Question about friend's PC issues
Question about friend's PC issues
Hey TH, it's been a while. I have a friend who owns a really good computer from his uncle and he's interested in getting deeper into the hardware of PCs. I've been helping him out a lot. I noticed recently that his PC wasn't quite functioning properly. He would crash in Minecraft when there were too many entities, and he had trouble with certain games.
The specs are pretty solid (partly because of the good components):
CPU: Intel I9 9900k
GPU: EVGA FTW3 1080Ti
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x16GB 3200Mhz (runs at 2000Mhz on XMP II, I think he should switch to XMP I, but I'm not sure)
Motherboard: ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151
Power Supply: EVGA SFX 650 GM
Case: NCase M1
He tends to behave like this:
The computer would completely crash sometimes—restarting a few times or not at all.
BSODs appear briefly (lasting only a second) and then the system restarts, but I checked the Event Viewer and didn't find any blue screen logs.
Games often stop unexpectedly.
What I've tried:
At first, I thought it might be related to thermal issues.
GPU: Stress tested (reached 86°C after a few minutes and reached power limit at 272W per HWmonitor), but it idles around 60°C.
CPU: Stress tested (82-85°C, 142W per HWmonitor). I did the tests together to see if the problem was with the PSU, but everything worked fine.
I'm planning to run memtest86 next.
Yes, also first try doing a MEM test for the modules, and report back with the findings. Could also be a faulty RAM stick, or some RAM configuration as well. Though, I'm just guessing here. You can also test each RAM stick individually with just 1 stick.
Also, first leave the memory settings to
default
in the BIOS, and then check the system, so that you can be assured there is nothing wrong with the RAM frequency or the XMP config.
Are all the cables and connections on the motherboard OK ? Try to re-seat both the GPU and CPU properly on the mobo, just in case.
Is the PSU's cable plugged properly into the GPU's port ? Where are the games installed ? HDD or SSD ? Maybe try using a fresh SSD/HDD if possible ? Install some of the games on a new drive, after doing a FRESH OS re-install/update.
Which PC games actually crash ? List all the names. Is the system fully up-to-date with the latest BIOS version, and the firmware and all the necessary device drivers/software as well ?
I'll proceed with the test and share the outcomes. I switched to another XMP profile (the default auto one, which his uncle had set up before) and it worked so I'm asking him to revert to the previous setting. I'll also ask him to double-check and re-seat everything.
The cables seem properly seated from my view, and his performance is split across roughly four drives—about three SSDs and one 4TB hard drive. My next plan was to update the BIOS and, in worst case, reinstall Windows 10. Regardless of which drive the game runs on or the game itself, it varies from resource-heavy to light usage.
Drivers are current, but I'm also going to have him run DDU for a clean install.
Thanks a ton for your time! I'll try these steps and let you know if it resolves the issue, otherwise I'll provide more details later.
I had him perform a GPU stress test while running prime95 simultaneously (10 minutes prior). The system crashed with a BSOD displaying "WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR," and it remained at 0% after disabling automatic restarts so I could observe the issue. Fortunately, we managed to trigger the problem again using prime95 alone if the error recurs.
This appears to be a hardware-related issue with his system. It might stem from any of the following:
Damaged components such as hard drives, GPU, CPU, PSU, or corrupt RAM.
Driver compatibility problems.
Temperature and voltage concerns, possibly due to overclocking or unstable voltage.
Voltage seems to significantly influence this error.
Corrupted Windows OS files or registry entries.