- Joined
- May 30, 2018
- Messages
- 1,890 (0.88/day)
- Location
- Cusp Of Mania, FL
| Processor | Ryzen 9 3900X |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | Asus ROG Strix X370-F |
| Cooling | Dark Rock 4, 3x Corsair ML140 front intake, 1x rear exhaust |
| Memory | 2x8GB TridentZ RGB [3600Mhz CL16] |
| Video Card(s) | EVGA 3060ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming |
| Storage | 970 EVO 500GB nvme, 860 EVO 250GB SATA, Seagate Barracuda 1TB + 4TB HDDs |
| Display(s) | 27" MSI G27C4 FHD 165hz |
| Case | NZXT H710 |
| Audio Device(s) | Modi Multibit, Vali 2, Shortest Way 51+ - LSR 305's, Focal Clear, HD6xx, HE5xx, LCD-2 Classic |
| Power Supply | Corsair RM650x v2 |
| Mouse | iunno whatever cheap crap logitech *clutches Xbox 360 controller security blanket* |
| Keyboard | HyperX Alloy Pro |
| Software | Windows 10 Pro |
| Benchmark Scores | ask your mother |
Over this past month or so I've been having the occasional insta-restart, and much more rarely a total BSOD where everything completely locks up and I have to power off via the PSU itself.
For a while, I just didn't get it, I've had this build going for a good 5 months and past the first month of setup/tweaking, I've changed very little. I know how I like things to be set up and what generally tends to be stable. I find that point and leave it there. Too many bad experiences messing around too much and costing myself a ton of time for nothing.
The only thing new in it is a GTX 1050, which for a while I thought was the problem, as it seemed like this started after I installed it. I tried rolling back drivers. I was also running a slight OC on it, so I took that off. No change. I felt like it HAD to be the card - it always seems to crash when gaming or on youtube, so I switched to the integrated GPU on this build's A8-9600.
Still happening, though seemingly a little less frequently. I've since switched back to the GTX 1050 with no change. At some point since then, it's started crashing while I'm at work, as I come home to the lock screen every so often. And it's not wupdate doing it, every time I check there have been no new ones. Nothing else I have going auto-updates or ever necessitates an automated reboot.
Alright. Next attack point. I've had this APU pushed up to 3.9 @ 3.1ish volts for months and thought to myself that it's kind of dumb to really expect this chip to keep that up forever. Understand I don't care if I run that into the ground, as it's just a buy-in to AM4. It has always been absolutely rock-solid at this level. I was actually pretty impressed. I really put it through the ringer before settling on 3.9. But I thought okay, over time it's just buckling under that stupid-high OC - maybe these APU's just really can't handle overvolting at all, so I dropped it to 3.4 @ 1.27v. Still stable under heavy stress. Only difference is I can turn down my fan curves a little and still have things run cooler.
Between all of this I've been messing with every setting in both BIOS and Windows, just trying to find the link. Last night, my mobo finally gave me a breakthrough. I BSODed hard in the middle of a youtube video... ...another one where I had to cut power. When I power back up there's no POST. And on my Asus Strix B350-F, the red DRAM error light kicks on. First thing I do is pull out the stick closest to the CPU. One thing noteworthy here, is that it feels much warmer to the touch than the other 4GB stick installed. Not hot, just warm enough to have me wondering. I know they generate heat, but one's generating noticeably more. Anyway... this works. It POSTs and boots as per usual. I go ahead and try reinserting the stick in the same DIMM, just to confirm that it's the source of the problem.
But it boots! This has me thinking it may be the mobo. I went ahead and switched the active DIMM slot pair to see if maybe it's that slot failing. So far, so good, but we'll soon see how good. I'll be sure to report back.
But in the meantime... which is it? Failing RAM stick or mobo problems? Any way to test that or is it just wait and see? Mostly just wondering if others who have actually experienced RAM failure can chime in here. I've never had one fail on me, so I don't know what the failure progression looks like. I'm debating on whether to grab another stick of this HyperX 2400 RAM just in case, so I'm not suddenly stuck running on 4gb of RAM while I wait. Stuff aint cheap for what it is and I can't do much with one stick if neither of the current ones don't fail. Just means I'll have to buy another and upgrade to 16gb. Which is great and all, but a lot to spend for, in my case, little to no performance gains.
The only other cause I can think of... ...and it's related, is my timings. I have all of my primaries pushed down a tick. No speed OC, no voltage kick. I know from fiddling with this before that going too low causes very similar stability issues in this build, but the thing is... ...like my CPU OC, I've been running the timings this way since long before this started. Doubt it's the issue but figured I'd mention it.
For a while, I just didn't get it, I've had this build going for a good 5 months and past the first month of setup/tweaking, I've changed very little. I know how I like things to be set up and what generally tends to be stable. I find that point and leave it there. Too many bad experiences messing around too much and costing myself a ton of time for nothing.
The only thing new in it is a GTX 1050, which for a while I thought was the problem, as it seemed like this started after I installed it. I tried rolling back drivers. I was also running a slight OC on it, so I took that off. No change. I felt like it HAD to be the card - it always seems to crash when gaming or on youtube, so I switched to the integrated GPU on this build's A8-9600.
Still happening, though seemingly a little less frequently. I've since switched back to the GTX 1050 with no change. At some point since then, it's started crashing while I'm at work, as I come home to the lock screen every so often. And it's not wupdate doing it, every time I check there have been no new ones. Nothing else I have going auto-updates or ever necessitates an automated reboot.
Alright. Next attack point. I've had this APU pushed up to 3.9 @ 3.1ish volts for months and thought to myself that it's kind of dumb to really expect this chip to keep that up forever. Understand I don't care if I run that into the ground, as it's just a buy-in to AM4. It has always been absolutely rock-solid at this level. I was actually pretty impressed. I really put it through the ringer before settling on 3.9. But I thought okay, over time it's just buckling under that stupid-high OC - maybe these APU's just really can't handle overvolting at all, so I dropped it to 3.4 @ 1.27v. Still stable under heavy stress. Only difference is I can turn down my fan curves a little and still have things run cooler.
Between all of this I've been messing with every setting in both BIOS and Windows, just trying to find the link. Last night, my mobo finally gave me a breakthrough. I BSODed hard in the middle of a youtube video... ...another one where I had to cut power. When I power back up there's no POST. And on my Asus Strix B350-F, the red DRAM error light kicks on. First thing I do is pull out the stick closest to the CPU. One thing noteworthy here, is that it feels much warmer to the touch than the other 4GB stick installed. Not hot, just warm enough to have me wondering. I know they generate heat, but one's generating noticeably more. Anyway... this works. It POSTs and boots as per usual. I go ahead and try reinserting the stick in the same DIMM, just to confirm that it's the source of the problem.
But it boots! This has me thinking it may be the mobo. I went ahead and switched the active DIMM slot pair to see if maybe it's that slot failing. So far, so good, but we'll soon see how good. I'll be sure to report back.
But in the meantime... which is it? Failing RAM stick or mobo problems? Any way to test that or is it just wait and see? Mostly just wondering if others who have actually experienced RAM failure can chime in here. I've never had one fail on me, so I don't know what the failure progression looks like. I'm debating on whether to grab another stick of this HyperX 2400 RAM just in case, so I'm not suddenly stuck running on 4gb of RAM while I wait. Stuff aint cheap for what it is and I can't do much with one stick if neither of the current ones don't fail. Just means I'll have to buy another and upgrade to 16gb. Which is great and all, but a lot to spend for, in my case, little to no performance gains.
The only other cause I can think of... ...and it's related, is my timings. I have all of my primaries pushed down a tick. No speed OC, no voltage kick. I know from fiddling with this before that going too low causes very similar stability issues in this build, but the thing is... ...like my CPU OC, I've been running the timings this way since long before this started. Doubt it's the issue but figured I'd mention it.
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