Memory, motherboard, GPU or other hardware issue?

[anlesauk]

I built a PC in July of 2012. It ran perfectly (loads of hours gaming MechWarrior Online, Diablo 3, Hearthstone) until January of this year. When it all of a sudden started random BSODs. I assumed it had to do with a new Nvidia driver I installed as I was having video performance issues and game lockups. Rolling the driver back seemed to help the video issues but the BSODs continued. They will happen running any application so I've not isolated the operations that cause it. The BSOD details will be a memory kernel error. Then they started happening on thier own even while the computer was idle. I'd get up in the morning and see my computer had "recovered form an unexpected shutdown". Then I was able to see it spontaneously happen myself.

A few times I've heard a grinding sound as the BSOD happened. It's not a hard drive as I have a SSD. It's not lasted long enough to determine if it's a fan, and if so which one. Could a failing fan cause a BSOD? Could it be a bad Power supply? I assume a failed CPU fan could cause the CPU to overheat and the computer to BSOD. But why a memory error (see memtest below)?

I thought maybe it could be a failing SSD but I've imaged it to a HDD and the BSOD keeps happening.

The kicker is that I have run Memtest86 and Memtest86+ and immediately it's reported thousands of memory errors. Well, I replaced the RAM to test and they report hundreds of errors (even after reconfiguring the memory to match with the ASUS onboard memory tuner). But, when I test both sets of memory in another PC they report no errors at all. I've moved the memory to the other DIMM bank and same errors reported on both sets of RAM. I read that this GSKill memory needs XMP setup in the BIOS or it could become damaged over time. I never did that till I started having issues. It ran fine that way for 2.5 years. I set the BIOS to XMP recently and it still BSODs. I read that if not set up correctly the RAM could go bad. But like I said, tested it in another PC and it had no errors. I can't RMA the RAM if it will not show errors.

I have suspected the GPU. I fixed the voltage at 1.025V as suggested and turned off all auto OS power modification settings and Adaptive Power in the Nvidia control panel. I have kicked the fan into all levels of speed and not heard or seen it fail.

I'm starting to suspect a bad motherboard but can't tell and figured I'd ask. I've had to deal with ASUS tech support before and it was a really bad experience. I can still slip it in under the 3 year warrantee but not sure if I want to try. I don't have a spare Motherboard I can test with.

Any suggestions? Any other ideas on what could cause this?

Intel 2600k Sandy Bridge i7
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws X 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM1866 F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL
Corsair 600W PS
Intel 240 GB SSD
EVGA GTX 860 2GB
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

Thanks for your help!

 

[Samwell9854]

If you tested the RAM and it detected errors, but not on another motherboard, I would highly suspect the health of your motherboard. Consider looking first if there's any bloated capacitors on the motherboard.
Next, if you're experiencing random BSODs, consider reinstalling a clean OS and see if it gets any better.

If you can first solve the question about the OS's stability (by installing a clean one), we can then look further on the hardware side if you still have BSODs.

Normally, if a fan stops working when the OS has started, it should do a cold shutdown a couple of minutes later, no BSOD (high temperature protection). If there really is a fan failing (not turning at all), the BIOS should tell you on boot if it's an important one (like the CPU's fan).