[SOLVED] Several BSOD stop codes, tested nearly everything, what's left that could be the cause?

[uncommonshaman]

I really am at my wit's end here. This has been going on for months. Unfortunately for me, this is my first build so I don't have other components to test any of this, but I've gone through everything else I can.

There's no real way of telling when it will occur, as it happens occasionally during some games and rarely in just casual use. It started a couple months ago, the system slowly froze while playing Overwatch with friends while talking on Discord. The game's character models would disappear, it would allow me to open the escape menu but no options would come up. I was unable to alt tab, unable to bring up task manager, but I could still hear my friends for a minute or so. Initially, this was the only thing that would cause the crash, and unpredictably. After a couple weeks or so it started happening during other tasks. When it finally crashed a myriad of different stop codes came up each time: Critical Process Died, Unexpected Store Exception, Memory Management, Kernel Data Inpage Error "amdppm.sys", System Service Exception, and finally WHEA Uncorrectable Error. This is the only stop code I've gotten for a while now.

Here's what I've done so far:

• Ran chkdsk with no errors
• Reset Windows
• Reseated RAM and GPU
• Disabled DOCP
• Turned off Resize BAR
• Unplugged and plugged back in everything connected to the PSU on both ends
• Ran the full memtest with no errors
• Updated BIOS, checked and rechecked installed drivers
• Installed Windows on a USB key
  • Worked fine for the week or two I used it, never had an issue or crash while using it. I suspected the SSD at this point. However, CrystalDiskInfo said it was 100%.
• CPU temps were fine in Cinebench and Prime95 torture test with no crash on the USB
• GPU temps were fine in Furmark with no crash on the USB
• Could not format SSD before I returned it
  • Disk management had it offline and when turned online disk management and file explorer were unresponsive
• Switched SSD to the other M.2 slot, same problem
• Bought a new SSD
  • Only error I had was "The device is not ready" at some point when trying to access an external SSD. Checked disk, fixed errors, switched USB port and no more issue.
• Crashed again today after a week and a half with the new SSD during light browsing
  • The SSD was installed in the same slot the first one was initially in. Maybe I shouldn't have done this but it was the only place I could place a heatsink on top of it.

The BSODs always look like this, with a graphical glitch at the bottom. It stays at 0% until it eventually shuts down and restarts to BIOS where there is no SSD visible in the Boot Menu. The drive does not reappear in the Boot Menu unless I shut down, switch off power, leave it alone, switch on power and start the PC again.

From my limited knowledge the only ideas I have left are reseating the CPU (I didn't bother with this yet because memtest ran fine), or replacing the motherboard. I suspect the motherboard is faulty in some way that it's wrecking the M.2 drives I install. Is there anything I've missed? I've poured countless hours into this with zero solution so I really appreciate any help you can provide.

Parts list:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS WIFI II Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory
Storage: Silicon Power A60 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (storage is now a Samsung 970 EVO 1 TB)
Video Card: Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 6800 16 GB Video Card
Case: Lian Li O11 Air Mini ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair HX750 Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Case Fan: ARCTIC P12 PST 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fans 5-Pack

 

[Ralston18]

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer.

Either one or both tools may be capturing some error codes, warnings, or even informational events just before or at the time of the BSOD's.

Look for any sort of patterns as well.

 

[uncommonshaman]

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer.

Either one or both tools may be capturing some error codes, warnings, or even informational events just before or at the time of the BSOD's.

Look for any sort of patterns as well.

Thank you for your reply. I did not know about Reliability History but I have been checking Event Viewer. Unfortunately I no longer have the SSD that I had crashes on previously because I returned it, so I can't look for patterns until I get another crash. I got an error that the dump file creation failed today, and that was the case with the previous SSD. Otherwise, when I've looked through the Event Viewer before I haven't found anything notable. However, I didn't think to look for patterns. I'm going to run the PC from the USB for now in hopes that it will eventually crash and I can compare the logs.

 

[Ralston18]

To help with Event Viewer:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

 

[Shampow]

Hey, I literally have a nearly identical looking BSOD on my laptop - I really hope someone is able to figure out the issue!

 

[uncommonshaman]

I'm back with an update. At the time of my last post I removed the SSD and put it back in its original packaging. Since then I've been running Windows from a Samsung FIT USB drive, which has still not had a full system crash. The only issue I've run into has been running out of VRAM while playing Overwatch and having Discord open, which crashes Overwatch. This shouldn't happen because my card has 16GB of VRAM and I'm not even close to that. I didn't have an issue with this on the SSDs (unless low VRAM caused the system crashes). Oddly enough if I close the Battle.net client after opening the game, there are no issues. I've been running like this and having no issues for 2+ weeks. Obviously I would like to get back to running the system the way it was intended and utilize the full video memory, so to rule out running Windows on a USB drive as the culprit of low VRAM I ordered an M.2 enclosure to try running off the SSD. Here is my game plan for when it arrives:

• Are there any errors on the SSD after the crash? What does SMART say?
• What do the Event Viewer and Reliability History reports say about the crash that occurred on 1/30?
  • I'll share this info here right away, hopefully it will help diagnose the issue.
• Is there a crash dump?
  • I'm not sure if this was enabled on the system at the time, if it wasn't I'll enable it.
• Does the system run out of VRAM while running off the SSD?
• Another extensive testing of all components.
  • Prime95, memtest, Furmark/Heaven, OCCT, etc.

Hey, I literally have a nearly identical looking BSOD on my laptop - I really hope someone is able to figure out the issue!

Thanks for sharing. I looked through your threads and it's funny how similar some of our issues are. Unfortunately I built mine, and after spending so much money on a PC it's hard to justify the price of taking it to a repair shop. That's besides the fact that I've always been able to solve these things on my own. Did you solve your issue on your own or send your laptop back in?

 

[Shampow]

I'm back with an update. At the time of my last post I removed the SSD and put it back in its original packaging. Since then I've been running Windows from a Samsung FIT USB drive, which has still not had a full system crash. The only issue I've run into has been running out of VRAM while playing Overwatch and having Discord open, which crashes Overwatch. This shouldn't happen because my card has 16GB of VRAM and I'm not even close to that. I didn't have an issue with this on the SSDs (unless low VRAM caused the system crashes). Oddly enough if I close the Battle.net client after opening the game, there are no issues. I've been running like this and having no issues for 2+ weeks. Obviously I would like to get back to running the system the way it was intended and utilize the full video memory, so to rule out running Windows on a USB drive as the culprit of low VRAM I ordered an M.2 enclosure to try running off the SSD. Here is my game plan for when it arrives:

• Are there any errors on the SSD after the crash? What does SMART say?
• What do the Event Viewer and Reliability History reports say about the crash that occurred on 1/30?
  • I'll share this info here right away, hopefully it will help diagnose the issue.
• Is there a crash dump?
  • I'm not sure if this was enabled on the system at the time, if it wasn't I'll enable it.
• Does the system run out of VRAM while running off the SSD?
• Another extensive testing of all components.
  • Prime95, memtest, Furmark/Heaven, OCCT, etc.

Thanks for sharing. I looked through your threads and it's funny how similar some of our issues are. Unfortunately I built mine, and after spending so much money on a PC it's hard to justify the price of taking it to a repair shop. That's besides the fact that I've always been able to solve these things on my own. Did you solve your issue on your own or send your laptop back in?

Yeah, our issues seem really similar, especially with the graphical glitching on the bluescreens. I have not been able to solve the issue, nor have I sent the laptop out for repairs (yet). Since my last bluescreen I've had HwINFO running constantly in the background - one particularly interesting thing I noticed is that my CPU gets abnormally hot when opening/closing programs (it hits, like, 90C+, then drops back down). I'm worried that the overheating CPU may be what's causing the SSD to give out, which may be causing the bluescreens.

To test this, I've been keeping the CPU power limit at 35W & have the fans for the GPU and CPU running on max constantly. Haven't bluescreened since.

 

[uncommonshaman]

Just wanted to follow up on my post so if anyone finds a similar issue they know what my solution was, now that I know I haven't had any issues for a while now.

It is an unknown issue with the motherboard that has something to do with the m.2 slots. It bricked the original m.2 somehow, so I did have to buy a new one which also ran into issues. I don't really know what was wrong because SMART didn't show any information about the issues and was showing that it was 100% healthy.

I decided to instead buy a SATA SSD, copied everything from the new m.2 that I had been using, and have had no issues since I started using it. Since I need the PC for work, I can't RMA the board at this time. When I do, if they let me know any relevant information about the issue it had I'll follow up to this. Thanks for your help on this Ralston18.

 

[Ralston18]

You are welcome.