I've built a high-end PC with an Intel i9 13900k, an MSI Pro z790-a motherboard, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 RAM, a GTX 4070 Ti, and a Corsair MP600 Core XT 1TB NVMe SSD. Everything was running fine until November when I started experiencing issues while playing Path of Exile, where the game would crash unexpectedly. I've also had random crashes with Chrome. Initially, I thought it was a Path of Exile issue, so I tried some troubleshooting steps suggested in their forums, like running DISM and SFC scans, which helped momentarily but the issues returned. Now, those scans are failing due to too many errors, and I've been told that my CPU may have been damaged before my firmware update, causing these problems. I'm unsure whether I should try reinstalling Windows or if it's time to replace the CPU entirely.
2 Answers
It sounds like you might have some data corruption going on. First, I'd recommend running MemTest86 on your memory overnight and letting it do at least three passes. Next, check the health of your NVMe drive. If both of those check out, then a Windows reinstall might be a good next step. If the issues persist after that, it could point to a problem with the CPU.
Just a heads up, it’s the 13th gen you have, not 14th. I think you might want to check your Windows Event Logs for any WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR messages. Filter by time and look under System events. That should help you pinpoint if there are any real hardware issues with the CPU.
Thanks for the tip! I checked and didn't see any WHEA errors, but I did find logs for some crashes related to Path of Exile and Chrome. Seems like a software issue possibly?