Is my motherboard shot? Bluescreens on startup, even with a drive from another computer.

[Griffin_4]

I built this system in July and have had no problems for the most part. This issue started last weekend, I got a blue screen playing BF1 and could not boot at all the rest of the night. I went to bed, and the next morning, everything was fine! I played a few hours during the week and didn't have any problems at all. On Thursday night, I had the same problem, but the computer has not been able to successfully boot since.

I kept getting a sequence of bluescreens related to drivers, reaching to invalid memory, kmode_exception_not_handled, and irql_not_less_or_equal. It seems like the bluescreen changes every time I try to boot. The only hardware change that occurred in this time was charging my girlfriend's pebble watch from the front USB ports on the computer.

Before I go into what I've done to diagnose this so far, this is my system comp:
ASUS Maximus VIII Impact
i7-6700K
2x8GB GSkill TridentZ DDR4-4000
Gigabyte GTX 980Ti XTREME GAMING OC
1x1TB,2x500GB Samsung SSD
Corsair H105 Liquid Cooler
Corsair SF600 SFX PSU

Here's what I've done:
1. Unplugged all memory, then tested each stick individually. Same errors came up.
2. Unplugged all of my SSDs and tried to boot from a drive from another computer. No change.
3. Disconnected GPU and connected monitor to motherboard. Same errors.
4. Unplugged everything but power and monitor.
5. MemTest86 run off of a USB - freezes 38 seconds in. I think this means that the problem is larger than memory, because memtest would have just encountered a memory error and continued, not frozen altogether. Now, memtest freezes during the initialization at "retrieving CPU MSR data" and doesn't even get to testing.

I am pretty sure the diagnosis here is that either my motherboard, CPU, or PSU is shot. What do you think? I am confused about the problems happening a week ago and then it being fine for a few days before starting up again. To me, this indicates that something in the environment is causing the problem, but nothing has really changed in the past week.

edit: For clarification: the bluescreens happen after the motherboard splash, as windows tries to start. Sometimes during "automatic repair". Sometimes it just powercycles at the point where it would normally load from the drive, then bluescreens on the next boot.

 

[ac13044]

could be faulty ram i know you have used memtest try diff ram see if the problem persists

 

[Griffin_4]

could be faulty ram i know you have used memtest try diff ram see if the problem persists

All I have laying around is some DDR3 memory from another computer; would it really be two sticks of RAM failing at the same time? I've already tried using each stick separately with no change in symptoms.

 

[Rob423]

Can you access your BIOS and check your temps?

Try a fresh batch of thermal compound and make sure your HSF is working properly.

 

[ac13044]

well could be both ram - cannot rule them out when 1 dstick is installed does the blue screen appear

 

[ac13044]

try performing backup in clean boot state.
Putting your system in clean boot state helps in identifying if any third party applications or startup items are causing the issue.
Try the steps provided under Step 1 in the below article to put your computer in clean boot mode.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135
Step 2: If you are not facing any issue while trying to perform backup now, then run the Memory Diagnostics Tool manually.

If the Windows Memory Diagnostics tool doesn't run automatically, you can run it manually.
a. Open Memory Diagnostics Tool by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type Memory, and then click Diagnose your computer's memory problems. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
b. Choose when to run the tool.
For more information see: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Diagnosing-memory-problems-on-your-computer

 

[Griffin_4]

Can you access your BIOS and check your temps?

Try a fresh batch of thermal compound and make sure your HSF is working properly.

Yes, I have full bios access

My CPU cooler is a closed-circuit liquid cooling thing. I've verified that the pump inside is working (unplugged it from power, watched CPU temp go up, then plugged it back in and watched it go down). It doesn't seem to be a cooling problem, though this is all in a mini-ITX case so that is the first thing I assumed. The CPU stays at a comfortable 31/32C in the BIOS.

try performing backup in clean boot state.

And I cannot get windows to boot, so I cannot put it in a 'clean boot state'. I've also tried booting from another hard drive (and from a memtest86 USB) so I am convinced that the problem is not storage device related.

 

[Rob423]

[/quotemsg]

And I cannot get windows to boot, so I cannot put it in a 'clean boot state'. I've also tried booting from another hard drive (and from a memtest86 USB) so I am convinced that the problem is not storage device related.

[/quotemsg]

You mentioned your tried booting from another hard drive... Did this already have an OS on it? Or was this a clean drive that you tried reinstalling the OS on?

 

[Griffin_4]

And I cannot get windows to boot, so I cannot put it in a 'clean boot state'. I've also tried booting from another hard drive (and from a memtest86 USB) so I am convinced that the problem is not storage device related.

[/quotemsg]

You mentioned your tried booting from another hard drive... Did this already have an OS on it? Or was this a clean drive that you tried reinstalling the OS on?

[/quotemsg]

It was a windows installation from my old computer which my girlfriend now uses as a CAD workstation. The exact same symptoms persisted with this drive. I didn't do a clean install or anything. Memtest86 also fails to load properly from a USB. I'm looking around for one of my linux liveUSBs as well to see if that spits out any more information. I'm also going to get some new ram tomorrow and confirm once and for all that this is not a memory problem.

 

[Griffin_4]

I checked with new memory, no change. I went out and got a new motherboard, attached everything up so that it was only motherboard, CPU, SSD, and cooler, and the problem persists. The only parts that are the same are the CPU, cooler, and SSD. Since I already diagnosed that the SSD was not the problem, and tried again with a different SSD, the only possibility that remains is that the CPU got shot somehow. I have no idea how; it always ran cool and was fine for 3 months, but the CPU must be the problem. The worst part is that I bent a pin on the old motherboard during the swapover; the cover that ASUS provides slipped off and fell directly on the pins. It's been a horrible couple of days.