Encountering a random blue screen and booting into BIOS is a common issue.
Encountering a random blue screen and booting into BIOS is a common issue.
Details: Intel Core i9 9900k MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus paired with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070, SUPER Corsair RM850x (850W, gold), 4x 16GB RAM @3200 (total 64GB), Windows 10 x64 (Build 19045), Samsung 970 EVO Plus (1TB, M.2, boot drive), WD10EZEX (1TB HDD, SATA), and Samsung 860 EVO (250GB SSD, SATA). My system has run smoothly for over a year without any changes. Recently, I noticed the PC would return to BIOS after a short pause. I checked the board explorer and found the M.2 slot empty. After replacing the boot drive, it worked correctly. Later, I returned to find it still in BIOS. While preparing for a family trip, I powered off the machine and planned to fix it afterward. When I returned late, it was back in BIOS again. Today marks my first attempt to use the PC since then. It boots normally initially, but occasionally it crashes into a blue screen before shutting down. I’m trying to identify the issue and appreciate any help you can offer. Thanks, -Zman
My PC suddenly displayed a BSOD about a year after installation (the CPU was overclocked, of course). After numerous nights without sleep searching for the cause, the issue turned out to be the motherboard PCH voltage. Raising it slightly fixed the problem, making the system stable ever since. That happened in 2017. Since then, I've upgraded to the 6700K and pushed it to 4.9ghz at higher voltage, and everything has worked well. During those BSOD episodes, that would have been a serious problem. Possibly driver-related—consider disabling XMP and running the CPU at default settings to test. You might want to review the Windows logs for critical failures to get more insight. Also, check for RAM errors; if the system doesn’t BSOD under stress, the power supply is unlikely to be the issue.
Checked recently—no active updates and XMP disabled. Probably a minor misstep during the last upgrade, making it too unstable for my taste. Didn’t tweak it further, so it hasn’t blown up yet. Still unsure if it’ll fix itself, but we’ll monitor.