Crashing when under load

[Drbek]

Hello,
first, I would like to say this is my first post, so I would like to apologize, if something is not well described, I will gladly add some clarification or information if needed.

Current problems:

• PC is crashing when under load (probably, can't find any other cause) (crashing means that it powers itself off and then starts again, af if reset button on case was pressed).
• PC freezes from time to time or windows throws BSOD at me (usually it's either some memory management error, kernel security check failure or watchdog timeout) (this one started after crashing, so I think windows might be corrupted from those sudden power offs)

It happens:

• When I heavily use my PC, like playing computer games and coding + testing some stuff (Usually some simple python stuff) in the background + browser.
• When I leave something intensive running overnight (not sure with this one tho, might be "the awesome" windows update restarting PC during "inactive hours").
• When I play several games at a time + watch some movie (I know this one isn't normal :D, its just clicking games tho)

At first it started crashing while playing quite heavy game, Black Desert Online, on every settings at best possible value. Then I lowered details and stuff and it stopped happening so often, but now it happens again even when playing much less insensive games.
It also started to crash a while after I changed MoBo, CPU and RAM. So I assume it has something to do with hardware.

I tested:

• Stress test only CPU for several hours, nothing happened, at 100% usage it stays around 74°C,
• Stress test only GPU for several hours, again nothing happened, at 100% usage it stays around 83°C,
• Tested all drives several times (sequential and random writes/reads), nothing
• I used windows memory diagnostic several times and it didn't find any errors (cant use memtest, I dont have any working usb drive right now)
• Then I used AIDA64 to stress test PC using CPU, GPU and system memory at the same time, after few hours no crash happened

After that I thought it might be OS problem, since I was using windows insider because of wsl2 for some time. So I reinstalled windows, but in the end it started to happen again.

I found some people playing similar games as me had the same problem and a new PSU fixed their problem, so I sacrificed some money and got new PSU, but that didnt fix it neither. During the PSU exchange, I checked all cables and CPU cooler mount and if everything is well connected, all seemed fine.

Today I tried to make bootable USB drive using 2 flash drives (some old ones I found lying around). Unfortunately, both of them were damaged in the end, anyway, the point is, when I tried to format them or test for bad sectors (or repair them using some software (not sure if this works tho)), PC crashed during those processes several times. (Flash drives were already damaged, so I tested it, and it crashed during more than 50% tries of repairing/formating the drive). I had only game running in the background (dota 2) and I was reading in a web browser (opera GX).

Components are following:
MB: ASRock B450M Pro4 (bios up-to-date, v4.30)

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600

GPU: GeForce GTX 1070
RAM: Patriot Viper 4 Blackout Series 16GB KIT DDR4 3000MHz CL16

PSU: SilverStone Essential Gold Semi-modular 650W
Storage:

• XPG GAMMIX S11 Pro (M.2, used for system)
• 1TB HDD (WDC WD10EZEX-00ZF5A0)
• 640GB HDD (WDC WD6400AAKS-22A7B0)
• 240GB SSD (ADATA SP550)
• 120GB SSD (INTEL SSDSA2M120G2GC)

No optical drives
Additional PCI card: ASUS PCE-N15 (wifi network card)

case: Zalman R1

OS: Windows 10, version 2004
 

No overclocking involved! Everything is stock, except updated bios.

Ambient temperature is around 20°C and PC is cleaned from dust from time to time (it also has dust filters in front of the intake fans). Standby temperature is around 40 - 42°C on CPU and ~35°C on GPU.
I wanted to post photo of the build, but unfortunately, my phone's camera app is broken and cant focus on close objects, so there wouldn't be anything visible. But I checked all connectors and cables, GPU and RAM slots and CPU and cooler mount. Everything seems to be connected well.

I am sorry for this lengthy description, but I would like to ask if anyone can give me any advice what might be the cause of the problem, so I can either replace some parts or fix it somehow.

[Vishera]

34 minutes ago, Drbek said:

Stress test

Stress tests are not stability tests...

Stress tests just load a component to the max,stability tests give the component a task and compare the correct result with the component's result - if it's different from the correct result then the component failed the test.

 

Try testing the CPU with Prime95 with the Small FFTs option for a hour.

Try testing the GPU with GPUPI 3.3.3,Press Calculate and choose 32B HWbot GPU,then press OK to start. (Press cancel if a message about HPET appears)

Try testing the RAM with Memtest86.

 

Tell us if you get any errors while testing.

 

Prime95 download page:

https://www.mersenne.org/download/

 

GPUPI 3.3.3 download page:

https://www.overclockers.at/news/gpupi-international-support-thread

 

Memtest86 download page:

https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

 

EDIT: Also there is a possibility that your OS drive is failing,another possibility is that something is wrong with the OS,and at last the possibilities of motherboard and/or PSU causing the issue.

[Drbek]

15 hours ago, Vishera said:

Stress tests are not stability tests...

Stress tests just load a component to the max,stability tests give the component a task and compare the correct result with the component's result - if it's different from the correct result then the component failed the test.

 

Try testing the CPU with Prime95 with the Small FFTs option for a hour.

Try testing the GPU with GPUPI 3.3.3,Press Calculate and choose 32B HWbot GPU,then press OK to start. (Press cancel if a message about HPET appears)

Try testing the RAM with Memtest86.

 

Tell us if you get any errors while testing.

 

Prime95 download page:

https://www.mersenne.org/download/

 

GPUPI 3.3.3 download page:

https://www.overclockers.at/news/gpupi-international-support-thread

 

Memtest86 download page:

https://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

 

EDIT: Also there is a possibility that your OS drive is failing,another possibility is that something is wrong with the OS,and at last the possibilities of motherboard and/or PSU causing the issue.

Thank you for a reply. I thought stress test meant stability, I am sorry for my mistake.

PSU is the least possible in my opinion, since I already got a new one not even a month ago and it didn't fix anything.

I also tried reinstalling the OS (I disconnected all drives except for the one used for the OS during install, its on nvme drive), it didn't help.

Prime95 reported no errors, It ran for 1 hour and 44 minutes, since I had some other job to do and couldnt turn it off at 1 hour mark. (default settings except Small FFTs, as u recommended)

Memtest86 did 4 passes and all of them without any errors. (default settings)

GPUPI did 20 iterations and reported no errors.

Does this exclude those component from possible causes? (or at least lowers the possibility to really low chance?)
Next I will try to use one of my SSDs as OS drive and try if it crashes when playing. I have money for at most 1 new part (except GPU), so I have to find the most possible cause. So far I suspect motherboard or the drive...

[Vishera]

2 hours ago, Drbek said:

Does this exclude those component from possible causes? (or at least lowers the possibility to really low chance?)

Yes,it does.

Your CPU,RAM and GPU all seem fine.

And the new PSU didn't fix the issue.

So the OS drive and the motherboard remain.

2 hours ago, Drbek said:

I also tried reinstalling the OS (I disconnected all drives except for the one used for the OS during install, its on nvme drive), it didn't help.

Just to clarify,by reinstalling do you mean a clean install?

[Drbek]

Just now, Vishera said:

 

Just to clarify,by reinstalling do you mean a clean install?

Yeah, clean install. I dont have install drive at me now, so I have to wait till tomorrow with testing the drive.

[Vishera]

3 hours ago, Drbek said:

Next I will try to use one of my SSDs as OS drive and try if it crashes when playing. I have money for at most 1 new part (except GPU), so I have to find the most possible cause. So far I suspect motherboard or the drive...

Try GSmartControl,double click on the drive than check the error log,Statistics and do a short self test in Self-Tests.

 

GSmartControl download page:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gsmartcontrol/files/1.1.3/gsmartcontrol-1.1.3-win64.zip/download

[Drbek]

1 hour ago, Vishera said:

Try GSmartControl,double click on the drive than check the error log,Statistics and do a short self test in Self-Tests.

 

GSmartControl download page:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gsmartcontrol/files/1.1.3/gsmartcontrol-1.1.3-win64.zip/download

Tried GSmartControl, but it said "Model Unknown" with the drive that has OS on it. (I updated database of drives, but still nothing)

I read info using CrystalDiskInfo, all seemed fine, drive health is good (91%). in the details it says:

• Media and Data Integrity Errors                      00000000000000
• Number of Error Information Log Entries        00000000000000

So I suppose no errors there. I also checked the drive using manufacturer's software (ADATA ssd toolbox), using their diagnostic tools and everything came out as if it is alright.

There is also button for firmware update, but it warns me about data loss.

So before I press it I want to ask if it is safe to trigger firmware update. I mean, does it wipe all the drive by standart or does it mean data loss just in case of some unexpected circumstances? (I will backup data anyway)

 

Here are atleast some images from CrystalDiskInfo:
Disk C (boot drive, OS is on it):

Spoiler

Also I noticed on of my drives is not that "heatlhy", but it just contains some less used data and even less used software:

Spoiler

 

[Vishera]

38 minutes ago, Drbek said:

So before I press it I want to ask if it is safe to trigger firmware update. I mean, does it wipe all the drive by standart or does it mean data loss just in case of some unexpected circumstances? (I will backup data anyway)

 

A firmware update can brick the drive and render it useless...

44 minutes ago, Drbek said:

Here are atleast some images from CrystalDiskInfo

That doesn't help much,still try a different drive.

[Drbek]

23 hours ago, Vishera said:

A firmware update can brick the drive and render it useless...

Oh right, stupid me.. 

23 hours ago, Vishera said:

That doesn't help much,still try a different drive.

So, I tried different drive, for at least 10 hours, I was working and gaming and tried to provoke a crash in different ways. I played 3 games at a time, compiled some software and watched lots of movies while doing other stuff. No crash so far.

And now that I think about it, I got my M.2 ssd few weeks after I upgraded all other components, and I think (but my brain is bad, it has extremely bad memory) that it didnt crash AFTER I used new components and BEFORE I used M.2, I also recall that I had some trouble with it a first, but I cant recall what it was....

Anyway, thanks for help. And really big thank you for the patience and all the knowledge that u taught me, I learnt lots of stuff thanks to you!

I guess I will just test it for few more days and if it crashes on this SSD too, I will get new motherboard (and maybe new SSD too later on, something like samsung evo 970, which is imo really good for its price.

[Drbek]

1 hour ago, Drbek said:

I guess I will just test it for few more days and if it crashes on this SSD too, I will get new motherboard (and maybe new SSD too later on, something like samsung evo 970, which is imo really good for its price.

so, now an hour after this post, my PC froze. OS is on a completely different drive and it was a clean install. Although it was not one of those where it reseted, still, it crashed after not even one day of usage.... so I guess my motherboard is fualty

[ItzUknown]

1 hour ago, Drbek said:

so, now an hour after this post, my PC froze. OS is on a completely different drive and it was a clean install. Although it was not one of those where it reseted, still, it crashed after not even one day of usage.... so I guess my motherboard is fualty

I would try to RMA it if possible to avoid the extra cash but if you buy a new board,check the B550 offerings which will be a little morr expensive but will give you pcie 4.0 support which can benefit you with the new RTX 30XX cards and faster nvme ssds!!

[Drbek]

10 hours ago, ItzUknown said:

I would try to RMA it if possible to avoid the extra cash but if you buy a new board,check the B550 offerings which will be a little morr expensive but will give you pcie 4.0 support which can benefit you with the new RTX 30XX cards and faster nvme ssds!!

Thank you for your advice, I will try RMA, but I have extremely bad luck with it.

[Drbek]

Also, I just found out, that my RAMs' package says that they are 3000MHz and voltage is 1.35V. But when I open my BIOS, their speed is set to 2133MHz and voltage to 1.20V. 

Isn't this wrong and cant it cause some instability?

 

[ItzUknown]

40 minutes ago, Drbek said:

Thank you for your advice, I will try RMA, but I have extremely bad luck with it.

Its worth a try at least

[ItzUknown]

16 minutes ago, Drbek said:

Also, I just found out, that my RAMs' package says that they are 3000MHz and voltage is 1.35V. But when I open my BIOS, their speed is set to 2133MHz and voltage to 1.20V. 

Isn't this wrong and cant it cause some instability?

 

Thats a simple fix, go on your motherboard bios and turn on X.M.P. if you have intel or it will be mentioned as D.O.C.P if you have AMD turn it on and it should go at 3000mhz

[Drbek]

12 minutes ago, ItzUknown said:

Thats a simple fix, go on your motherboard bios and turn on X.M.P. if you have intel or it will be mentioned as D.O.C.P if you have AMD turn it on and it should go at 3000mhz

Done, it shows 3000MHz now, finally... I wonder how I didn't notice it before... Thanks

13 minutes ago, ItzUknown said:

Its worth a try at least

Yeah  if it still crashes even with the right memory setting, I will probably have to give it a try  

[ItzUknown]

1 hour ago, Drbek said:

Done, it shows 3000MHz now, finally... I wonder how I didn't notice it before... Thanks

Yeah  if it still crashes even with the right memory setting, I will probably have to give it a try  

Yeah its a good idea because you save a couple bucks with the only drawback being that you wait like 1 month and a half.

[Drbek]

Seems like the problem was on my side... After I changed the settings of RAM, PC didn't freeze or restart, I don't even get BSODs anymore. Or I am just lucky so far  not sure, but it seems good. Even performance is better a bit in some games.

Thank you both for help and making me realise I still don't know lots of stuff when it comes to PC  Time to learn more stuff about PC and PC building