Hardware replaced but PC still crashing!

[auggiepoo]

Hi all!

 

Over the last couple months I've been plagued with the windows frowny face blue screen... I see it in my nightmares at this point.

 

Couple months ago, out of nowhere my PC crashed. Rebooted, was able to play for about a day and then the crashing happened more frequently until the point I couldn't even boot windows without it immediately crashing. Wasn't able to find any corrupt files, decided to do a fresh windows install, but nothing helped. After about a week of troubleshooting, a friend had suggest it might be a hardware issue. I decided to use this as an opportunity to upgrade, I got a new mobo and ram. Installed both without a hitch, fired the pc up and installed a fresh windows again, still ran into the same issue. After this, figured it could only be the cpu... went ahead and upgraded that as well. For about 3-4 weeks this seemed to have solved the issue, was able to play with no problem, pc was running smooth and fast. Out of nowhere it began to overheat and the fans wouldn't push at 100%, then it began to crash again, and yet again it progressively got worse.

 

Fast forward to now, I've removed my gpu and the crashing has seemed to have stopped. A couple of times after the initial boot or a restart I would get the windows blue frowny face screen but after windows would boot no problem. Obviously haven't tried to play any games since I'm running off of the cpu's internal graphics, just have updated all my drivers and windows so it's not like the computer has been under any load.

 

I'm not incredibly well versed in troubleshooting but at this point it seems kind of likely that my gpu was the culprit all along, but after having bought over a grand worth of hardware and the problem persisting I'm not confident that spending even more money is the solution either.

 

If anyone has any feedback it would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

[DoctorNick]

6 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

Hi all!

 

Over the last couple months I've been plagued with the windows frowny face blue screen... I see it in my nightmares at this point.

 

Couple months ago, out of nowhere my PC crashed. Rebooted, was able to play for about a day and then the crashing happened more frequently until the point I couldn't even boot windows without it immediately crashing. Wasn't able to find any corrupt files, decided to do a fresh windows install, but nothing helped. After about a week of troubleshooting, a friend had suggest it might be a hardware issue. I decided to use this as an opportunity to upgrade, I got a new mobo and ram. Installed both without a hitch, fired the pc up and installed a fresh windows again, still ran into the same issue. After this, figured it could only be the cpu... went ahead and upgraded that as well. For about 3-4 weeks this seemed to have solved the issue, was able to play with no problem, pc was running smooth and fast. Out of nowhere it began to overheat and the fans wouldn't push at 100%, then it began to crash again, and yet again it progressively got worse.

 

Fast forward to now, I've removed my gpu and the crashing has seemed to have stopped. A couple of times after the initial boot or a restart I would get the windows blue frowny face screen but after windows would boot no problem. Obviously haven't tried to play any games since I'm running off of the cpu's internal graphics, just have updated all my drivers and windows so it's not like the computer has been under any load.

 

I'm not incredibly well versed in troubleshooting but at this point it seems kind of likely that my gpu was the culprit all along, but after having bought over a grand worth of hardware and the problem persisting I'm not confident that spending even more money is the solution either.

 

If anyone has any feedback it would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

Alright. First what hardware do you have in the system now vs then. Ram speed etc

[OddOod]

Welcome to the forums!

We need specs. Current and ideally what you removed.
Also, look at the BSOD dump files (I like BlueScreenView) and see what Windows thinks is the problem.

[Tetras]

7 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

For about 3-4 weeks this seemed to have solved the issue, was able to play with no problem, pc was running smooth and fast.

Cool, a good sign that if something was broken, then you fixed it.

7 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

Out of nowhere it began to overheat and the fans wouldn't push at 100%, then it began to crash again, and yet again it progressively got worse.

Hmm. This doesn't make sense, what was the fault? How did you confirm overheating? Did you use the same CPU cooler?

 

Things getting progressively worse could be due to file corruption, though usually the CPU would just throttle.

 

9 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

Fast forward to now, I've removed my gpu and the crashing has seemed to have stopped. A couple of times after the initial boot or a restart I would get the windows blue frowny face screen but after windows would boot no problem. Obviously haven't tried to play any games since I'm running off of the cpu's internal graphics, just have updated all my drivers and windows so it's not like the computer has been under any load.

 

I'm not incredibly well versed in troubleshooting but at this point it seems kind of likely that my gpu was the culprit all along, but after having bought over a grand worth of hardware and the problem persisting I'm not confident that spending even more money is the solution either.

Well, it is certainly possible, but since the PC worked fine for 3-4 weeks and you had an unexplained overheating issue that was prior to the system breaking down again, I'm not confident it is your issue.

[auggiepoo]

32 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Alright. First what hardware do you have in the system now vs then. Ram speed etc

Then: 

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700KF

GPU: Nvidia 4070 TI

RAM: Patriot Viper (2 x 16gb DDR4)

MOBO: ASUS Z790

Cooling: CM MasterLiquid ML360

Power Supply: 850W ATX 80 Plus Gold

 

Now:

CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K

GPU: Nvidia 4070 TI

RAM: Corsair Vengeance (2 x 16gb DDR5)

MOBO: MSI - MPG Z790 EDGE WIFI

Cooling: CM MasterLiquid ML360

Power Supply: 850W ATX 80 Plus Gold

 

Ram speed is set to 7200mhz but rarely saw it get that high consistently.

 

Storage is a 2TB WD ssd, as well as a 1TB Kingston ssd. Have tried removing one, and swapping them out. Only trouble I had here was installing a fresh windows on the WD at one point, so currently the Kingston is the only SSD in my computer.

[auggiepoo]

42 minutes ago, OddOod said:

Welcome to the forums!

We need specs. Current and ideally what you removed.
Also, look at the BSOD dump files (I like BlueScreenView) and see what Windows thinks is the problem.

Hi, thanks!

 

Then: 

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700KF

GPU: Nvidia 4070 TI

RAM: Patriot Viper (2 x 16gb DDR4)

MOBO: ASUS Z790

Cooling: CM MasterLiquid ML360

Power Supply: 850W ATX 80 Plus Gold

 

Now:

CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K

GPU: Nvidia 4070 TI

RAM: Corsair Vengeance (2 x 16gb DDR5)

MOBO: MSI - MPG Z790 EDGE WIFI

Cooling: CM MasterLiquid ML360

Power Supply: 850W ATX 80 Plus Gold

 

Ram speed is set to 7200mhz but rarely saw it get that high consistently.

 

Storage is a 2TB WD ssd, as well as a 1TB Kingston ssd. Have tried removing one, and swapping them out. Only trouble I had here was installing a fresh windows on the WD at one point, so currently the Kingston is the only SSD in my computer.

 

I had tried reading the minidump files through windbg at one point and after analyzing it wasn't able to pinpoint a problem (at least not that I could read). I will try this again tonight when I get home, thank you for the tip!

[Tetras]

1 minute ago, auggiepoo said:

Ram speed is set to 7200mhz but rarely saw it get that high consistently.

What do you mean by "set to"? You're not using XMP?

 

Is XMP disabled while you're troubleshooting?

[auggiepoo]

42 minutes ago, Tetras said:

Cool, a good sign that if something was broken, then you fixed it.

Hmm. This doesn't make sense, what was the fault? How did you confirm overheating? Did you use the same CPU cooler?

 

Things getting progressively worse could be due to file corruption, though usually the CPU would just throttle.

 

Well, it is certainly possible, but since the PC worked fine for 3-4 weeks and you had an unexplained overheating issue that was prior to the system breaking down again, I'm not confident it is your issue.

Hey there! So I am using the same CPU cooler, a CM MasterLiquid ML360. For the 3-4 weeks, the fans would follow the set fan curve appropriately. After the crashing started again, I started to monitor the temperatures through the MSI Center app, and my CPU would reach temps around 90° C and my fans wouldn't increase speed like they were set to do. I tried adjusting the curve to be more aggressive and reach 100% earlier, and they still wouldn't comply.

[auggiepoo]

2 minutes ago, Tetras said:

What do you mean by "set to"? You're not using XMP?

 

Is XMP disabled while you're troubleshooting?

Sorry poor wording, in the MSI bios, the XMP profile is enabled. I haven't changed this since running into the issues.

[TatamiMatt]

4 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

Hey there! So I am using the same CPU cooler, a CM MasterLiquid ML360. For the 3-4 weeks, the fans would follow the set fan curve appropriately. After the crashing started again, I started to monitor the temperatures through the MSI Center app, and my CPU would reach temps around 90° C and my fans wouldn't increase speed like they were set to do. I tried adjusting the curve to be more aggressive and reach 100% earlier, and they still wouldn't comply.

The coolermaster AIOs arent great and 14900K is hard to cool, are you running the pump at max?

 

1 minute ago, auggiepoo said:

Sorry poor wording, in the MSI bios, the XMP profile is enabled. I haven't changed this since running into the issues.

Turn off XMP and run for a while, 7200 is quite high and could be unstable, is your RAM rated for 7200? And whats it's CL?

[auggiepoo]

4 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

The coolermaster AIOs arent great and 14900K is hard to cool, are you running the pump at max?

 

Turn off XMP and run for a while, 7200 is quite high and could be unstable, is your RAM rated for 7200? And whats it's CL?

It's currently set on a curve where once it hits 70° C it runs at max, should I change it to run consistently higher?

 

And I will turn off xmp to see what happens, thanks for the tip! Yea, the RAM is rated for 7200, CL is 34.

[Tetras]

7 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

Hey there! So I am using the same CPU cooler, a CM MasterLiquid ML360. For the 3-4 weeks, the fans would follow the set fan curve appropriately. After the crashing started again, I started to monitor the temperatures through the MSI Center app, and my CPU would reach temps around 90° C and my fans wouldn't increase speed like they were set to do. I tried adjusting the curve to be more aggressive and reach 100% earlier, and they still wouldn't comply.

This temp is not unusual at all for a 13th-14th gen i7/i9, even with a 360mm AIO, but it depends on your BIOS settings (most of them are overclocked out of the box) and what kind of load you're running at.

 

That said, I don't know why the fans wouldn't respond to your curve. It could just be because MSI Dragon Center is notoriously buggy, they all are (motherboard software, I mean), though Asus Armoury Crate definitely takes the biscuit.

[TatamiMatt]

11 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

It's currently set on a curve where once it hits 70° C it runs at max, should I change it to run consistently higher?

 

And I will turn off xmp to see what happens, thanks for the tip! Yea, the RAM is rated for 7200, CL is 34.

Try Fan control for fan curve and yeah run pump at 100% and change fan curve with fan control and see what the difference is.

 

7200CL34 sounds like it could be quite unstable, really depends on your CPUs memory chip, let us know if it crashes with it off still so we can either eliminate that as an issue or not

[auggiepoo]

2 minutes ago, Tetras said:

This temp is not unusual at all for a 13th-14th gen i7/i9, even with a 360mm AIO, but it depends on your BIOS settings (most of them are overclocked out of the box) and what kind of load you're running at.

 

That said, I don't know why the fans wouldn't respond to your curve. It could just be because MSI Dragon Center is notoriously buggy, they all are (motherboard software, I mean), though Asus Armoury Crate definitely takes the biscuit.

Yea I was expecting the card to run a bit hotter than what I had, just thought it was a bit odd because the 3-4 weeks that it was working fine I would hear the fans kick it up a gear and get noticeably louder. The MSI bios calls the setting "game boost" and it has preset overclock settings; sets the CPU to 5.8ghz, where it's advertised as 6.0ghz I figured 5.8 would still be relatively "safe". Would you recommend backing it down?

 

Also, agreed in regard to the MSI center... I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to any of this, but I can tell just by the hardware monitor it's not the best tool available lol.

[auggiepoo]

1 minute ago, TatamiMatt said:

Try Fan control for fan curve and yeah run pump at 100% and changes fan curve wit hfan control and see what the difference is.

 

7200CL34 sounds like it could be quite unstable, really depends on your CPUs memory chip, let us know if it crashes with it off still so we can either eliminate that as as issue or not

Will do! Thanks!

[TatamiMatt]

Just now, auggiepoo said:

Will do! Thanks!

God my english sucked real bad in that message for some reason, fixed

[Tetras]

8 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

The MSI bios calls the setting "game boost" and it has preset overclock settings; sets the CPU to 5.8ghz, where it's advertised as 6.0ghz I figured 5.8 would still be relatively "safe". Would you recommend backing it down?

For troubleshooting purposes you want to disable ALL overclocks, which includes anything MSI enables by default that is not Intel specs and XMP.

 

This video might help:

 

[auggiepoo]

14 minutes ago, Tetras said:

For troubleshooting purposes you want to disable ALL overclocks, which includes anything MSI enables by default that is not Intel specs and XMP.

 

This video might help:

 

Sweet thanks! Definitely would make sense if this is why everything is running so hot and causing a crash... 

[Allan B]

Is your power supply new? What are the details of it?  Not enough or bad power can cause random crashing.  If it was the problem, you might see it get better without a GPU installed (less draw).

[Tetras]

4 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

Sweet thanks! Definitely would make sense if this is why everything is running so hot and causing a crash... 

You're welcome, just to be clear though, I'm not saying it IS the problem, it is just one troubleshooting step.

 

The first thing I do with a new Intel PC is disable all the automatic overclocks and restore Intel defaults.

[auggiepoo]

14 minutes ago, Allan B said:

Is your power supply new? What are the details of it?  Not enough or bad power can cause random crashing.  If it was the problem, you might see it get better without a GPU installed (less draw).

Same power supply, it's a 850W. I actually just had this thought this morning and double-checked it in a power supply calculator. Calc said that I would need a 650-700W power supply. Always the possibility that it could be wrong.

[Tetras]

24 minutes ago, auggiepoo said:

Same power supply, it's a 850W. I actually just had this thought this morning and double-checked it in a power supply calculator. Calc said that I would need a 650-700W power supply. Always the possibility that it could be wrong.

I think Allan B is more interested in the model/quality of your PSU than the wattage on the label.

[Bjoolz]

Go to C:\Windows\Minidump and check if you have any minidump files. If you do, go back to the Windows folder and copy the Minidump folder itself to the Downloads folder (You can use the desktop if you don't have OneDrive syncing files). Zip the copied folder and attach it to a post. Please follow the instructions to the letter as Windows doesn't like you messing with files in this location.