Booted a 5900x into bios without cooler, now booting into windows bluescreens. Did I fry the CPU?

[worldisablaze]

Hello, 

 

I bought a new in box 5900x and a used ASrock x570 phantom gaming 4 to upgrade from my 7700k. I did a test build outside of the case to see if the mobo had the updated bios on it to support the cpu without realizing i didnt put a cooler on it. I turned it off and then mounted a cooler on it. It did have the new bios so I continued to create a new boot drive on the 970 Evo I had. During windows installation, the machine tried to get into windows but then gave me the bluescreen below. I was booting it with a 32gb kit of corsair vengeance 3000mhz (4x8) in a 1 stick, 2 stick, and 4 sticks configs.

 

So my question is, did I kill the cpu or is the used board bad? I started a return for the board and am purchasing a new one to test the cpu in, so I'm gonna find out eventually what happened. I'd still like some insight though, on if these chips can fry themselves in the bios.

 

Thanks

[WackySpace]

If you didn't have a cooler on, and it shutdown immediately when the temps got to high, the cpu should be fine. It doesn't get damaged if it was at 100'C and a bit more for a few seconds, it won't get damaged, if it was an hour or more you should be worried. I did the same mistake, only one of the plastic pins of my stock cooler had broken without me realising and it wasn't seated properly. Luckily the cpu was already 7 years old and it was nearing end of life anyway, but my old motherboard didn't have safeties to turn off pc after getting to hot.

 

I ran the error through bing copilot

 

The WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR is a type of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error that typically indicates a hardware failure¹. Here are some common causes:

1. Faulty Hardware: This error can be caused by any faulty hardware component in your PC, including hard drives, CPUs, and more¹.

2. Driver Conflict: The error can also occur due to a conflict between drivers¹. This is often the case when you’ve recently installed new hardware or software².

3. Overclocking: If you’ve been overclocking your PC, the added stress on your hardware could result in this stop code error¹.

4. Outdated, Corrupt, or Incompatible Driver: Running an outdated, corrupt, or incompatible driver can also cause this error³.

To fix this error, you could try the following:

• Run Chkdsk: This tool scans your hardware for issues and can often pinpoint the exact source of your error¹.
• Update Your Drivers: Outdated drivers can sometimes cause hardware problems. Updating them could quickly fix your problem¹.
• Remove New Hardware: If you added new hardware to your PC before the Blue Screen error, shut down your PC, remove the hardware, and try restarting⁴.

Don't know if this will help.

Edited October 28, 2023 by WackySpace

[Bjoolz]

9 hours ago, WackySpace said:

The WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR is a type of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error that typically indicates a hardware failure¹. Here are some common causes:

1. Faulty Hardware: This error can be caused by any faulty hardware component in your PC, including hard drives, CPUs, and more¹.

2. Driver Conflict: The error can also occur due to a conflict between drivers¹. This is often the case when you’ve recently installed new hardware or software².

3. Overclocking: If you’ve been overclocking your PC, the added stress on your hardware could result in this stop code error¹.

4. Outdated, Corrupt, or Incompatible Driver: Running an outdated, corrupt, or incompatible driver can also cause this error³.

To fix this error, you could try the following:

• Run Chkdsk: This tool scans your hardware for issues and can often pinpoint the exact source of your error¹.
• Update Your Drivers: Outdated drivers can sometimes cause hardware problems. Updating them could quickly fix your problem¹.
• Remove New Hardware: If you added new hardware to your PC before the Blue Screen error, shut down your PC, remove the hardware, and try restarting⁴.

This information is not great.

 

1. Yes, but not hard drives unless you call NVMe SSDs hard drives. NVMe drives are the only storage WHEA monitors. WHEA monitors the CPU and PCIe devices (13th gen Intel has new monitoring for some I/O, but it's generally internal bus stuff). Note that WHEA doesn't monitor NVMe drives because they are PCIe, Microsoft added this functionality later and it doesn't use the CPU's error record. 

2. Except for laptops, drivers extremely rarely cause WHEA crashes. I have debugged a ton of WHEA crashes and it has been years and years since I saw a driver cause this except for on laptops. And those desktops I saw it on were OEMs. BIOS certainly can cause this, but I don't call that a driver.

3. Yes, overclocking (And undervolting) is a common cause.

4. See 2.

 

I know a lot of people will say RAM can cause this, but only indirectly. If you get a WHEA crash from RAM it's because the memory controller, which is in the CPU, can't keep up. If the timings are too tight or the speed too high for the memory controller to handle. 

 

Fixes:

Chkdsk: Chkdsk doesn't check any hardware, it checks the NTFS file structure. Even on a faulty disk it's not common for Chkdsk to find anything.

Update your drivers: See 2. 

Remove new hardware: If PCIe or an NVMe.

 

You can check Intel's programming manual for a detailed breakdown of the CPER which WHEA uses. The most relevant information being the MCi which is outlined in the section on Simple Error Encoding and Compound Error Codes. 

10 hours ago, worldisablaze said:

Hello, 

 

I bought a new in box 5900x and a used ASrock x570 phantom gaming 4 to upgrade from my 7700k. I did a test build outside of the case to see if the mobo had the updated bios on it to support the cpu without realizing i didnt put a cooler on it. I turned it off and then mounted a cooler on it. It did have the new bios so I continued to create a new boot drive on the 970 Evo I had. During windows installation, the machine tried to get into windows but then gave me the bluescreen below. I was booting it with a 32gb kit of corsair vengeance 3000mhz (4x8) in a 1 stick, 2 stick, and 4 sticks configs.

 

So my question is, did I kill the cpu or is the used board bad? I started a return for the board and am purchasing a new one to test the cpu in, so I'm gonna find out eventually what happened. I'd still like some insight though, on if these chips can fry themselves in the bios.

If it only crashes during the Windows install it could be the NVMe. If you remove the NVMe and boot into the install USB, can you just sit in it without crashing? 

[silencer12]

I had same issue of booting a 5900x without a cooler because I was updating the bios. After 5 boots or so,  I realized it shutdown due to overheating. In the manual that I read later....it says do not turn on without a cooler as that is required. 

 

Friend told me not to stress the CPU because time will tell if it is messed up. A year later still working. Thank god

[worldisablaze]

On 10/28/2023 at 9:07 AM, Bjoolz said:

This information is not great.

 

1. Yes, but not hard drives unless you call NVMe SSDs hard drives. NVMe drives are the only storage WHEA monitors. WHEA monitors the CPU and PCIe devices (13th gen Intel has new monitoring for some I/O, but it's generally internal bus stuff). Note that WHEA doesn't monitor NVMe drives because they are PCIe, Microsoft added this functionality later and it doesn't use the CPU's error record. 

2. Except for laptops, drivers extremely rarely cause WHEA crashes. I have debugged a ton of WHEA crashes and it has been years and years since I saw a driver cause this except for on laptops. And those desktops I saw it on were OEMs. BIOS certainly can cause this, but I don't call that a driver.

3. Yes, overclocking (And undervolting) is a common cause.

4. See 2.

 

I know a lot of people will say RAM can cause this, but only indirectly. If you get a WHEA crash from RAM it's because the memory controller, which is in the CPU, can't keep up. If the timings are too tight or the speed too high for the memory controller to handle. 

 

Fixes:

Chkdsk: Chkdsk doesn't check any hardware, it checks the NTFS file structure. Even on a faulty disk it's not common for Chkdsk to find anything.

Update your drivers: See 2. 

Remove new hardware: If PCIe or an NVMe.

 

You can check Intel's programming manual for a detailed breakdown of the CPER which WHEA uses. The most relevant information being the MCi which is outlined in the section on Simple Error Encoding and Compound Error Codes. 

If it only crashes during the Windows install it could be the NVMe. If you remove the NVMe and boot into the install USB, can you just sit in it without crashing? 

I got a new board and tried with the nvme drive and got the same blue screen. I created a boot drive on a sata ssd and tried to see if it would boot off of that but it also blue screens. Both the nvme and the sata drives work just fine in other systems as boot drives, so I think it's the cpu.

[chtorogu]

8 minutes ago, worldisablaze said:

I got a new board and tried with the nvme drive and got the same blue screen. I created a boot drive on a sata ssd and tried to see if it would boot off of that but it also blue screens. Both the nvme and the sata drives work just fine in other systems as boot drives, so I think it's the cpu.

Did you inspect the CPU visually? All pins look good/are there? Any thermal paste on any of them?

[worldisablaze]

10 hours ago, chtorogu said:

Did you inspect the CPU visually? All pins look good/are there? Any thermal paste on any of them?

Yeah pins are all good, everything is clean, I wish I had a system that was working so I could test the cpu in a working system but sadly I don't.

[chtorogu]

39 minutes ago, worldisablaze said:

Yeah pins are all good, everything is clean, I wish I had a system that was working so I could test the cpu in a working system but sadly I don't.

Sorry to hear that. I'd be more inclined to believe that you got a defective processor though rather than it having allowed itself to be cooked. And that would also be a defect if it did.

[worldisablaze]

4 minutes ago, chtorogu said:

Sorry to hear that. I'd be more inclined to believe that you got a defective processor though rather than it having allowed itself to be cooked. And that would also be a defect if it did.

Yeah I agree, I didn't think I could fry it just from being in the bios without a cooler on it for a min. Back to amazon it goes.