I've been experiencing random Blue Screens of Death (BSODs) on my PC, which is around 5 years old. For the last few months, the errors have mostly shown up as "MEMORY_MANAGEMENT" faults and are becoming more frequent. I have four RAM sticks, so I decided to test each one individually, but every single stick still led to BSODs. I even tried some old spare RAM, and it also crashed, which seems strange. The more RAM I install, the quicker the BSODs appear. I doubt it's possible for all six sticks to be faulty, so I think it might be the motherboard. I swapped it out, but the problem persisted. It failed to boot with all four sticks, yet it did boot with just two. However, after one successful boot, it started going into a boot loop and sometimes won't even POST. I'm beginning to think my CPU might be faulty, but it's a Ryzen 5900X, which I've heard is reliable. Before I shell out money for a new CPU, is there anything else I should check or try?
4 Answers
You might still want to consider the SSD as the possible issue. They are prone to failure and can cause memory management errors if they malfunction. If you’re sure it’s not the SSD, then maybe go ahead and replace the CPU. A new 5900X shouldn’t be too expensive, and you can always return it if it’s not the problem.
Given that it won't boot to the OS, it seems possible that the blue screens may have corrupted your system install or that your SSD is failing. Have you checked the SSD health? Sometimes, driver issues or corrupted updates can lead to memory problems like you’ve described. Since adding more RAM increases the errors, it could be stressing the SSD more, leading to crashes.
I appreciate the suggestion! I actually moved the pagefile to a different SSD to reduce stress on the boot drive. But it won’t even POST now, so it's hard to believe the SSD is the main problem.
Just to clarify, pulling out drives to see if it can boot from USB is a great free test to confirm the issue!
It sounds like you've been troubleshooting pretty methodically. Have you checked for any dump files after the BSODs? Those can provide insights into what’s causing the crashes. You can find the dump files in C:WindowsMinidump, and if you have any, upload them to a file sharing site for analysis. This might help pinpoint the issue better!
Have you tried running a full system scan using the System File Checker? Boot into Windows if you can and run the command 'SFC.EXE /SCANNOW'. If it finds issues, go for 'DISM.EXE /ONLINE /CLEANUP-IMAGE /RESTORE HEALTH' as well. Sometimes, it could just be corrupted Windows files rather than hardware problems.
I did try running those commands initially, but now it won’t even POST to get to that point.
Yeah, I’m leaning toward sticking with the 5000 series. I just need to decide between a new 5900X or a slightly cheaper 5800X.