A small rice sized drop in the center will spread our under heat and pressure.
Too much paste is bad, it will act as an insulator.
It is hard to use too little.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Memtest didn't detect any issues with my RAM, so that's nice. I have also tried CHKDSK incase my SSD is failing, that didn't detect any issues either.
As you said, this could be caused by thermal throttling, my thermals are very stable, or rather I will say they won't exceed 70°C under load.
Thanks for the reply, it has shown the problem to be much more complicated than I thought.