I've been running my PC smoothly for 4–5 years, but recently, my games started crashing unexpectedly. For instance, I tried playing Division 2, and it crashed after just 30 seconds. I restarted and the same thing happened, so I tested other games – all crashed, usually within a minute or two. I found a suggestion online about turning off DOCP/XMP, and while that stopped the crashes, my RAM now runs at only 2000MHz instead of the usual 4000MHz, which impacts performance a lot. I'm not getting any BSODs, the games just crash. I've had XMP enabled since I built my PC in 2020–2021, so it's surprising that it's causing issues now. My setup includes an ASUS ROG Strix Z490F motherboard, an i9-10900K processor, and DDR4 4000MHz RAM. Could this be a sign of a faulty motherboard, memory controller, or a RAM stick going bad? I ran a Prime95 torture test with XMP enabled, and everything seemed fine. Also, I completed a Unigine Superposition benchmark with no issues at all. Temperatures are normal, with the CPU staying under 70°C and the GPU under 70°C at full load.
1 Answer
When I had similar issues, the first thing I checked was the physical connections. Ensure your RAM sticks are seated properly and that all power cables are fully plugged in. Sometimes components can get loose over time, especially if you haven’t touched them in years. If everything looks good and is snug, it might be worth looking at whether any single RAM stick is faulty or if your CPU could be causing the crashes.
I checked the seating and everything seems fine, but I haven't touched any of the cables for ages. I even ran those tests without any crashes. It's just during games that it crashes out of nowhere.