Long post incoming. The short version is my brand new build (Jan. 2023) has always had intermittent game/pc crashes when gaming, accompanied by GPU utilization around 60-70% and CPU utilization around 20-30% with no apparent bottleneck. Any advice/thoughts/comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition
Mobo: ASRock X670E Taichi
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
PSU: Corsair RM1000e (2022) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Monitor: Alienware AW3423DW
OS: Windows 10
I built this PC in Jan. 2023 and immediately had the issues below.
Issues:
Games/PC intermittently crashing (sometimes BSODs) while playing demanding games (for ex. Jedi Survivor, Call of Duty MW 2, Warhammer 3). Also recently got a BSOD while idling with GEForce overlay running.
GPU utilization is well below 100% in demanding games (Jedi Survivor stays around 60-70%, WH3 has random drops all the way down to 0%). GPU wattage and fps both drop at the same time as utilization. CPU doesn’t appear to be bottlenecking—CPU utilization is always lower than GPU, generally 20-30% overall (none of the individual cores are hitting 100% according to MSI Afterburn--the highest core is low 80%). I haven't identified any other bottleneck. For example task manager doesn’t show RAM or anything else getting close to 100% usage while gaming. No indication of thermal throttling on any components; in fact, temps have been good (GPU maxes in the 60s, CPU generally stays in the high 60s, and I haven’t seen high temps with RAM/SSD/mobo).
I wouldn't really care about the lower GPU utilization if it weren't for the crashes. Fps has been decent overall though less than what it probably should be—for example, a repair shop told me I should be getting 150 fps on CoD MW 2 with max settings, and I’m getting around 120 fps with 70/80%-ish GPU utilization and intermittent crashing. Also usually getting around 120 fps in Warhammer when GPU utilization is at 99%, though fps drops randomly along with utilization (all the way down to 1 fps sometimes)
Also, I noticed that Jedi was consistently crashing after a minute or so of play when I had my 2 RAM sticks in. It didn't crash when I played (for about 40 minutes) after I removed 1 stick of RAM and only ran the pc with 1 stick. GPU utilization still stayed around 60% with only 1 stick in. It took longer to crash (about 20 min) when I put in 2 sticks of Corsair RAM with the same specs.
When games crash, I’ve seen windows event viewer give a message that “The description for Event ID 0 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found". Sometimes there are kernel power related events too.
FWIW, some other random issues—
At one point I was getting 100% SSD utilization in startup with some lag, and then random usage spikes afterwards. This seemed to stop when I switched from Windows 11 down to 10.
Steam opens slowly (5-10 seconds); a couple USBs have become corrupted when I plugged them into the tower; Bluetooth connections won’t work right (this stopped after I changed mobos) and; weirdly, after a few months the pc intermittently wouldn't post or had a BSOD when I booted with 2 RAM sticks in. This also changed (so far) when I swapped to the new mobo (X670E Taichi).
Troubleshooting:
I've been troubleshooting ever since building the pc in Jan. Troubleshooting has generally fallen into three buckets: (1) software reinstall; (2) hardware swaps/testing; and (3) settings changes.
For software, a repair shop did a completely fresh reinstall of everything a couple weeks ago (I got desperate and took it in recently). They reinstalled Windows, redownloaded all drivers, made sure BIOS was up to date, and rebuilt pc to make sure all connections were right (they were). They installed Windows 10 (I was using Windows 11). Also, XMP and resizable bar are on. Nvidia control panel is set to high performance settings. I'm not overclocking anything.
For hardware, I’ve swapped and tested almost every major component without resolving the problems. GPUs: I tested two 7900 XTXs (I initially thought it was the GPU--the manufacturer couldn't find any problems but still sent me a new one) and am now using a 4090 Founders Edition. Mobos: I tested two Gigabyte X670 Aorus Elite AXs and am now using an ASRock X670E Taichi. RAM: I tested two sets of the G Skillz RAM above and also tested a set of Corsair Vengence RAM with the same specs (16gb, DDR5, 6400 MHz) (I'm currently still using my original G SKillz RAM). I've also swapped out and tested the CPU, PSU, and SSD. I have NOT swapped out my liquid cooler (temps have been good as noted above), HHD (issues persist whether running games off the HHD or SSD), or pc case.
For "settings", I’ve spent a lot of time googling and changing/tweaking settings without luck. I've also run a lot of diagnostic/monitoring programs on the major components (to name a few: HWiNFO, Memtest, Furmark, CPU-Z, MSI Afterburner, and various Windows diagnostics/CMD prompts like sfc); best I can tell nearly all have come back normal. One exception: I’ve gotten “fails” on Memtest86 Passmark for 3 different RAM sticks when testing individually (on the X670 Aorus Elite AX), making me think it’s not the RAM that's faulty. (Also, these same RAM sticks passed when I ran the test with 2x16gb and 4x16gb sticks in that mobo respectively.) FWIW, Userbenchmark results keep fluctuating--it's put me anywhere from the 86th percentile to the 35th percentile overall in comparable builds.
Thanks if you've made it this far. I'm not sure what else to do at this point. The repair shop I took it to essentially wanted to start charging me for doing what I already have done—swapping components and testing, and then googling if that didn't work. Any suggestions?
Specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition
Mobo: ASRock X670E Taichi
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
PSU: Corsair RM1000e (2022) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Monitor: Alienware AW3423DW
OS: Windows 10
I built this PC in Jan. 2023 and immediately had the issues below.
Issues:
Games/PC intermittently crashing (sometimes BSODs) while playing demanding games (for ex. Jedi Survivor, Call of Duty MW 2, Warhammer 3). Also recently got a BSOD while idling with GEForce overlay running.
GPU utilization is well below 100% in demanding games (Jedi Survivor stays around 60-70%, WH3 has random drops all the way down to 0%). GPU wattage and fps both drop at the same time as utilization. CPU doesn’t appear to be bottlenecking—CPU utilization is always lower than GPU, generally 20-30% overall (none of the individual cores are hitting 100% according to MSI Afterburn--the highest core is low 80%). I haven't identified any other bottleneck. For example task manager doesn’t show RAM or anything else getting close to 100% usage while gaming. No indication of thermal throttling on any components; in fact, temps have been good (GPU maxes in the 60s, CPU generally stays in the high 60s, and I haven’t seen high temps with RAM/SSD/mobo).
I wouldn't really care about the lower GPU utilization if it weren't for the crashes. Fps has been decent overall though less than what it probably should be—for example, a repair shop told me I should be getting 150 fps on CoD MW 2 with max settings, and I’m getting around 120 fps with 70/80%-ish GPU utilization and intermittent crashing. Also usually getting around 120 fps in Warhammer when GPU utilization is at 99%, though fps drops randomly along with utilization (all the way down to 1 fps sometimes)
Also, I noticed that Jedi was consistently crashing after a minute or so of play when I had my 2 RAM sticks in. It didn't crash when I played (for about 40 minutes) after I removed 1 stick of RAM and only ran the pc with 1 stick. GPU utilization still stayed around 60% with only 1 stick in. It took longer to crash (about 20 min) when I put in 2 sticks of Corsair RAM with the same specs.
When games crash, I’ve seen windows event viewer give a message that “The description for Event ID 0 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found". Sometimes there are kernel power related events too.
FWIW, some other random issues—
At one point I was getting 100% SSD utilization in startup with some lag, and then random usage spikes afterwards. This seemed to stop when I switched from Windows 11 down to 10.
Steam opens slowly (5-10 seconds); a couple USBs have become corrupted when I plugged them into the tower; Bluetooth connections won’t work right (this stopped after I changed mobos) and; weirdly, after a few months the pc intermittently wouldn't post or had a BSOD when I booted with 2 RAM sticks in. This also changed (so far) when I swapped to the new mobo (X670E Taichi).
Troubleshooting:
I've been troubleshooting ever since building the pc in Jan. Troubleshooting has generally fallen into three buckets: (1) software reinstall; (2) hardware swaps/testing; and (3) settings changes.
For software, a repair shop did a completely fresh reinstall of everything a couple weeks ago (I got desperate and took it in recently). They reinstalled Windows, redownloaded all drivers, made sure BIOS was up to date, and rebuilt pc to make sure all connections were right (they were). They installed Windows 10 (I was using Windows 11). Also, XMP and resizable bar are on. Nvidia control panel is set to high performance settings. I'm not overclocking anything.
For hardware, I’ve swapped and tested almost every major component without resolving the problems. GPUs: I tested two 7900 XTXs (I initially thought it was the GPU--the manufacturer couldn't find any problems but still sent me a new one) and am now using a 4090 Founders Edition. Mobos: I tested two Gigabyte X670 Aorus Elite AXs and am now using an ASRock X670E Taichi. RAM: I tested two sets of the G Skillz RAM above and also tested a set of Corsair Vengence RAM with the same specs (16gb, DDR5, 6400 MHz) (I'm currently still using my original G SKillz RAM). I've also swapped out and tested the CPU, PSU, and SSD. I have NOT swapped out my liquid cooler (temps have been good as noted above), HHD (issues persist whether running games off the HHD or SSD), or pc case.
For "settings", I’ve spent a lot of time googling and changing/tweaking settings without luck. I've also run a lot of diagnostic/monitoring programs on the major components (to name a few: HWiNFO, Memtest, Furmark, CPU-Z, MSI Afterburner, and various Windows diagnostics/CMD prompts like sfc); best I can tell nearly all have come back normal. One exception: I’ve gotten “fails” on Memtest86 Passmark for 3 different RAM sticks when testing individually (on the X670 Aorus Elite AX), making me think it’s not the RAM that's faulty. (Also, these same RAM sticks passed when I ran the test with 2x16gb and 4x16gb sticks in that mobo respectively.) FWIW, Userbenchmark results keep fluctuating--it's put me anywhere from the 86th percentile to the 35th percentile overall in comparable builds.
Thanks if you've made it this far. I'm not sure what else to do at this point. The repair shop I took it to essentially wanted to start charging me for doing what I already have done—swapping components and testing, and then googling if that didn't work. Any suggestions?
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