troubleshooting Freezes, bluescreens and btd crashes without error, but memory checks out fine. Any ideas?

[zweilinkehaende]

Setup:

Ryzen 2700X (stock Prism cooler)

Asus X470-F Gaming on newest BIOS

2x(16GB (2x 8192MB) G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3200 DIMM CL16-18-18-38 Dual Kit) running at D.O.C.P. speeds

Palit RTX 3070 version 1

750 Watt EVGA SuperNOVA G3 Modular 80+ Gold

LG C10 connected via HDMI to the GPU

BenQ 1080p 120Hz

LG G900 mouse

LogiTech Stream cam

Firefox

using the AMD Ryzen Balanced Power Plan

 

Hi Everyone!

 

I upgraded from a 1080p monitor to the C10, from a 1080 to the 3070 and from 16 GB to 32 GB a few months back. Somewhere around that time (apart from initial RAM issues, which happened immediatly) the problems started.

Since then i have experienced freezes (with the iconic sound problems) that don't resolve to a bluescreen and thus don't produce crash reports (i think?),

bluescreens and back to desktopcrashes specifically in Dota 2 (was always rock solid) and Star Citizen (a mess and crashes could be coincidental) without any error messages.

 

I have been trying to analyze the bluescreen files using WinDbg, but i'm a little out of my depth there. From what i can tell it attributes the crashes to the modules:

- nt (x1)

- amdppm (x2)

- hardware (x1)

- nvlddmkm (x1)

It also starts each debugging log with:

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for win32k.sys

 

These are just the results from the clean install on the new drive, so i don't know what the other errors were, but from my recollection it mostly said amdppm.sys on the bluescreen.

 

Such diverse errors would have led me to believe that it's a memory problem, but memtest says it's fine and i don't know how else to test for errors. "Unable to verify timestamp" leads me to speculate that the MB clock is bad (battery low?) but for all i know that could be a normal warning for a bluescreen crashdump.

 

To troubleshoot i did (roughly in chronological order):

- ran bootable memtest 86 for all tests, dialled in the RAM speed at DOCP timings but 2866 MT (earliest speed without any errors on all 4 passes) -> greatly increased stability, did this directly after installing the second RAM kit, thought the memory controller on my CPU just couldn't handle the same speed on 4 modules vs 2

- updated all drivers/windows updates -> no change

- changed Dota 2 renderer in an attempt to stop the btd crashes -> no change

- ran sfc -scannow (it repaired LG drivers and something with onedrive) -> no change

- ran chkdsk -> no errors

- reset windows to earlier image using the built in function -> no change

- disconnected the second display and replaced the HDMI cable (first cable sometimes showed intermittent picture loss/artifacts) -> no change but no more artifacting/picture loss

- reinstalled windows on a different drive, removed (almost, windows apparently put the bootloader on my second m.2 and neither of my m.2s was previously part of the install) all other drives -> no change

    (didn't install the LG drivers this time, never connected the webcam)

- used ryzen master to turn off precision boost overdrive -> no change

- updated BIOS from factory version from 2018 to most recent and ran bootable memtest 86 for all tests, dialled in the RAM speed at DOCP timings and speed, 0 Errors 4 passes -> bios update improved RAM stability, but didn't fix the problem

- ran sfc -scannow (it repaired onedrive again)

 

The problem (bluescreen and freezes) happens most often when running a game and starting/stopping video playback in firefox, but i didn't collect rigorous data on that, so that might just be a false correlation.

I can't reproduce the problem by running stresstests (furmark + ycruncher) and at this point i don't even know where the problem could be. I already sold my 1080 and i don't have a different AM4 chip, so i can't test by swapping hardware.

These problems are generally hard to predict, sometimes they don't happen for multiple days, sometimes multiple times per hour.

 

If You have a concrete idea what the problem could be that would obviously be great! Otherwise clearing up a few questions would probably go a long way towards helping me narrow down my search for a solution:

 

- Could the RAM be unstable, even though memtest86 says it's completely fine?

- Is it possible for the graphicscard to cause failures in the nt/amdppm/hardware modules? (aka can i rule the graphicscard and display out?)

- Could my secondary M.2 drive that apparently hosts the bootloader be the problem or can i rule storage out?

- Would it be worth it to switch out the MB battery or am i on the wrong track there?

 

I don't know which files to make available, i obviously have some crashdumps, but i don't know if they would help/if i should censor something about them, so tell me if You think any specific file would help with diagnosing the problem.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank You!

[Alvin853]

Diverse errors like this usually come down to RAM or CPU problems, and the error message just reads whatever task was being processed as the issue occured. 

First thing I would do is return all BIOS settings to AUTO, don't dial in your memory manually, don't activate D.O.C.P., just have everything set to plug&play. While your RAM might be able to do those speeds just fine, you're basically overclocking your memory controller, a 2700X is rated for 2933 memory speed. And Zen/Zen+ CPUs are somewhat picky when it comes to RAM. If the issue appears to be RAM-speed related, and you really want to use the full speed of your modules, you can try increasing the voltage of the memory-controller, that tends to help with stability in edge cases like yours where it's just not 100% stable. 

If the issue persists, then your CPU might be unstable. Could be an issue with the power delivery, the way you describe the moment it crashes makes it sound like there's a short spike of activity (starting/stopping video playback for example), and that might cause the CPU to boost and possibly voltage to lag behind slightly. Some mainboard allow changing the switching frequency of the VRMs, that could help, or applying a positive offset voltage to the CPU to make it more stable in general (that does increase the temps though, so be careful with your stock cooler)

[zweilinkehaende]

I will try using the RAM at non DOCP speeds. It's a little disappointing that memtest doesn't test the memory controller at the same time.

[zweilinkehaende]

I have been running my RAM at 3133 MTs for over one week without any crashes, freezes or BSODs. So if anyone has the same problem, that seems to have done the trick. Don't trust memtest blindly.