Question PC Crashing. Is there a more efficient way to diagnose the issue?

Feb 10, 2025
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Specs
GPU: EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra Gaming (2020)
CPU: Ryzen 7 5800x (2021)
Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 AIO (2020)
MOBO: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero WiFi. (2021)
RAM: 2x8GB G.Skill TridentZ RGB DDR4-3200 14 CAS (2020)
PSU: ASUS ROG Strix 750w 80 Plus Gold (2022)
Windows Drive: 2TB: Crucial MX500 SSD (2019)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 4TB 5400RPM (2021)
Monitor 1: Acer Predator XB271HU bmiprz 27" 1440p 144hz. (2019)
Monitor 2: LG 27UL500-W 27" 4K 60hz (2019)
OS: Windows 10

Previously had windows installed on Sabrent 1TB rocket NVMe m.2 drive. (2020)
Previously used a Seasonic Focus+ 750W (2019)

Giving a full rundown of the issues with this damn thing the last few years. In November 2022 I started getting hard crashes where the PC would restart itself. No bluescreen that I could see and there were no Minidumps being created. I ended up buying a PSU replacement and that seemed to fix everything for a time. Then in March of this past year I started having issues with crashing again. This time at least involving a BSOD. Still no Minidump files. Saw people saying that it could be a failing m.2 drive so I experimented and did a clean install of windows onto the M.2 that I had been using as my boot drive for a long time. Crashes continued. Removed the m.2 and did a clean install onto my SSD and the crashes stopped. So I bought a new m.2 but I've been too lazy to actually do another clean windows install and plug in the new m.2.

Now, in the last couple of weeks I've been having issues with my PC crashing while gaming again. Screens go black, sound keeps going for a few seconds before cutting out and the PC restarts. It's at least generating minidumps now which you can see below. I've only run 2 through windowsdbg, but they both said pretty much the same thing. Video TDR Failure. When I played Skyrim on it, it was mostly fine. It crashed a couple of times when I had it running in fullscreen borderless window at 4k. But it ran fullscreen 4K just fine as well as fullscreen or borderless window on my 1440p monitor. Hell Let Loose wouldn't even make it to the main menu before crashing. Alien Isolation would crash within 5 minutes or so of playing. 3D Mark Timespy Extreme would cause a crash as soon as I hit run test.

I tried re-seating the GPU and everything worked flawlessly after that. I was able to play several hours of Alien and finish out that game. I got through a whole match on Hell Let Loose. Ran a full 20 loops on Timespy Extreme without issue. Bought Kingdom Come Deliverance and played for an hour or so without issue. I paused the game and stepped away for a while and came back a little later. The monitors had gone to sleep so I jiggled the mouse and put my headphones on. There was still sound coming through from the game. The monitors didn't seem to wake up and then after a few seconds the sound cut out in the headset and my PC restarted itself. I launched the game again and made it about 5 or 10 minutes before it black screened and restarted again. Tried to do a full shut down and start up instead of just a restart to see if that would do anything. Then the game wouldn't even make it to the main menu before crashing.

I'm gonna try and do a clean install of windows tonight and see what that does. If it's still causing issues I've got a friend who offered to bring over his 2070 Super to test out. I'm at a loss though. Is there really no way to figure out if this is a software or hardware issue (as well as which piece of hardware is at fault) beyond just swapping out parts to see if one fails? Not to mention based off the previous scenario of gaming just fine for days and then regressing back to having crashing issues - makes it impossible to know if borrowing my friend's GPU for a few hours will tell me anything.

Is it normal to have this many issues over just 3 years with a PC. This feels insane.

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* Bugcheck Analysis *

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VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (116)

Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed.

Arguments:

Arg1: ffff800f6b750010, Optional pointer to internal TDR recovery context (TDR_RECOVERY_CONTEXT).

Arg2: fffff80398a7f690, The pointer into responsible device driver module (e.g. owner tag).

Arg3: ffffffffc000009a, Optional error code (NTSTATUS) of the last failed operation.

Arg4: 0000000000000004, Optional internal context dependent data.

Debugging Details:

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

Unable to load image \SystemRoot\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_1e8724cced6e93d4\nvlddmkm.sys, Win32 error 0n2

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for nvlddmkm.sys

KEY_VALUES_STRING: 1

Key : Analysis.CPU.mSec

Value: 1250

Key : Analysis.Elapsed.mSec

Value: 2506

Key : Analysis.IO.Other.Mb

Value: 0

Key : Analysis.IO.Read.Mb

Value: 1

Key : Analysis.IO.Write.Mb

Value: 3

Key : Analysis.Init.CPU.mSec

Value: 265

Key : Analysis.Init.Elapsed.mSec

Value: 18742

Key : Analysis.Memory.CommitPeak.Mb

Value: 160

Key : Analysis.Version.DbgEng

Value: 10.0.27725.1000

Key : Analysis.Version.Description

Value: 10.2408.27.01 amd64fre

Key : Analysis.Version.Ext

Value: 1.2408.27.1

Key : Bugcheck.Code.LegacyAPI

Value: 0x116

Key : Bugcheck.Code.TargetModel

Value: 0x116

Key : Failure.Bucket

Value: 0x116_IMAGE_nvlddmkm.sys

Key : Failure.Hash

Value: {c89bfe8c-ed39-f658-ef27-f2898997fdbd}

Key : WER.OS.Branch

Value: vb_release

Key : WER.OS.Version

Value: 10.0.19041.1

BUGCHECK_CODE: 116

BUGCHECK_P1: ffff800f6b750010

BUGCHECK_P2: fffff80398a7f690

BUGCHECK_P3: ffffffffc000009a

BUGCHECK_P4: 4

FILE_IN_CAB: 020325-12687-01.dmp

FAULTING_THREAD: ffff800f643265c0

VIDEO_TDR_CONTEXT: dt dxgkrnl!_TDR_RECOVERY_CONTEXT ffff800f6b750010

Symbol dxgkrnl!_TDR_RECOVERY_CONTEXT not found.

PROCESS_OBJECT: 0000000000000004

BLACKBOXBSD: 1 (!blackboxbsd)

BLACKBOXNTFS: 1 (!blackboxntfs)

BLACKBOXPNP: 1 (!blackboxpnp)

BLACKBOXWINLOGON: 1

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

PROCESS_NAME: System

STACK_TEXT:

fffff98a`9d6479d8 fffff803`7e6668de : 00000000`00000116 ffff800f`6b750010 fffff803`98a7f690 ffffffff`c000009a : nt!KeBugCheckEx

fffff98a`9d6479e0 fffff803`7e616fa4 : fffff803`98a7f690 ffff800f`68b02720 00000000`00002000 ffff800f`68b027e0 : dxgkrnl!TdrBugcheckOnTimeout+0xfe

fffff98a`9d647a20 fffff803`7e60fadc : ffff800f`68adb000 00000000`01000000 00000000`00000004 00000000`00000004 : dxgkrnl!ADAPTER_RENDER::Reset+0x174

fffff98a`9d647a50 fffff803`7e666005 : 00000000`00000100 ffff800f`68adba70 00000000`63a4e700 fffff803`70ab499c : dxgkrnl!DXGADAPTER::Reset+0x4dc

fffff98a`9d647ad0 fffff803`7e666177 : fffff803`71525440 ffff800f`6a131d70 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000100 : dxgkrnl!TdrResetFromTimeout+0x15

fffff98a`9d647b00 fffff803`70a171c5 : ffff800f`643265c0 fffff803`7e666150 ffff800f`5a69e980 ffff800f`00000000 : dxgkrnl!TdrResetFromTimeoutWorkItem+0x27

fffff98a`9d647b30 fffff803`70b5a165 : ffff800f`643265c0 00000000`00000080 ffff800f`5a6be200 000fe067`b4bbbdff : nt!ExpWorkerThread+0x105

fffff98a`9d647bd0 fffff803`70c078f8 : fffff803`6ba51180 ffff800f`643265c0 fffff803`70b5a110 04d172e8`8f1a54c8 : nt!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x55

fffff98a`9d647c20 00000000`00000000 : fffff98a`9d648000 fffff98a`9d641000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiStartSystemThread+0x28

SYMBOL_NAME: nvlddmkm+184f690

MODULE_NAME: nvlddmkm

IMAGE_NAME: nvlddmkm.sys

STACK_COMMAND: .process /r /p 0xffff800f5a6be200; .thread 0xffff800f643265c0 ; kb

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x116_IMAGE_nvlddmkm.sys

OS_VERSION: 10.0.19041.1

BUILDLAB_STR: vb_release

OSPLATFORM_TYPE: x64

OSNAME: Windows 10

FAILURE_ID_HASH: {c89bfe8c-ed39-f658-ef27-f2898997fdbd}

Followup: MachineOwner
 
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

People who owned a RTX3080 were advised to go for a reliably built PSU that was at least 850W or 1KW to offset the transient load spikes of the GPU.

What BIOS version are you on for your motherboard?

As for the clean install of the OS, recreate the bootable USB installer, disconnect all drives except for the one you wish to install the OS onto, install the OS in offline mode, then install all necessary drivers in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

As it stands, you can try and use DDU in Safe Mode, to remove all GPU drivers(intel, AMD and Nvidia), then manually install the latest GPU driver sourced from Nvidia's support site, in an elevated command.
 
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

People who owned a RTX3080 were advised to go for a reliably built PSU that was at least 850W or 1KW to offset the transient load spikes of the GPU.

What BIOS version are you on for your motherboard?

As for the clean install of the OS, recreate the bootable USB installer, disconnect all drives except for the one you wish to install the OS onto, install the OS in offline mode, then install all necessary drivers in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

As it stands, you can try and use DDU in Safe Mode, to remove all GPU drivers(intel, AMD and Nvidia), then manually install the latest GPU driver sourced from Nvidia's support site, in an elevated command.
Sorry worth mentioning that I’ve run DDU a couple of times already. I can certainly always give it another try. My bios is whatever the bios was most current in November of 2022 for my board. Before I replaced the PSU, I updated it to try it out.
 
Does it do that only for games (and GPU benchmarks)? What happens if you run Cinebench or Prime95?
I tried Prime95 a couple years ago before resolving issues with the new PSU. Had no issues running it then though. Haven't run it since, but surely it wouldn’t be CPU related if it’s giving me video TDR errors right?