Question Mystery issue - Possibly motherboard, maybe RAM?

[tooplanx]

Hi all,


I've been having a lot of problems over the last year or so, but now it is really mystifying me.


For the past month or so my display has been suddenly turning the colours to a LSD / Acid trip style rainbow negative inversion. When reconnecting the HDMI cable or turning off and on the monitor again the problem would disappear.

I discovered, bizarrely, that the issue would occur when using Edge browser, using Amazon Music, and starting and stopping music (all three together, not separately). This was reproducible 100% of the time. While concerning, I assumed it must be some weird bug baked in to windows and Edge browser.

I haven't been using Edge for those things since.

Today, however, it started doing it again, but while not on Amazon music (I did have Edge open with a pdf though).
Then the display started going black for a second or so after which the desktop and app display would reload (just reload the display, not actually reload the apps).

Then shortly afterwards the screen went black and didn't come back on without force restarting the computer. It has now done that 2 or 3 times.

Event Viewer shows "Display driver amdkmdag stopped responding and has successfully recovered."



Now, a bit of extra history:
- A year ago my CPU seemed to be overheating causing games to freeze for a few seconds. I have added loads of fans (cpu & case and bought a better case), and replaced the CPU.

- About 6 months ago I started getting graphical artifacting and display failures, so I replaced my GPU.

- Concerned that perhaps these issues may be linked to a bad PSU, I bought a brand new Corsair CV650.

- I was having MS Office crash randomly alot, so did an 'in place upgrade' repair of Windows, which didn't solve the problem, so have now reinstalled Office, which so far resolved that issue.

- Replaced hard drive with new SSD and 2tb Barracuda HDD.


All the way through this, I have had weird problems and glitches. Replacing hardware fixes one problem but then another immediately arises.
The only components I haven't changed now are the motherboard and RAM

Any ideas what it might be, or the best course of action? Do I just need to replace everything and hope that fixes it?!

Thanks in advance.


Photo of image

 

[Ralston18]

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for any other error codes or warnings that correspond with the times problems occur.

The error you cited suggests a driver problem. How many times did that error appear?

Manually download the driver from the manufacturer's website. Reinstall and reconfigure.

Do you have another known working monitor or even a TV that you can test in place of your existing monitor?

Do you have another known working computer where you can test your monitor?

Determine if the problem follows the monitor or stays with your computer.

 

[tooplanx]

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer for any other error codes or warnings that correspond with the times problems occur.

The error you cited suggests a driver problem. How many times did that error appear?

Manually download the driver from the manufacturer's website. Reinstall and reconfigure.

Do you have another known working monitor or even a TV that you can test in place of your existing monitor?

Do you have another known working computer where you can test your monitor?

Determine if the problem follows the monitor or stays with your computer.

Yeah, testing the monitor was my next step.

I have a spare monitor but it is VGA only and my GPU only has HDMI or DVI. I could test with my tv but would have to cart the PC downstairs. I'll try to do that at some point.
I could hook up my laptop to the monitor and test it that way too.

I haven't done that yet mainly because it seemed such an odd issue that related to software and instances happening in Windows that I didn't think it could be the monitor. Unless there is some kind of weird HDCP issue triggering some fault in the monitor?

It's weird that it only seems to happen in certain specific software related instances.

 

[Ralston18]

Specific software situations - that is helpful.

Before physically moving things around try to identify those "instances".

Resource Monitor and Task Manager can help. Use both tools but only one at a time.

Methodically try varying software combinations while observing the performance too.

Determine what resources are being used, to what extent (%), and what application(s) are using the resources.

Not weird at all - just that some situation occurs, a "perfect storm" of events that leads to some conflict and the system chokes.

Could be a driver, a bug in some updated app, even a windows bug....

Did you see any errors, etc. in Reliability History or Event Viewer? Take another look. Remember you can click any given event for more information.

Reliability History is much more user friendly and the timeline presentation will very likely lmake the date of a sudden problem onset quite apparent.

 

[tooplanx]

Thanks for that, i've not used Reliability Monitor before!

Here's the error it shows:

Source
Windows

Summary
Hardware error

Date
‎29/‎10/‎2020 09:45

Status
Not reported

Description
A problem with your hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Code: 141
Parameter 1: ffff8c0ac77d1010
Parameter 2: fffff80534a6a880
Parameter 3: 0
Parameter 4: 2cb8
OS version: 10_0_19041
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1
OS Version: 10.0.19041.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057



Not had the issue for a few days now. I have updated AMD drivers.

 

[tooplanx]

Still have the problem. Happens whenever I access a website that has some kind of 'copyrighted' streaming service:

• Amazon Music
• Amazon Prime Video
• Spotify

Happens using Firefox as well as Edge. Turning monitor off and on again fixes crazy colours until it happens again.

 

[nostall]

Since you "aerated" your case and upped your cooling, this will sound like a real long shot, but, my friend had a similar problem and it was a cooling issue with his video card: The video card fans weren't spinning fast enough to cool ALL the card when doing simple things (gaming never did cause a problem, the fans spun fast enough to cool properly). Just on the off chance that there is some small part of your new video card or mobo Not getting enough cooling air, try opening your case and directing a fan into it while you are using the PC for those programs.
If that doesn't solve it, try having the fan blow onto the back of your monitor, just in case something in there is getting to hot. Oh ya, have you used some canned air and/or a vacuum to clean the monitor as best as possible.

 

[Karadjgne]

I'd suggest you go to the motherboard website and download the latest chipset drivers. Audio and Lan are the 2 biggest victims of Windows updates and both are tied directly to gpu usage when streaming music and/or video or gaming.

The drivers usually come on a self executing bundle, dl to desktop, click and follow any instructions.

 

[tooplanx]

Since you "aerated" your case and upped your cooling, this will sound like a real long shot, but, my friend had a similar problem and it was a cooling issue with his video card: The video card fans weren't spinning fast enough to cool ALL the card when doing simple things (gaming never did cause a problem, the fans spun fast enough to cool properly). Just on the off chance that there is some small part of your new video card or mobo Not getting enough cooling air, try opening your case and directing a fan into it while you are using the PC for those programs.
If that doesn't solve it, try having the fan blow onto the back of your monitor, just in case something in there is getting to hot. Oh ya, have you used some canned air and/or a vacuum to clean the monitor as best as possible.

I don't think it's cooling related as I keep an eye on system temps, and the problem doesn't occur randomly: it only ever happens as a result of an interaction with particular websites (like clicking on a song or switching tabs).

I'd suggest you go to the motherboard website and download the latest chipset drivers. Audio and Lan are the 2 biggest victims of Windows updates and both are tied directly to gpu usage when streaming music and/or video or gaming.

The drivers usually come on a self executing bundle, dl to desktop, click and follow any instructions.

I think I've already got the latest MB drivers as it's a pretty old mobo, but I'll double check.

 

[Karadjgne]

Most of them should be around the 2013 age bracket, but both audio and Lan were updated on my Z77 in 2017/2018 to fix Windows CE issues with closed end drivers. Almost all those older drivers are 16bit, Windows is generally 64bit but will use 32bit if that's the priority driver. It really doesn't like using 16bit drivers at all and those drivers made no attempts to accept 64bit usage, it simply wasn't a thought back then. So they needed patches to get around that.

The Realtek audio drivers are the worst culprits, ppl have had to go find drivers/patches from their website tech support, simply because some motherboards manufacturers no longer offer any support for those older boards for Windows 10. Much of the stuff I have is running Win7 drivers in compatibility mode.

 

[tooplanx]

Yeah, I have the latest drivers for my mobo.

 

[tooplanx]

Not had it for a couple of weeks, then suddenly have it back again. This time it not the multicoloured problem, but instead everything just freezes and then the screen goes blank and I have to force reset the computer.

Here is a reliability monitor report:

Source
Windows

Summary
Hardware error

Date
‎06/‎12/‎2020 15:51

Status
Not reported

Description
A problem with your hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Code: 141
Parameter 1: ffff8a81199b6010
Parameter 2: fffff8027064ad00
Parameter 3: 0
Parameter 4: 2d8
OS version: 10_0_19042
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1
OS Version: 10.0.19042.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057



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

Also, this, but it says it is a minute later once I had rebooted the pc:

Source
Radeon Software: Host Application

Summary
Stopped working

Date
‎06/‎12/‎2020 15:52

Status
Report sent

Description
Faulting Application Path: C:\Program Files\AMD\CNext\CNext\Radeonsoftware.exe

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Radeonsoftware.exe
Application Version: 10.1.2.1808
Application Timestamp: 5f5979fc
Fault Module Name: Radeonsoftware.exe
Fault Module Version: 10.1.2.1808
Fault Module Timestamp: 5f5979fc
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00000000002201f7
OS Version: 10.0.19042.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 2057
Additional Information 1: cc59
Additional Information 2: cc5999333eb9ff7b20452ea292e9e7af
Additional Information 3: 6bf2
Additional Information 4: 6bf2897dcb663dd531f7d6da799efa99

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 341cd8bd5554dc4962ceab8110d23c05 (1355209108706442245)