Since installing a Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Gigabyte RX 9070 XT, my system has been randomly crashing with a black screen, frozen audio, and an automatic restart. Before replacing my power supply, Windows Event Viewer showed WHEA-Logger Event 18 errors. I upgraded to a discounted 1200W Lian Li SP1200 80 Plus Platinum unit, but the crashes still happen, particularly when Precision Boost Overdrive is enabled. I'm not sure whether PBO is the only trigger. My system has a Gigabyte B550 AORUS Elite V2 Rev. 1.5 motherboard, a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 16GB of Corsair 3000MHz RAM using four DIMMs, and a Gigabyte RX 9070 XT 16GB. My main memory kit is currently being replaced under warranty because it failed. What should I test or change first?
1 Answer
WHEA 18 errors usually point to hardware instability rather than a normal graphics driver crash. Since your original memory kit failed and you’re temporarily using another set, start by loading BIOS defaults and leaving PBO, XMP/DOCP, and any manual overclocking disabled. Then run a full overnight MemTest86 test on the current RAM. Also try testing with only two DIMMs in the motherboard’s recommended slots, because four modules can put more stress on the memory controller. Update the motherboard BIOS and chipset drivers as well. If the crashes stop with PBO disabled, the CPU, memory settings, or motherboard’s voltage behavior may be unstable, so don’t re-enable it until the system passes memory and stability tests.
The original RAM kit had a fault, so I’m using replacement sticks for now. I’ll test these with PBO and the memory profile disabled first.