Experience a sudden shutdown accompanied by a buzzing noise from your headset.
Experience a sudden shutdown accompanied by a buzzing noise from your headset.
I assembled this machine around late 2019. It worked fine until late 2021 or early 2022 (hard to recall precisely). At first, it would crash unexpectedly, and fixing it was just cleaning the CPU cooler paste. After about a year, the same problem returned, and swapping the paste seemed to resolve it for roughly six months. Nowadays, crashes occur almost daily. I don’t see a BSOD, but sometimes the screen shuts down, other times it freezes without turning off, and occasionally the audio plays even when the display dies. Occasionally, it plays for a few seconds before a buzzing sound appears from my headphones, as if the crash didn’t happen at all. It happens whether I’m idle or streaming YouTube. To restart, I have to press and hold the power button on the case. I suspect this stops the system from creating a proper dump file—event viewer reports an error like “unable to create a dump file” or something similar.
Here are my specs: Ryzen 5 3500 B450m Aorus Elite board, MSI Ventus RTX 2060 Super, 650W PSU (exact model not remembered), 1TB HDD (model unknown), 16GB RAM (single channel XPG Spectrix D60G).
It’s fascinating that the most recent professional tested it under heavy load and found no crash during the stress. Before installing the new RAM, I had two 8GB sticks, but I can’t recall their models. The pro said the gold coating on the memory slots was fading, so we replaced them and it worked for a couple of days. Now it’s behaving the same way—crashing after stress tests, especially when opening Internet Explorer.
I ran a stress test with both CPU and GPU, but it didn’t fail then either. It only crashed right after the test ended, precisely when I opened Internet Explorer. Prior to swapping RAM, I was using two 8GB sticks; I don’t remember which ones. The pro suggested it was a RAM issue—gold plating on the DIMMs had worn off, so we replaced them and it improved for about two days. Now it’s happening again, while playing Destiny 2, during busy moments. I tried several fixes: stress-testing CPU, resetting GPU, uninstalling drivers, cleaning the PC thoroughly, and more that I might have missed.
Two experts I consulted both noted this buzzing crash is common with Ryzen CPUs. It usually starts with thermal paste problems before escalating. Could it be the CPU overheating when it shouldn’t? Temperatures were ideal for both GPU and CPU under load, and the PSU handled max usage without failing. Also, since I replaced the RAM, it’s unlikely the issue is there.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Edit – I should mention I’m using Windows 10 and all updates are current. Updated October 16, 2023 by D3DTH.
I'm still getting familiar with this forum and not sure how to respond to individual messages. I'm connected to the internet through an Ethernet cable and plan to check the voltage soon. The CPU cooler is the original one that came with the Ryzen processor, but I can't see the PSU label clearly. I remember it was a Corsair VS650W, though I don't know what "smart clear" means. The hard drive is from Western Digital.
I just re-pressed the quote and removed unwanted sections. Make sure the numbers look correct using tools like CrystalDiskInfo or install a utility from the maker.
You're welcome! You should focus on verifying the key parameters and conditions that define the expected behavior.
It relies on the data we have access to, focusing on read errors, uncorrectable mistakes, and faulty blocks or sectors. I don’t see any reason to doubt your hard drive, just to eliminate possibilities. Using CrystalDiskInfo, navigate to Function > Advanced Feature > Raw Values > 10[DEC] before the readings become clear.