Is my BSOD a motherboard problem?

[ffooby]

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: HIS Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card
Case: Rosewill Challenger-U3 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 650W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit

So I've had quite a few different problems with my new computer since my brother helped me build it about a week ago. It crashed a handful of times the first day I used it. I would either be downloading windows updates or watching a stream or video-chatting on skype and it would hard lock and shut off, NOT bsod at this point. Often times I could log on and stay stable for hours if I was doing light internet browsing or even watching movies that weren't hd. It seemed if I watched something in HD, it would crash. I thought this might just be onboard graphics being bad, so when I got my 7870, I thought it would go away. It did not. It started BSOD'ing. I take my memory out and use one stick at a time with both sticks, still bsod. I took out my graphics card, and it still crashes, giving me a bsod. I assume it can't be the memory or the graphics card.

It's stumping me because I can be stable if I'm doing light usage on it. Sometimes it will crash before I get to the login screen. Sometimes it will randomly crash, or continue to crash on windows updates. It will ALWAYS crash when I do something with heavy usage, like updating my windows experience index - I always count on it crashing on that.

Is this the motherboard?

 

[ffooby]

So, I reinstalled windows again, sticking it on the usb according to that video. I get on, and I have my graphics card plugged in this time. I download the driver for the graphics card. I update windows experience index since I've been using it as a sort of "test" in the beginning, and it crashed before I even bothered with any windows updates or anything else.

Am I stupid to base anything off of crashing on WEI or should I just never crash on that to begin with? The problem can't necessarily just be my graphics card, as like I said, I've crashed plenty without it.

 

[jaquith]

Have you updated your BIOS to the latest version? ; BIOS version F9

If you remove the GPU and re-run the WEI then what happens?

 

[ffooby]

BIOS is f9 out of the box. I've reinstalled windows almost a handful of times now; one of the times I reinstalled it without the graphics card in, I ran the WEI and it went through fine, but then later on I crashed on the windows update for the .net framework.

Edit: Misread what you said, I'll give it a shot. But even if it doesn't crash, I'm not sure what to glean from that if it's still crashing without the gpu.

 

[ffooby]

Tried to run WEI before I took out my gpu. It crashed a little under midway through, during something called the direct 3d ALU assessment. Took out the gpu, tried running the WEI again, and it crashed but gave me an error I never saw before. It stopped during the part where it was testing my storage, my harddrive I guess. It said the kernel logger was in use by another program or something to that effect; I didn't have time to read it because a few seconds later my computer blue screened.

Edit: It crashes on the part where it analyzes the cpu as well so I guess it doesn't matter as much to be exact with where it crashes during the WEI.

 

[ffooby]

I'm also now seeing blue screens that say "machine check exception".

 

[ffooby]

Best answer selected by ffooby.

 

[ffooby]

Jaquith! It's solved. It was an improperly installed cpu heatsink/fan. It was running too hot, I just didn't realize the temperatures were wrong/too high because I've never monitored temperatures before. Reseated the fan and put a little more thermal paste in, and there are no more crashes.

Thank you a ton for your responses and for trying to help.

 

[jaquith]

Well that's wonderful!!!!

Yep temps crossed my mind as well as the problem being load induced - http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/321721-30-bsod-motherboard-problem#t2144246