Question Recommended Motherboard For My Type of Usage

[Lafong]

Yeah, if you constantly have problems installing Windows, that points to major problems.....assuming right technique, multiple USB sticks, multiple SSDs, etc.

A machine for grandma's typical tasks should be fine with a 13900K, regardless of how silly or overkill that might be. Grandma might like to lay down a strip of rubber occasionally.

Is this correct:

During the months the machine was performing well, it had experienced multiple blue screens during the then existing Windows install.

Or not?

I'm trying to understand if there were hardware issues FROM DAY ONE (as possibly indicated by the blue screens during Windows install) or if you instead had good hardware originally, followed by a hardware FAILURE of some type in November?

Did you attempt Windows installs on multiple SSD ports?

 

[Kirbyarm]

Blue Screen of Death history:

4 computer builds ago (over a decade) - 0x BSOD
3 builds ago - 0x BSOD
2 builds ago - 0x BSOD
prior build - 0x BSOD

I've had the rare crash on older systems for some video games, some of which were Early Access, but that is just the nature of PC gaming.

This build during the first 13 months - for some reason loading one exact Modpack in Minecraft (of which there are thousands of mainstream extremely popular modpacks out there made by exceptionally talented authors/developers) would sometimes cause a BSOD during the loading process. Only that one thing ever caused a BSOD and I chalked that up as the modpack not liking my system since it wasn't happening to anyone else I knew, and just moved on with my life. This was last April-ish.

Since April, everything felt as stable as it should be until December-ish. Bluescreens started happening occasionally, programs started to crash that seemingly have no connection to eachother. Stability just took a nosedive with no hardware changes or any relevant software changes (especially considering stability seems to be a problem even before the OS is installed...)

That Minecraft BSOD is really the only clue about any kind of instability prior to the nosedive in December. I don't recall having any issues installing the drivers, windows or any programs onto the 13900K system when I bought and assembled all the parts in November 2022.

When I installed windows 10 onto the new SSD, I made sure to install it into a different M.2 socket to rule out a bad socket.

Edit: Actually, come to think of it. There might be one other clue. I normally only attach USB external storage devices (I have 2 HDDs almost always plugged in) to the front panel of the PC case. Recently, when trying to fix these issues and transferring files or drivers, I decided to plug the USB stick into one of the motherboard ports and my entire system just powered off instantly without warning - full blackout. This has happened when plugging something in the back USB ports on this build in the past as well.. I *think* a couple of times and I'm *pretty sure* it was also external storage of some kind, but I can't remember exactly. There was no bluescreen or log indicating what happened in any of these instances.

 

[Lafong]

for some reason loading one exact Modpack in Minecraft............ would sometimes cause a BSOD during the loading process.................This was last April-ish.

Since April, everything felt as stable as it should be until December-ish. Bluescreens started happening occasionally.............stability seems to be a problem even before the OS is installed...).....................I don't recall having any issues installing the drivers, windows or any programs onto the 13900K system when I bought and assembled all the parts in November 2022.

I am confused.

I thought you had experienced blue screens DURING your original Windows install.

You say "stability seems to be a problem even before the OS is installed"

But you say your first blue screen was about 5 months after Windows was installed, during a loading of a Modpack in Minecraft.

And that the machine was perfect from Nov 2022 to the Modpack incident in April 2023.

How was instability demonstrated prior to the Modcraft blue screen, long after Windows was installed?

 

[Kirbyarm]

The timeline. Nov 2022, bought and assembled new PC. Worked great. In April, 2023, a single modpack (one I never tried before) would sometimes Bluescreen while loading up. Only this exact modpack, of which I've played dozens. It is on a particularly old version of minecraft, probably from way back in 2014. I chalked up these Bluescreens as a one-off thing my computer didn't like to load up and didn't really think of it as a big deal (never have I really had stability problems, so at that moment in time I wasn't thinking about possibly becoming this major crash fest of instability, as the concept didn't really exist to me then). I moved onto other modpacks -> other games -> other things in the PC world and hadn't experienced any noticeable instability issues until the nosedive in December 2023.

I hope that clears up some confusion. I'm not sure how else to explain it. Just the one thing caused BSOD almost a year ago.

I play Minecraft on and off maybe 1-2 months of the year.. and from what I recall. If I really think about how well Minecraft performed on this particularly PC, it did crash more often than a minecraft modpack usually should. And it takes like 10 minutes to load a heavy modpack so a crash can be really frustrating and I remember it frustrating me from time to time on this PC build.

I apologize, my memory isn't the greatest and this is just coming back to me as potentially relevant information.

 

[Lafong]

Still do that RAM test tonight.



From your post 27.

Is the red part NOT true. If it is true, how so?

Since April, everything felt as stable as it should be until December-ish. Bluescreens started happening occasionally, programs started to crash that seemingly have no connection to eachother. Stability just took a nosedive with no hardware changes or any relevant software changes (especially considering stability seems to be a problem even before the OS is installed...)

 

[Kirbyarm]

"considering stability seems to be a problem even before the OS is installed...)"

This is referring to my recent attempts to fix the stability issues with new SSD and new installations of Windows in a different M.2 slot. aka BSOD during the installation, thus stability seems to be a problem even before the OS is installed at this point in time.

Also update: Due to the lenient return policy, I have a motherboard ordered if not just to rule that out alongside 2x new USB SanDisk 64 GB drives just in case for some reason my 2 sticks were a problem in any way. All due to arrive on the 8th.

 

[Lafong]

OK;

Pointing more to a recent hardware failure of some type.

What board is now ordered?

Amazon I assume.

Good luck; post any new developments.

 

[Kirbyarm]

I will definitely keep you updated.

Haven't had many folks genuinely interested in trying to help me figure this out so I appreciate you and your time and not just encouraging me to go buy a ryzen 9 and motherboard without digging into the reason a bit...

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0BHTMXMRQ

That's the board en route. Nearly half the price of what I paid for mine.. which makes me cry a little internally.

 

[Unolocogringo]

Was the 650watt power supply in this system when it died?

If so it could have damaged parts of the board.
The USB plugged into the back ports causing a crash is a sign of board damage.

 

[Kirbyarm]

Was the 650watt power supply in this system when it died?

If so it could have damaged parts of the board.
The USB plugged into the back ports causing a crash is a sign of board damage.

No, this current PC is a completely new build. The only part I buy out of sync with systems (aside from repairs) is GPU, and I just slapped the 3080 Ti in the older system and it popped after a couple weeks which pressured me into getting a much higher end PSU, and that sort of cascaded the effect of assembling the next system altogether, since it was historically 'about that time' to upgrade. That prior build was using the eldest PSU relative to the build prior to that build.

That PSU popped on the prior build (9900K) and that system is still running absolutely perfectly in every regard, though a bit weak in performance for the more recent games given the 1080 Ti's release date and all that.

@Lafong

I have the results of the MemTest86 run (4 full passes through the test). I don't know if/how I should share the HTML file that resulted from it, but it's pretty concerning with a big fat Fail and 944 errors. Yet the old kit had 0 errors and the exact same crashing instability issues. I don't know how to interpret this, really.

 

[Lafong]

@Lafong

I have the results of the MemTest86 run (4 full passes through the test). I don't know if/how I should share the HTML file that resulted from it, but it's pretty concerning with a big fat Fail and 944 errors. Yet the old kit had 0 errors and the exact same crashing instability issues. I don't know how to interpret this, really.

I would assume even 1 error is unacceptable.

Which may render your inbound purchase of a new board as unnecessary or pointless and unlikely to resolve your issues.

I reckon your Memtest results may of course be due to bad RAM slots as well as bad RAM per se. Which may render your inbound purchase of a new board as a good idea.

If you have the inclination, you could re-run Memtest in such as way as to isolate what specific RAM stick or RAM slot is bad.

I have no explanation as to why a kit with zero errors produced the same instability issues, other than the obvious possibility that that system had other hardware errors...such as a bad motherboard.

Having both bad memory and a bad board may be implausible but hardly unheard of. All I can suggest is swapping stuff in, hoping you can get a set of stable parts.

Of course anything (including software issues) is possible.

Maybe someone else has suggestions?

 

[Kirbyarm]

I would assume even 1 error is unacceptable.

Is there no way to pull from the report HTML more clues as to what the specific culprit(s) could be? Seems kinda crazy that after all this troubleshooting over the last two months we're still without a known problem. But I do agree that any errors are unacceptable.

What blows my mind is 944 errors on this kit, yet it feels slightly more stable than the old kit... which had as you saw, 0 errors.

I reckon your Memtest results may of course be due to bad RAM slots as well as bad RAM per se. Which may render your inbound purchase of a new board as a good idea.

If you have the inclination, you could re-run Memtest in such as way as to isolate what specific RAM stick or RAM slot is bad.

I have no explanation as to why a kit with zero errors produced the same instability issues, other than the obvious possibility that that system had other hardware errors...such as a bad motherboard.

Having both bad memory and a bad board may be implausible but hardly unheard of. All I can suggest is swapping stuff in, hoping you can get a set of stable parts.

I plan to perform more extensive memtests on the new motherboard (assuming it works) with both kits, hopefully isolating any issues if they transfer over to the new board on a new windows install yet again with the new chipset and other motherboard drivers etc. We'll see on the 8th.

Seems you're on the same page as me and a few other folks I've been talking to about this for a while now, and that we're leaning more on the motherboard than RAM at this point. At least I have 2 kits to play with on the new motherboard, which should at least be better than only 1 k it for the purposes of diagnostics at the very least.

Of course anything (including software issues) is possible.

Except for the BSOD before windows was even installed and needing to basically spam installation attempts before it magically decided to work... and that seems to happened when installing many things, specifically the installation process. Java and the nvidia driver the worst culprits, but a good half or more of installers had some sort of fail and retry jank.

---

Update: Looks like the new motherboard arrives tomorrow (7th) instead. We shall see if it actually does.

 

[dangle1]

The only other thing that jumps out at me is whether your history of BIOS updates may account for your memory issues. You indicated you reverted your BIOS after an update at one point, but did you revert all the way back to the last version your system seemed happy with?

I have seen stability issues with related memory errors that reproducibly appear and disappear with BIOS upgrades and downgrades. It seems that BIOS updates that are intended to improve memory compatibility can sometimes significantly degrade performance with memory kits that previously tested fine.