The dreaded : Is it the memory, the motherboard, or the CPU memory controller?

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, Blakestr said:

But check this out - I was trying to download something in terminal I think it was (sysbench) and I got to pop that said 'cinnamon just crashed' & "You are in fall back mode." 

 

Then it asked me if I want to restart Cinnamon.  

 

I guess that helps prove that it's hardware then? Certainly can't be windows at least that makes me feel better

Yes, this is then hardware related.

I have seen issues before where the poster has all kinds of crap running resident, and neglected to mention this, and the problems went away "magically" when running under Linux, hence why I suggest it.

SO, you've got a bad board/ram/cpu.

If you've replaced the board/ram, all that's left is the cpu

(or your BIOS settings are borked)

[Blakestr]

2 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Yes, this is then hardware related.

I have seen issues before where the poster has all kinds of crap running resident, and neglected to mention this, and the problems went away "magically" when running under Linux, hence why I suggest it.

SO, you've got a bad board/ram/cpu.

If you've replaced the board/ram, all that's left is the cpu

(or your BIOS settings are borked)

Unless the bios came that way from the manufacturer(s)...

 

The worst part is well I'm pretty confident Intel will RMA this especially after I describe all the steps I had to take, I don't think I'll really ever find out exactly what the actual problem was on the actual CPU architecture.  (Even if they ever find out). 

 

I don't know enough about their process about investigating these things, maybe they just toss it into a bin until they see the same type of problems describe and they dig deeper.

 

 

[Blakestr]

4 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Yes, this is then hardware related.

 

By the way thank you very much for helping me with this entire process - I feel better ordering a new CPU now knowing that I've got some more solid confirmation of the problem

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, Blakestr said:

By the way thank you very much for helping me with this entire process - I feel better ordering a new CPU now knowing that I've got some more solid confirmation of the problem

You are most welcome!

Keep us posted on how things turn out

[Blakestr]

16 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

You are most welcome!

Keep us posted on how things turn out

I feel better that it wasn’t some obscure windows 10 driver issue or something, but I will report back. Although in the meantime, I am curious - *of course I am going to reformat and start clean, because who knows what the CPU did when it malfunctioned, I’d consider all the data on there now (which has only been there for like 2-3 days) suspect. But I am curious - should I expect to still encounter these crashes when I swap the new CPU in, or will I have to reformat to see an obvious change. Right now, I can’t even open a template project from a new unreal editor install. Should I expect that editor to still crash when I put the new CPU in? Just trying to have realistic expectations. *

[Radium_Angel]

3 hours ago, Blakestr said:

I feel better that it wasn’t some obscure windows 10 driver issue or something, but I will report back. Although in the meantime, I am curious - *of course I am going to reformat and start clean, because who knows what the CPU did when it malfunctioned, I’d consider all the data on there now (which has only been there for like 2-3 days) suspect. But I am curious - should I expect to still encounter these crashes when I swap the new CPU in, or will I have to reformat to see an obvious change. Right now, I can’t even open a template project from a new unreal editor install. Should I expect that editor to still crash when I put the new CPU in? Just trying to have realistic expectations. *

As much as I rag on Windows, it's amazingly self-healing these days. After a cpu swap you shouldn't need to do a fresh install.

[Blakestr]

On 5/4/2023 at 12:01 PM, Radium_Angel said:

You are most welcome!

Keep us posted on how things turn out

I swapped the CPU out and the problem went away.  Had a brief scare because (now I know this) thermal compound had fallen onto the new mothersboard socket pins.  I cleaned it off with alcohol and made the gentlest touch on the pins - but still felt the qtip (yes, I'm dumb) get snagged and pull gently.  It was enough where I wasn't sure if these marks were in the socket or not but you could see them if you looked from the right angle.  (I'm talking about the outside pins, not the middle architecture, I'm sure the slightest thing there would be severe) 

 

Fortunately it posted fine, temps were fine, and performed as expected in stress tests, so maybe I dodged a bullet, or maybe there was nothing to dodge. 

 

I am happy to report that the memory error/crash that I would get is gone, or at least, I can't replicate it.  It WAS the CPU!

 

Everyone always says how rare it is for the CPU's to have problems, especially problems that don't manifest during stress tests.  I have the dubious honor of owning that rare CPU, with some type of faulty memory controller that works, but not always, and seems to be fine on stress tests.  

Thanks again for the guidance everyone! 

[Radium_Angel]

16 hours ago, Blakestr said:

I swapped the CPU out and the problem went away.  Had a brief scare because (now I know this) thermal compound had fallen onto the new mothersboard socket pins.  I cleaned it off with alcohol and made the gentlest touch on the pins - but still felt the qtip (yes, I'm dumb) get snagged and pull gently.  It was enough where I wasn't sure if these marks were in the socket or not but you could see them if you looked from the right angle.  (I'm talking about the outside pins, not the middle architecture, I'm sure the slightest thing there would be severe) 

 

Fortunately it posted fine, temps were fine, and performed as expected in stress tests, so maybe I dodged a bullet, or maybe there was nothing to dodge. 

 

I am happy to report that the memory error/crash that I would get is gone, or at least, I can't replicate it.  It WAS the CPU!

 

Everyone always says how rare it is for the CPU's to have problems, especially problems that don't manifest during stress tests.  I have the dubious honor of owning that rare CPU, with some type of faulty memory controller that works, but not always, and seems to be fine on stress tests.  

Thanks again for the guidance everyone! 

It is very rare to see a dead CPU (sort of an OCing gone wrong) and my all my years in IT, and the 1000s of systems I've worked on, I've had 1, possibly 2, bad CPUs run across my desk.

Rare indeed. But glad you found the root cause