Question unclear about the BSOD but only at my place
Question unclear about the BSOD but only at my place
Hello everyone,
This is my initial message here, and I’m reaching out because I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on with my computer.
Since about two months ago, I’ve been experiencing daily blue screens, but only when the PC was performing light tasks—like browsing or just turning on.
I never encountered a blue screen during gaming or when a game was running.
It started with one per day, then increased to two or three daily, yet it never occurred while playing.
Eventually, I brought it to a repair shop (the owner is a friend).
They tested it under stress and everything worked fine—no crashes at all.
When I asked for a fresh Windows 11 installation, the PC performed well and didn’t crash during use.
After returning it home, the performance improved from two or three BSODs per day to just one every 15 minutes or so.
I shared this with the repair technician, who became very puzzled and took my PC again for stress testing.
This time, it had zero BSODs.
We then considered removing the RAM modules and replacing them with one of the ones he had.
I brought it back home, connected it, and almost immediately it booted up. After about 10 seconds, a blue screen appeared.
I repeated the process twice more, each time getting the same result: after Windows loaded, a blue screen would appear within ten seconds.
I’ve already seen stress tests done on this machine, and they passed without issues.
My current setup is:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk Max
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 2060
- RAM: Corsair DDR4 2x8GB 3600Mhz
- Hard drive: SSD Samsung 1TB 870 QVO
- Power supply: Nox Hummer (not much more info)
I also have some dump files from the BSOD here:
https://files.catbox.moe/wdob85.zip
The BSOD patterns match those in the dumps.
So far, I’ve tried:
- A different power outlet
- A different power strip
- A surge protection strip
- Upgrading the BIOS
- Disabling XMP
- Turning off XMP (it actually let the PC run for about 10 hours without a BSOD, but then it returned)
- Changing RAM slots
- Testing each RAM stick individually
- Using a new power cable
- Switching to energy mode in performance mode
- Using different peripherals
If anyone has any suggestions, I’d really appreciate it.
Thank you in advance for your help.
My father has his desktop in the living room, so I moved mine there and connected it to the same location. I used his mouse, keyboard, monitor, and even his Wi-Fi receiver because I wanted to test it with games there. It still got BSOD. I should have noted something about the original post—my PC always had freezes since I bought it in 2020, they occurred roughly every six months, and kept happening until recently.
I really can't come up with anything. It might be something so trivial or strange you'd only think of it after a random moment and wouldn't even consider it possible.
My friend had a brand new PC that wouldn't power on. He took it in for warranty service, and they said it was fine, but whenever he tried to turn it on at home it wouldn't work. He asked me for help and suggested bringing it to my place—it worked there. After several days of trying different solutions without success, we discovered the issue was with the mouse. It functioned perfectly on other PCs, but that particular mouse caused the problem.
I was wondering if you could confirm if at the shop, when testing your computer, the repair person noticed if the repair shop had it on its side during testing. If so, it seemed to fix itself somewhat in an unusual way while they worked. If you have a mechanical hard drive that’s been mounted vertically, it might only work well horizontally. I found this out while working with HP and Dell units that use vertical mounting—the drives would start acting up. Keeping the PC on its side also reduces stress on the GPU. I’m not suggesting your power supply is the issue, but I’ve built computers for many users and they often only worked properly when they left, only to freeze at home. In short, if you replace the power supply with a different brand or model, everything should be fine. Interestingly, those power supplies that caused problems have always functioned well in our shop over the years. It might also help to consider how you press the power button compared to how the repair person did it—sometimes the difference between latched and unlatched can cause problems.
The Pc was upright during testing, while mine uses an SSD. I have a few friends offering advice on possible solutions, one suggested "dirty" electricity and another mentioned the PSU. If it's dirty electricity, I lack the expertise to confirm whether it applies to my setup or the gear, whereas the PSU could be checked by a friend from the workshop. The button part is unclear to me—I haven’t experienced it getting stuck before.
Verify your wall outlet for proper polarity and grounding.
A basic $10 tester can help with this:
https://www.amazon.com/Outlet-Teste...cphy=9011555&hvtargid=pla-2281435178338&psc=1
If issues persist, consider swapping your PSU for a higher-quality one with adequate wattage.
The hummer unit is typically found in pre-built PCs and comes with only a 2-year warranty.
A reliable PSU usually offers a 7 or 10-year warranty.
I’ve experienced similar problems, and the solution was replacing the PSU.
It seems this list doesn't really consider NOX well, so it falls into the least favorable category. There might be some issues in your power supply setup that the inexpensive PSU can't handle. If your older computer works fine, then a good quality PSU should work too.
I plan to test both options, aiming to use a tester similar to the one geofelt suggests. I want to check if it reveals any problems with the electrical setup or the provider. If it comes up empty, I’ll go ahead and purchase a new PSU.
Today I spoke to the store representative about trying another PSU at home to see if it helps. He didn’t think much of it, and I didn’t get much time to discuss further, so I decided to move on.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that many people are pointing to either the PSU or electrical issues, making it hard to ignore.
Thanks for all the advice, I’ll keep updating until I resolve the problem.
So a little update: we finally identified what's causing the issue. It's the internet connection. If the PC is linked through cable or a USB wireless adapter, it has BSOD, but when the internet is removed, it works normally. This was the common factor when testing the PC at the repair shop or elsewhere.