Question Variety of blue screens, crashes and errors - is my PSU faulty? Or is it something else?

[BenJtho]

Hi everyone,

Over the past few weeks I've been getting various crashes (e.g. blue screen - overclock failed). I reset all bios settings and reset windows twice. I have excellent cooling so I'm sure there was no overheat.

There doesn't seem to be a pattern as to when the crashes happen, sometimes it's during a game but it can happen while the PC is at idle too.

Here's an example of the most recent problem report:
Description
A problem with your hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.
Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Code: 141
Parameter 1: ffff9a0f93fce010
Parameter 2: fffff803501eb938
Parameter 3: 0
Parameter 4: 3164
OS version: 10_0_18363
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1
OS Version: 10.0.18363.2.0.0.768.101
Locale ID: 2057

I ran a RAM diagnostic and received two errors. I tried underclocking the ram as well as switching to the various XMP profiles, this made no change to the frequency of crashes.

Currently, I think it's either a motherboard or PSU issue, I've not come across a ram fault before so I think that's one of the least likely situations. The PSU is >3 years old so that might be likely? And might also explain the variety of error codes.

My specs:
i7-6700k
1x16gb Hyper X Fury DDR4-2133
Asus b150i mini-itx mobo
Crucial P1 m.2 SSD 500gb
win10: Version 10.0.18363.2.0.0.768.101

https://imgur.com/a/EG0OYcw

View: https://imgur.com/a/EG0OYcw


Thanks in advance!

 

[DSzymborski]

What is the PSU? There's a reason we ask for full specs on any question like this.

The PSU and the motherboard would not be my first guess. Blue screens are quite frequently RAM issues and given you actually found errors with the RAM, I'm not sure why you then dismiss this as a possibility. Do you actually have the error codes? Knowing that they're a "variety" doesn't really tell us much. The one you provided simply means that the PC shut off without being shut down properly, which is something we already know.

 

[BenJtho]

What is the PSU? There's a reason we ask for full specs on any question like this.

The PSU and the motherboard would not be my first guess. Blue screens are quite frequently RAM issues and given you actually found errors with the RAM, I'm not sure why you then dismiss this as a possibility. Do you actually have the error codes? Knowing that they're a "variety" doesn't really tell us much. The one you provided simply means that the PC shut off without being shut down properly, which is something we already know.

I'm sorry, i'm not home right now but it's an EVGA 500W psu and with the bronze certification.
When you say "the one you provided" do you mean the code I pasted or the image in the imgur link?

 

[DSzymborski]

I'm sorry, i'm not home right now but it's an EVGA 500W psu and with the bronze certification.
When you say "the one you provided" do you mean the code I pasted or the image in the imgur link?

Was hoping to see the blue screens.

The EVGA 500W Bronzes aren't very good, but they're not the worst PSUs ever and without a GPU, it's fine (and is unlikely the cause of this particular problem).

RMAing the stick would be the obvious thing to do here. Or, while RAM prices are low -- they'll likely go up in price very soon -- get a proper 2x8 GB kit so you can use dual channel memory, presumably not one that's the slowest DDR4 RAM possible!

 

[BenJtho]

Thank you for the advice! I really appreciate it.
Ok, so you think the mobo is unlikely? Is it not a common factor in these cases?

I'll get on that asap, and probably replace the psu shortly thereafter.