Are there multiple BSODs indicating a hardware RAM/Motherboard problem?
Are there multiple BSODs indicating a hardware RAM/Motherboard problem?
It has been some time since I've had to post here, but I am glad you all are going strong. My old pc took its final bow in January. It was due to be replaced anyways and I wanted to upgrade. This PC was built in a hurry due to also using it partially for my business. When I built it I had POST issues and it seemed like a common ram issue with the mobo. I had three different types of ram sticks as I planned to use a 2 or 4 stick setup, but I am currently using one 16GB due to the PC not waiting to POST with other combinations of ram. Once I got the ram situation seated to where it would POST life seemed good on a 16gb stick. However for the past few months I keep getting BSOD's typically for ntoskrnl.exe, MEMORY_MANAGEMENT, page fault, and dxgmms2.sys. I also get complete system restarts with no blue screen. Screen goes black and computer restarts. I'm slowing down now so I have some time to see if I can get this figured out and fixed.
I can replicate the BSOD almost every time the PC sits for several hours. It is like a wake up issue where I enter my pin and start my day. Then it blue screens. Typically is will be good after that or will do it another time and be good for several hours or the whole day. The next day, first time logging in and it will BSOD or it will BSOD over night. It doesn't happen every time, but frequent enough to see the pattern. I am at the point of restarting the computer as soon as I get to it the next day to see if I can avoid it. The black screen restart is infrequent. Sometimes happens on heavier graphic intense games, but that one is also sporadic. I have few event errors that occur as well. Really not sure where to start at this point to verify if I am at a software or hardware issue. I see chrome and brave browsers are typically listed in windbg, but they are typically being used when the crashes happen.
I have tried to run windbg and verify issues and it may be hardware/ram related. I update my mobo bios to current stable version 9.11 a few weeks ago. Windows update is up to date. No drivers in device manager appear to need attention. I have the ASRock Z790 which after I bought and was running through POST issues I found multiple people who were struggling with POST and ram issues. I just want to make sure this is not a software issue prior to trying to get another board, cpu, and/or ram.
Spoiler:
Build Info
OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Home
Version 10.0.22631 Build 22631
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name MAXPC
System Manufacturer ASRock
System Model Z790 Pro RS WiFi
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Processor 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12700KF, 3600 Mhz, 12 Core(s), 20 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends International, LLC. 9.11, 4/9/2024
SMBIOS Version 3.5
Embedded Controller Version 255.255
BIOS Mode UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer ASRock
BaseBoard Product Z790 Pro RS WiFi
BaseBoard Version
Platform Role Desktop
Secure Boot State Off
PCR7 Configuration Elevation Required to View
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume5
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.22621.2506"
User Name MaxPC\smith
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 15.8 GB
Available Physical Memory 7.89 GB
Total Virtual Memory 62.7 GB
Available Virtual Memory 52.6 GB
Page File Space 46.9 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection On
Virtualization-based security Running
Virtualization-based security Required Security Properties
Virtualization-based security Available Security Properties Base Virtualization Support, DMA Protection, UEFI Code Readonly, SMM Security Mitigations 1.0, Mode Based Execution Control, APIC Virtualization
Virtualization-based security Services Configured Hypervisor enforced Code Integrity
Virtualization-based security Services Running Hypervisor enforced Code Integrity
Windows Defender Application Control policy Enforced
Windows Defender Application Control user mode policy Off
Device Encryption Support Elevation Required to View
A hypervisor has been detected. Features required for Hyper-V will not be displayed.
Let me know if you can't access the drive folder. There should be several dump files and two screenshots of event viewer. Let me know if you want more info from event viewer.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...drive_link
Thank you .
Three aspects immediately come to mind after reviewing your dumps...
These dumps clearly show signs of faulty RAM. Notably, three of them are connected to memory issues...
Makes sense. I changed between three different RAM brands during setup because it wasn't posting. None of them are listed on the QVL, which might be part of the problem. It seems to have stabilized on A1 since it posted with a single stick, and I'll get some QVL RAM this weekend. I'll report back soon with the outcome. Thank you.
Alright had some more time to play around. I had the CMH32GX5M2B5600C40 stick. I moved it around and my board is throwing a DRAM post light on every slot except for A1. Now when I insert the stick into A1 I do get the DRAM post to light up, but it cycles and clears then goes to boot just fine.
I purchased CMT32GX5M2B5600C36 which is on the QVL list for testing. Same symptoms. I tried dual sticks in A2, B2 and A1,B1 just to see what would happen. When trying to run both sticks the DRAM post light comes on and I noticed my upper fans start to flicker and jump in speed like they are getting slight power surges. Trying to run a single stick of the new CMT32GX5M2B5600C36 ram I get DRAM post errors in every slot except for A1 with both of the new sticks. I currently have the new 36 ram in slot A1 to have this pc functional. The current bios in v9.1 which would be new enough to cover the sticks. The fans don't appear to flicker with one stick. These sticks all have rgb lighting too if that were to make any issues with the surging.
The post issue is something I dealt with when this was first slapped together in a hurry. The Z790 boards sound like they have issues with post errors and ram. Wondering if this should be moved to hardware issues?
I would move the thread to hardware. It doesn't seem to be Windows anymore. Best of luck.
We'll check with anyone in hardware for advice before attempting the RMA.