MSMC

Swapping the CPU with his brother's 2600 solved the problem. The CPU has a very rare condition apparently where the L2 cache is corrupt it seems. Now I have no way to actually confirm if that's the exact reason, but I found an article on pcgamer that mentioned a bluescreen we often got: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA. Which makes you think it is the RAM, which is often the culprit for this. (This is mentioned near the end of the article.) But it also mentions how it can be caused by the video card/driver or the L2 cache. Thank you all for helping me prove the RAM wasn't faulty. Will definitely use memtest86 again!

tested ram together. all tests passed. he is currently running his brothers ram and bluescreened again

Ran memtest86 with default settings, where it runs through each of the 13 or so tests 4 times. One stick at a time in slot one of the motherboard. The testing took about just over 2 hours each. Both passed. Will try both in the system now and see what happens.

sounds like a plan. thanks. I'll try it

I figured I should explain all that I did to help people trying to help me. Haven't tried that. It would take a while tho to test the ram one at a time since it crashes so randomly. But if you think that is it, I'll try it.

I have a friend who just a little under a year ago built a PC using a parts list I gave him. Here are the specs: OS: Windows 10 Pro X64 Mobo: MSI X570-A PRO (used to be Gigabyte X570 Gaming X) CPU: Ryzen 5 3600 RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200MHz (have it running with XMP settings) GPU: MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z PSU: Corsair 650M SSD: Kingston A400 240GB HDD: 1TB WD (7-8 years old, from original PC) Case: Thermaltake Commander C31 TG Snow Peripherals/Monitors: KB: Razer BlackWidow (2015) Mouse: Razer DeathAdder (2015 also) Monitors: - LG 144HZ 1080p (bought a while after his PC was built) - some old 60Hz 1080p monitor - old Vizio 720p TV - drawing tablet with display - newer 1080p Logitech camera So as the title says, this PC has never really been stable. He kept getting BSOD after BSOD, even after BIOS updates. Basically gets a BSOD a week on average. Since the beginning I would run the default "FIX BSOD FAST AND EASY" commands: `sfc /scannow` (occasionally turned up with finding corrupt files and fixed them) the `chkdsk` command (never found issues) I also ran the built in Windows RAM test. It came up with no issues. All of this did nothing. About 2 months ago we fresh installed Windows 10, thinking maybe something got corrupt. No dice. 3-ish weeks ago, after seeing issue after issue and some rather amateur BSOD checking by myself, I thought it was a faulty motherboard (I really should've asked for help sooner). So we swapped out the gigabyte one with the MSI one listed in specs. Performed BIOS update, reinstalled Windows, installed all drivers. Still crashing. We tried reinstalling again with a fresh copy of Windows. The computer BSOD during the install! What was different with this time was that we had always unplugged the hard drive before reinstall of Windows, as to not somehow accidentally wipe that drive since he had a lot of games and backed up documents and pictures and whatnot. Needless to say, the installation had to be done over again from scratch. This time, with the hard drive unplugged. No crashes. This got me looking into old drives causing BSOD and there were a lot of people saying stuff like, "yeah basically old drive = crash," and I thought to myself, "FINALLY! We figured it out." NOPE. After this windows install, we only installed a couple programs: Steam, Discord, Epic Games, Spotify, along with a couple games that he likes to play: Minecraft, Rocket League, and For the King. He also unplugged literally everything from his PC, except his 144Hz monitor. It seemed that the closer we got to finding this issue, the more the PC would crash. At one point it crashed about 3 times in 5 minutes, nothing was plugged in except that 144Hz monitor, and his keyboard and mouse. The last 3 minidumps are attached. EDIT: Problem solved. minidumps.zip

My R5 1500x and GTX 1070 all OC'd to their max for the cause. Every bit helps.