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TLDR: What is the best way to determine whether my system instability is because of bad RAM, bad CPU, or something else? Especially when memtest86+ showed no error after an overnight test, but Prime95 did. Hi, my PC specs are: CPU: R5 3600X RAM: Kingston HyperX Predator 16GB (8GB x 2) HX432C16PB3AK2/16 (which is compatible with my motherboard) GPU: GTX 1660 Motherboard: MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC Cooling: Deepcool GAMMAXX L240 V1 (pretty sure it's a V1) PSU: Corsair RM750 (CP-9020195-NA, almost 2 years old) / Cooler Master MWE 750 Gold (dead) OS: Arch Linux (what I used before) / Endeavour OS (reinstalled to this) / Windows 11 (for testing) Location: Vietnam (might be important) Recently, I have been facing crashes on my PC, from games to OS. A common pattern is that games would crash with a Segmentation Fault (SIGSEGV) error. Linux would sometimes hard crash without any log being written. When it did log something, however, various error messages indicated memory error (hence maybe not GPU). The problem is I have run two memtest86+ (latest version) overnight with about 10+ passes each. All of which report no error. However, mprime, the Linux version of Prime95, did report errors at random intervals. However, errors appear more consistently on the smallest test about 15 - 30 minutes in. I also installed Windows 11 to test a game (Oxygen Not Included) and Windows just crashed and rebooted 30 minutes into the game, not even a BSOD was shown. I have tried various settings in BIOS: disable PSO, change XMP profile, disable XMP, undervolt and overvolt (using offset); update BIOS to the latest version ( 7B85v1H1), and downgrade to older versions, still crashed. I also tried to switch the RAM sticks around, and test with only one of them installed, still crashed. There are various reasons why I am uncertain about which component is the issue: My R5 3600X is pretty much the first batch (or pretty close), I bought it at launch. And there are some reports I have read over the years stating those batches were not... the best. My CPU could only boost to 4.0 GHz on heavy load rather than the 4.1 GHz advertised, and eventually drop to 3.9 GHz. Typically idle at 40-50C, clock speed never goes above 4.3 GHz. (This could be because of insufficient cooling, but what can I do when I live in a tropical country without an air conditioner.) Prime95 smallest test puts strain on the CPU, yes? I got errors from stock settings meaning bad CPU? The seller only covers 3 years (36 months) warranty and I'm in my fourth year of owning it, so no warranty. I overclocked my RAM with Ryzen DRAM Calculator before. Eventually just used the Memory Try It feature from MSI because it is convenient. Maybe the RAM is bad because I have run it overclocked for a long period of time? Memtest86+ showed no error after two overnight tests. My previous PSU (Cooler Master MWE 750 Gold) had a short and it would prevent my PC from booting up. I replaced it with the Corsair RM750 which was fine for a while until now. Could the old shorted PSU cause some damages that only now causing problems? Is my motherboard still good? I don't have spare parts to do more tests :(. Money is limited so buying new parts is also limited. That's why I need to be certain.

UPDATE 11/10/20: GUYS. We have finally found a solution for the issue that was causing for this to happen. SO, what caused this issue of unnecessary power-throttling? Apparently, the latest BIOS update (update 305) for the FX505GT has been screwing with everyone lately because something in that update makes the laptop severely underperform for some reason. There has been talks about the new update, but speculation says that it's buggy, so DON'T update. The way I fixed my issue was from the Asus ZenTalk forums website, and surprisingly, IT WAS ALREADY FIXED AWHILE BACK? Around October 28 was when a fix was found for it, and all it took was turning off Asus services from the msconfig window... wow. Here is where it was: https://zentalk.asus.com/en/discussion/38789/tuf-gaming-fx505gt-laptop-not-performing-well MORAL OF THE STORY: Asus, please treat us FX505 users with dignity, please. (DISCLAIMER: I am by no means a computer guru. I am simply a dude who has little to no knowledge about fixing computers and just wants to play video games.) Hey, so I have this laptop, the ASUS Tuf Gaming laptop, with these specs: (I used to have 16 gb of RAM, but I took one stick out for diagnostic purposes) Original purchase date: November 2019 So around October 19 or 20, I noticed that when I turned on my laptop, the fans wouldn't turn on like it should. I also noticed that there was quite some lag when opening up browswers and programs. While I was in a Zoom meeting, something that happens once in a blue moon occured: I got Blue Screened. This was the first actual time I got one, so I was extremely puzzled. I then came back, turned on Task Manager, and saw the very thing that haunts me to this day: See, my laptop, in its prime time, usually handles stuff like Zoom calls, games, etc. with relative ease, but now it just lags behind everything. I did a whole bunch of diagnostics, consultations with friends, and Googling, and found some tad bits of evidence as to why my CPU got crippled. So before all this happened, I enjoyed live streaming, video editing, and other fun activities on my laptop, which admittedly, did put a lot of strain on my CPU, but I was careless in my judgement to notice. So I pose a couple questions to the LTT forums: - What are some possible issues and circumstances that are causing my CPU to underclock/underperform? - Should I get another CPU to replace this one, if possible? - If not, then should I get another laptop, preferably that is capable of handling strenuous tasks? - If so, then what brand is the most reliable when it comes to making laptops? - If I do ever get a new laptop, what are some preventative measures to stop this from happening ever again? UPDATE 10/28/20: After doing some more research, I may have another lead as to why my laptop's performance went down. So apparently, what it's doing is "throttling," which is when it reduces the clock speeds to prevent the CPU from overheating. To further prevent said issues, the manufacturer, ASUS, applied thermal paste onto the CPU as a means to cool it down more. As you can see where this is going, I'm speculating that the thermal paste in my laptop has already worn out, which therefore caused the CPU to overheat and thus throttling to keep it at low temperatures. I don't think this is plausible as the CPU started underperforming the day after it worked fine. A user by the name of killer5247 had also provided some insight in the replies to this post. He said that the Armoury Crate, the program that controls all of the fan profiles, RGB config, etc., had recent updates in its BIOS and firmware, which may have caused issues with the CPU, which therefore went haywire and started underclocking. I'm not too sure if that is true or not, but it does make some sense. Before all this mess had happened, the laptop was perfectly fine (I think?); it was able to run Streamlabs and Minecraft Shaders pretty well, and it could handle video editing too. Right after the day that it worked fine—this is assuming that it happened overnight—it started to slow down.

i just ordered a new gtx 1060 3gb g1 gaming from gigabyte and i have a very poor amd a6 3620 apu in my current system and i was wondering how much of a bottleneck i should expect or what performance people think i can achieve. please leave a response as im quite worried about this. thank you

Hi guys, I am having a problem. I have an intel xeon x3440 processor which wont run in my h55 motherboard. the motherboard is from an indian brand called zebronics. I suspected the motherboard to be a dead motherboard so i went to a pc repair shop and they tried various different motherboards. The problem is, the fans and all spins, the pc powers up but there is no display output. I tried swapping or using single ram, also tried changing graphics cards, tried different motherboards, one was from biostar and i still just got a no display problem. I checked my monitor and no problem with it. I had the motherboard speaker installed in the motherboard but there were no beep codes. Only once the ram beeped when the repair guy put an incompatible ram in it. Thing is these people dont have a processor to test whether it is a dead processor problem or incompatibility issue of the processor. So i was wondering whether you guys could deduce any conclusions. I am totally confused here as to what the problem is. Thank you

Hello, I need some advise my system is water cooled, a few months ago I had a leak which killed my GTX 590 I didn't really care cause I was upgrading to GTX 970sli. So I replaced the graphics card when I went to power on the system nothing happened so I took it back a part that's when I noticed water under the CPU socket I cried 64GB memory, 4960x on a Asus P9X79 Deluxe. I let it dry out for a few days before putting it back together It worked fine at normal clocks, I tested it with prime95 and fury mark ran it for a couple of hours no problem at all, but as soon as i try to over clock the CPU only by just a 100mhz my system locks up if it will boot, I tried adding more volts to the CPU, I dont want to make things worst, I know its not the memory so how can I tell if its the board or CPU I don't have an extra board or CPU laying around. thanks

Hello everyone. This morning my system was working beautifully, and when Windows 8.1 Pro restarted to install some updates all hell broke loose. Upon reboot, my computer just hangs with everything running and no video displayed. I have disassembled the entire computer down to the motherboard, one stick of ram, CPU and cooler, and power supply. I have also tried using both my GPU and the onboard graphics to determine whether or not I could get video output, but neither give me anything. The system isnt shutting off and coming back on. It is just sitting on my Mobo box runnig with no video. I have tried a few different sticks of ram, and the M.2 SSD that has the windows installation is not connected just to ensure the problem has not been caused by windows seeing as how it started durring a reboot. Any suggestions? I am thinking it may be the PSU or the CPU.