Faulty RAM?

[Ixjoke_]

Hello,

On Friday, I assembled my second PC myself, and everything went smoothly. The startup was also problem-free. Subsequently, I took the usual steps, such as enabling Expo and other settings.

After installing Windows, I wanted to check how stable the system was running. That's when I encountered the first crash in Cinebench, even though the temperatures were normal. After numerous attempts, I came to the conclusion that disabling Expo (which resulted in my RAM running at 4800 MHz) prevented the crashes. With Expo enabled, the system would crash every time after 5-10 minutes in Cinebench, Time Spy, or the Heaven Benchmark.
 

Even a Memtest86 test with Expo enabled inexplicably led to a system crash. At that point, I was convinced that the issue was with the RAM. However, I still wanted to do some gaming (without Expo), so I downloaded "It Takes Two" and FIFA.
 

I noticed sound problems and a stuttering gameplay experience in FIFA, and suddenly my pc crashed.
 

Now, I'm confused and no longer sure if the problem is indeed related to the RAM. Memtest86 shouldn't cause crashes due to RAM errors, right? My games are also crashing without Expo, even though the benchmarks were running fine. Could the problem possibly be with the CPU?
 

System Specs:

Motherboard: MSI B650 Pro Wifi

CPU: Ryzen 5 7600

RAM: G.Skill Flare EXPO X5

PSU: 850 Watt be quiet! Pure Power 12 M

Graphics Card: 16GB XFX Radeon RX 6950 XT

BIOS was also updated Friday.
Windows 10 22H2

Minidumps.rar

[Tetras]

Disabling EXPO doesn't seem to be enough to ensure stability with Ryzen systems in some circumstances, I'm not sure why (never saw this behaviour with DDR4), but at a minimum I'd set the DRAM voltage to whatever the manufacturer recommends, even if you're running at 4800. If you do enable EXPO, then double check it is using the correct voltage.

 

By "crash", what exactly do you mean? Since you have included a minidumps file, I'm guessing that you mean BSODs?

 

Have you confirmed that the memory is in the correct slots, according to the motherboard manual?

 

What speed does your memory use when EXPO is enabled?

 

Are you using a riser cable for your graphics card, or is it directly connected to the slot?

 

I wonder if what you're experiencing is actually relating to both the memory config and to something else. Have any of these components been re-used between systems, or are they all brand new?

 

Have you tried power limiting/underclocking the GPU?

 

Is any overclocking of the CPU enabled (automatic, or otherwise)?

[Ixjoke_]

13 hours ago, Tetras said:

Disabling EXPO doesn't seem to be enough to ensure stability with Ryzen systems in some circumstances, I'm not sure why (never saw this behaviour with DDR4), but at a minimum I'd set the DRAM voltage to whatever the manufacturer recommends, even if you're running at 4800. If you do enable EXPO, then double check it is using the correct voltage.

 

By "crash", what exactly do you mean? Since you have included a minidumps file, I'm guessing that you mean BSODs?

 

Have you confirmed that the memory is in the correct slots, according to the motherboard manual?

 

What speed does your memory use when EXPO is enabled?

 

Are you using a riser cable for your graphics card, or is it directly connected to the slot?

 

I wonder if what you're experiencing is actually relating to both the memory config and to something else. Have any of these components been re-used between systems, or are they all brand new?

 

Have you tried power limiting/underclocking the GPU?

 

Is any overclocking of the CPU enabled (automatic, or otherwise)?

Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it!

1. Sometimes I get a distorted bluescreen. Other times, the screen just goes black, but the fans continue running.

2. They are running in dual channel in the 2nd and 4th slots. I've tried the 1st and 3rd slots, but the PC didn't even turn on. That seems strange to me.

3. In Expo, they are running at 6000 MHz.

4. The graphics card is directly in the PCI slot.

5. All the parts are new, and I have a return policy of two weeks.

6. No, I haven't limited my GPU power.

7. My CPU is not overclocked either.

I installed my old graphics card, the 1070 8GB, and strangely, I didn't have any crashes, and the game ran relatively smoothly for a 1070. As a counter-test, I installed the 6950XT and the power supply in the old system (Ryzen 5 1600), and it ran smoothly there too, except for the CPU bottleneck. Both tests ran under normal load.
 

New system with 1070 (60% CPU and 60-70% GPU) Old system with 6950XT (90% CPU and 50-60% GPU) But what completely confuses me is the new system with 6950XT (GPU 70-80% and CPU 70-80% with extreme fluctuations of up to 20% in the middle of the game).
 

Last night, I ran a MemTest86 and the Windows RAM test, and both didn't find any errors (without Expo).

I'm slowly getting desperate because it feels like I'm going in circles... Thankfully, in Germany, we have a 14-day return policy.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Bjoolz]

16 hours ago, Ixjoke_ said:

Hello,

On Friday, I assembled my second PC myself, and everything went smoothly. The startup was also problem-free. Subsequently, I took the usual steps, such as enabling Expo and other settings.

After installing Windows, I wanted to check how stable the system was running. That's when I encountered the first crash in Cinebench, even though the temperatures were normal. After numerous attempts, I came to the conclusion that disabling Expo (which resulted in my RAM running at 4800 MHz) prevented the crashes. With Expo enabled, the system would crash every time after 5-10 minutes in Cinebench, Time Spy, or the Heaven Benchmark.
 

Even a Memtest86 test with Expo enabled inexplicably led to a system crash. At that point, I was convinced that the issue was with the RAM. However, I still wanted to do some gaming (without Expo), so I downloaded "It Takes Two" and FIFA.
 

I noticed sound problems and a stuttering gameplay experience in FIFA, and suddenly my pc crashed.
 

Now, I'm confused and no longer sure if the problem is indeed related to the RAM. Memtest86 shouldn't cause crashes due to RAM errors, right? My games are also crashing without Expo, even though the benchmarks were running fine. Could the problem possibly be with the CPU?
 

System Specs:

Motherboard: MSI B650 Pro Wifi

CPU: Ryzen 5 7600

RAM: G.Skill Flare EXPO X5

PSU: 850 Watt be quiet! Pure Power 12 M

Graphics Card: 16GB XFX Radeon RX 6950 XT

BIOS was also updated Friday.
Windows 10 22H2

Minidumps.rar 491.61 kB · 0 downloads

The two crashes in the dumps are Clock_Watchdog_Timeouts. Not really an error you see with RAM. This is most commonly seen with an unstable CPU overclock/undervolt. Crashes in memtest is something you see more with CPU issues as well. 

 

I would go into the BIOS and find PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) and set it to Disabled. It should be in the Overclocking section. PBO is fairly aggressive overclocking that a fair amount of CPUs can't handle.

 

If it still crashes then the CPU would be my main suspect.

53 minutes ago, Ixjoke_ said:

Sometimes I get a distorted bluescreen. Other times, the screen just goes black, but the fans continue running.

If you have a monitor that is 1440p or higher, that's a Windows bug. Not related to the crash, it's just visual at the BSOD screen. That it just goes black somtimes is a bit weirder if it's the CPU. 

 

53 minutes ago, Ixjoke_ said:

I installed my old graphics card, the 1070 8GB, and strangely, I didn't have any crashes, and the game ran relatively smoothly for a 1070. As a counter-test, I installed the 6950XT and the power supply in the old system (Ryzen 5 1600), and it ran smoothly there too, except for the CPU bottleneck. Both tests ran under normal load.
 

New system with 1070 (60% CPU and 60-70% GPU) Old system with 6950XT (90% CPU and 50-60% GPU) But what completely confuses me is the new system with 6950XT (GPU 70-80% and CPU 70-80% with extreme fluctuations of up to 20% in the middle of the game).

If disabling PBO makes the BSODs stop, but you still freeze, I would look at the PSU and/or motherboard. If you still BSOD then please provide new dump files. 

[Tetras]

6 hours ago, Ixjoke_ said:

They are running in dual channel in the 2nd and 4th slots. I've tried the 1st and 3rd slots, but the PC didn't even turn on. That seems strange to me.

This is not a problem, it is due to the design of the motherboard.

 

6 hours ago, Ixjoke_ said:

I installed my old graphics card, the 1070 8GB, and strangely, I didn't have any crashes, and the game ran relatively smoothly for a 1070. As a counter-test, I installed the 6950XT and the power supply in the old system (Ryzen 5 1600), and it ran smoothly there too, except for the CPU bottleneck. Both tests ran under normal load.

So, if I try to understand what you established here:

 

1. With the 1070, your computer "as is" runs 100% fine, no crashes, BSODs, etc.

 

2. With the 6950 XT and PSU in another PC, the 6950 XT and PSU run 100% fine, no crashes, BSODs, etc.

 

Theories why:

A. New PC with 6950 XT uses more power than the Ryzen 5 1600, therefore unstable with same PSU?

B. New PC with 6950 XT is broken because of incompatibility problem (and if so, what?).

C. New PC with 6950 XT has a software problem: drivers? Monitoring software?

D. New PC with 6950 XT exposes that the CPU and/or memory are not able to run 100% loaded, because it works them harder than the 1070 (and in what way? Their clock speeds? Voltages?).

 

Suggestions for elimination:

- (D.) As Bjoolz suggested above, disable PBO and try running the CPU at the base clock.

- (A.) Power limit or heavily underclock the graphics card.

- (C.) Make a fresh install (maybe on a spare SSD) and remove all software, including motherboard tools, monitoring, etc, with fresh drivers manually downloaded from the manufacturer's website.

- (B.) Set PCI-E Gen to PCI-E 3.0.

 

6 hours ago, Ixjoke_ said:

But what completely confuses me is the new system with 6950XT (GPU 70-80% and CPU 70-80% with extreme fluctuations of up to 20% in the middle of the game).

I am not sure if this is an important clue, or just a red herring. Do you experience this in benchmarks and other games? What is your monitor refresh rate?

 

There's two things you may want to try.

- Use a much older driver, specifically: 22.5.1, there's a post here that mentions stuttering due to how the driver handles DirectX11 differently.

- Make sure you're using the right HDMI audio driver as suggested here.

[Ixjoke_]

9 hours ago, Bjoolz said:

If disabling PBO makes the BSODs stop, but you still freeze, I would look at the PSU and/or motherboard. If you still BSOD then please provide new dump files. 

Since disabling PBO, I haven't had any more crashing issues, but my PC is running terribly. The audio constantly lags and videos freeze randomly while playing fifa.

surpisingly i get now higher scores on cinebench r23?
 

[Tetras]

32 minutes ago, Ixjoke_ said:

Since disabling PBO, I haven't had any more crashing issues, but my PC is running terribly. The audio constantly lags and videos freeze randomly while playing fifa.

 

Can you try another game or two, to rule out a driver issue specific to FIFA?

 

33 minutes ago, Ixjoke_ said:

surprisingly i get now higher scores on cinebench r23?

 

What is the CPU cooler?

[Ixjoke_]

On 9/19/2023 at 12:51 AM, Tetras said:

 

Can you try another game or two, to rule out a driver issue specific to FIFA?

I've reinstalled Windows.
 

So I've tried Fortnite and CS:GO for several hours with and without PBO, and there were no crashes. However, in Fortnite, there were occasional sound glitches, and a video I was watching in the background froze. I'm playing Fortnite on High settings at 1440p. Should I be concerned?
 

I tried it again with EXPO enabled, and it crashed after only 3 minutes in Cinebench

Edit:
I just tried Warzone, and I had the same problem where the sound occasionally cuts out for 5 seconds, but the game still runs smoothly; only the sound is briefly gone.

 

On 9/19/2023 at 12:51 AM, Tetras said:

 

What is the CPU cooler?

be quiet! Pure Rock 2 FX Tower 

[Ixjoke_]

On 9/18/2023 at 8:51 PM, Tetras said:

 

There's two things you may want to try.

- Use a much older driver, specifically: 22.5.1, there's a post here that mentions stuttering due to how the driver handles DirectX11 differently.

- Make sure you're using the right HDMI audio driver as suggested here.

I'm going to give this a try. I hope it resolves my issues with FIFA.

I am using a USB Headset btw not my monitor speakers

[Tetras]

2 hours ago, Ixjoke_ said:

So I've tried Fortnite and CS:GO for several hours with and without PBO, and there were no crashes.

Good news.

 

2 hours ago, Ixjoke_ said:

However, in Fortnite, there were occasional sound glitches, and a video I was watching in the background froze. I'm playing Fortnite on High settings at 1440p. Should I be concerned?

Hmm, what are you running in the background while you're gaming? Hardware acceleration in browsers is notorious for causing problems and even stuff like Discord can have similar troubles.

[Ixjoke_]

8 hours ago, Tetras said:

 

Hmm, what are you running in the background while you're gaming? Hardware acceleration in browsers is notorious for causing problems and even stuff like Discord can have similar troubles.

Just the game and some gamelauncher like steam, ea, battle.net

I just started watching a  stream on Twitch, and it keeps freezing with the audio more often than the video. What could be the issue?
Turning off hardware accelartion didnt change anything.
Just Browser open not anything else.
Edit: I fixed the stream problem by updating my realtek driver via driver easy, but still got it in games 
second edit: 

I tried Fortnite with Expo again, and the sound remained consistently glitchy until my pc crashed after 2 minutes(no bsod) . Considering that the sound bugs have worsened and the system is running stably without Expo, can we conclude that the RAM is potentially faulty at this point?