Shouru

Yea, the odds of 2 DOA do seem astronomically against me. This second one doesn't really appear dead, so much as it is giving it the extra .1 volt has continued to be successful thus far. Just some reason it needs more juice (.05 was smallest increment, did .1)... The fact everything has to have a different behavior and nothing is so consistent for simpler deduction/trial-and-error makes it so difficult/frustrating.
 
I did run memtest86 off of USB for the max 4 passes that I could do, and it passed successfully. I also installed windows off of USB just fine (no DVD). This is the second set of RAM it's using. First set, one of the sticks was bad (repeatedly pulled same address in multiple tests) and is already in the mail for RMA :/.  I'll see about running another 4 passes for the giggles soon anyway.
 
I haven't tried another OS yet. I typically just run windows for gaming reasons. I haven't tried HDTune either, but I did install Intel's SSD Toolbox as I'm using their M.2 NVMe chips, which is what the OS is on, and it passed its Full Diagnostic checks, and S.M.A.R.T. Status is good to go.
 
The less I'm also changing out the CPU, the better, to prevent actually damaging it if I could help it with the luck at this rate, and I already tried swapping them back and forth twice to test the consistency. I don't know of a good store around I could trust to try the CPU, especially in a short turn-around (so i'm not out a PC), and without them charging for it. At that rate, I may as well amazon another board, go through the pain, and if true, RMA this one, if I can convince Gigabyte. After all, if this continues to be stable, it is 'technically' working... The fear of getting a whole new set of errors again is also real.
 
I'm still curious on the fact the peak power never went above 1.2, even though it was set to 1.21 (hence my thought on the clock didn't need it). I think next I will wait another day and see if it does the intelppm.sys error by day 3 of running straight like the old CPU did, or try an extended prime95 test to see how it handles if volts ever go above with more time. If not, I'll try setting the board to 1.2 (its default) instead of auto, and see how it performs. It could just be the auto on the motherboard isn't doing great then, and I'm left with who to blame, mobo or CPU. The intelppm.sys error is technically an issue with clocking/volting down in idle, so sort of another pissy power thing (now possibly PSU, but hwinfo64 made voltages look good... arg), but the math rounding is a different story and could be a whole slew of other things...
 
On the plus side...!
 
After posting last night, I ran Apex Legends for just over 2 hours, (unwinding and testing) and had zero Crash to desktops. I would have normally crashed once or twice by then. I did it again tonight after work and running errands all night, and got same results. Black Desert Online ran in background while I was away for a near 20 hours and had no crashing either. Perfmon /rel is also clean as a whistle.
 
 
My brain on the motherboard dillema, now that it's time for bed...