Initial setup begins, but Windows becomes unstable or crashes repeatedly.
Initial setup begins, but Windows becomes unstable or crashes repeatedly.
Hello everyone! This is my initial PC setup, and I’m facing a few challenges I can’t seem to fix. First, the specs: Ryzen 5700X, Radeon 5700 XT, MSI B450M-A Pro Max II, 16 GB T-Force DDR4 RAM, 3200 MHz SSD, 256 GB NVMe SSD, and a 2 TB Seagate hard drive. When I first connected everything, I installed Linux Mint on the hard drive since the SSD wasn’t ready yet, and everything functioned perfectly at launch. Used it for a couple of days before upgrading to Windows 10. That’s when things started to go wrong.
Initially, there were strange boot issues in the BIOS—my M.2 slot was gone after installation, and the hard drive disappeared from the list even though both were detected. I don’t recall any steps I took to fix it, but eventually it recognized both drives again, allowing me to install Windows. Everything seemed fine until I rebooted.
After that, I encountered random crashes—mostly freezing completely, staying stuck until I powered off the machine. Sometimes it would bluescreen briefly before restarting, showing the “CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT” error. These events happened within a minute or sometimes lasted 10–15 minutes before the system locked up. The CPU temperatures were normal, and I didn’t see any unusual behavior.
I searched for solutions and tried installing AMD chipset drivers from MSI’s site, but nothing changed. Downloading drivers from AMD caused an error about a missing procedure entry point. I also updated the BIOS to the latest version without any changes, but pulled RAM and found one stick was completely dead—no boot possible with that one. After reinstalling Windows a few times, it worked again, but the crashes persisted.
My Linux partition worked perfectly, while Windows kept struggling. I’m hesitant about replacing hardware right now, but I’m open to suggestions that don’t require spending more money. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
I would disconnect the mechanical drive. Insert the working stick into A2 and start a memtest usb. If it functions, swap the memory and retry. Memtest Google it—don’t worry, we can share links! Rufus can be used to copy it to USB, though since you have Linux this might be outdated. The reason I mention unplugging is to check if it’s causing boot issues. I’m planning to look this up now because I’m already connected.
Clock_Watchdog_Timeout indicates a CPU core has stopped functioning (frozen). This points to the CPU as the likely culprit. If you're performing overclocking—such as using XMP, EXPO, or DOCP beyond the officially supported 3200MT/s—remove it. Also verify that Precision Boost Overdrive is turned off in the BIOS.
I ran the memtest and found one of my RAM sticks is clearly faulty. It was disappointing, but it’s not uncommon. The rest of the system worked perfectly, especially with Linux running smoothly while Windows struggled. I initially thought the issue might be an incorrect ISO file, so I downloaded a fresh Windows 11 ISO and installed it. After more than 24 hours, everything is stable—drivers loaded easily and games run flawlessly. I chose to go with Windows 11 now; thank you for your support!
Ensure only one drive is connected and confirm Linux was fully removed from the boot disk.