Question MSI z690 BSOD loop after bios update cpu upgrade

[mfinnie]

A month ago I moved my 2021 computer’s hardware to a slightly bigger case, and afterwords found out I needed to update my bios to a newer release version on my motherboard (z690 Pro A Wifi DDR5) in order for it to support the 13th gen intel processor I had just bought. I checked and the bios version I had was older than what I needed.
I was wary of updating the bios as I had never done it before but it worked fine for the few days before I actually upgraded my 12th gen 12700KF to a 13700KF. After installing the new cpu with my family member helping me who’s built pc’s for many years, we found out the cpu cooler pump accidentally wasn’t properly reaching the cpu and the pc shut itself off to avoid damage to the cpu.

I took the pc to my local Best Buy’s geek squad, who fixed the seating of the water cooler, but after I updated my drivers using a software they later told me was spyware when I told them about it (Driver Easy) I started getting blue screens 40 minutes into my gameplay of Red Dead Redemption 2. These various blue screens with different error messages led to me taking it back to the Geek Squad, who found out my M.2 drive somehow became Corrupt and failed, so they replaced it. Not long after the same thing happened again and I replaced the m2 once more. I only at the time suspected my use of Driver Easy to be the cause of the issues.

In recovery mode during these periods of issues i tried clean installations of windows, a system restore to before I updated my drivers, using startup repair which never worked, using the command prompt to check my drive, and to do a windows memory diagnostic to try and rule out bad ram ( the first time I had issues it didn’t find anything wrong with my ram, but this latest time it froze in the middle of the test).

I don’t know which of these if any it is but I fear the motherboard may be ruined, the ram went bad, or maybe the cpu is bad because I booted it not knowing about the pump seating and the auto-shutoff. If it’s the motherboard I could replace it with one I know will fit in my case and support the cpu by default, the MSI z790 Pro A Wifi is the same dimensions as my current board. If it’s the new cpu that’s bad I still have my 12th gen and could reuse that. Any advice is appreciated.

My specs:
Case is msi velox 100r, was originally MSI gungnir 110m
Motherboard: Msi z690 Pro A Wifi (DDR5 version) the same motherboard my pc had when I bought it
Windows 11
Cpu is Intel 13700kf, I changed from the 12700kf a month ago.
Cpu cooler was msi coreliquid 240 but I changed to deepcool lt720 a month ago.
Gpu is Nvidia RTX 4090 by Palit that i changed from a MSI RTX 3080 a year ago with no issues
Ram is ADATA brand 2x16gb DDR5 4800mhz which was in my system as a prebuilt

 

[helpstar]

Which psu are you using?

Check cpu Socket pins of the motherboard if some are bent
Try the 12th gen cpu

 

[SyCoREAPER]

You have two points of failure. Crapsquad and that "Driver Tool" you used. Driver tool is likely not the issue if you tried a fresh install.

Quite frankly and I mean this respectfully, if you don't know how to seat the components in your PC, you'll end up doing more damage trying to fix it yourself. And that's fine, not everyone is an expert at everything and has to learn somewhere or hire someone. I'll do handy work except plumbing and drywall, I'm not confident in my plumbing and don't have the skill/patience for drywall. It is what it is.
Find someone local that can help check the various components.

At this point having had WorstBuy in there multiple times it's possible they've damaged components and the CPU and MB could both be bad.

Find someone local, offer them a fair price to look at it, don't let them plug any USB drives into your PC. Just tell them you suspect previous repair attempts by a certain establishment potentially damaged the CPU and/or MB and if they can look at it and put it back together afterwards.

Impossible to say online with all the supposed bad parts and improper installations what's wrong at this point.

 

[mfinnie]

Which psu are you using?

Check cpu Socket pins of the motherboard if some are bent
Try the 12th gen cpu

My psu is the msi a1000g pcie5 1000 watt. I can swap graphics cards on my own comfortably but not CPU’s so I’d look for someone from a local shop if I have to do so to check the pins. My build was put together in the newer case by my relative who put my last custom build together with no issues, it’s just the instructions for the lt720 cooler were confusing just diagrams and he accidentally used the wrong screws so the cpu wasn’t making contact with the pump the first time I tried to turn it on.

You have two points of failure. Crapsquad and that "Driver Tool" you used. Driver tool is likely not the issue if you tried a fresh install.

I’ll definitely try to find someone local to look at it. It’s “ functioned” after each time Best Buy has worked on it but then quit working a few days later trying to play Call of Duty , just crashing the game when I didn’t have the latest Nvidia driver or the BSOD after trying to play post GeForce experience driver update. Hopefully someone local can figure it out.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

Your PSU is more than sufficient, I have that exact model. Besides the stupid silent switch having no marking and not being mentioned in the manual, it's a solid unit.

As for it not working a few days later, that could be thermal cycling and as such the CPU isn't making good contact after a few sessions hence the issues.

Since you need to have someone take the cooler off again anyway, a good opportunity to add a contact frame.

Thermal Grizzly is too expensive and I don't care for the floating design.

Thermalright CPU Contact Frame for LGA 1700 Retrofit
https://a.co/d/cFrZTxS

Will help keep even clamping pressure of the CPU to the MB even and also keep the board from warping. Will work on Intel 12th - 14th Gen CPUs and I highly recommend you have it added.

 

[mfinnie]

I took it and had it checked out. I was told my m.2 and one of my two Samsung 970 Evo drives were on the same channel ( I think that was the word he said, he was busy and talked kind of fast) and when a m.2 and a different ssd are on the same one they interfere with each other and can cause the BSOD. Might have happened when my brother in law installed everything in the case. They also noticed my sata cable was angled and someone had probably put the Samsung in the same channel to help fit that cable. They swapped it with a different sata cable that didn’t need to be angled that way and switched the conflicting ssd to spot #4 from #1, my m.2 was also on #1, and put a new copy of windows on the pc and installed all updates. They then ran a hardware diagnostic and said everything appears to be fine. I just brought it home and am going to try it out tonight.

---

update: I was downloading call of duty and it blue screen cycled again. Wow :/ I’m getting various messages again such as “apc index mismatch” or “page fault in nonpaged area”.

 

[mfinnie]

Turns out the cpu was damaged and when I swapped back to the 12700kf the system was stable and I was able to play Call of duty. The newer 13th gen had a bit of discoloration in a corner and would crash at reaching 50% cpu usage or higher.