I'm troubleshooting a Ryzen 5 3500X system with an RX 5600 XT, ASUS Prime A320M-K motherboard, 16GB of RAM, and Windows 11 on an SSD alongside Linux on a separate HDD. The computer frequently black-screens, reboots, or shows different BSOD errors when it is idle or doing light tasks such as browsing in Chrome. However, it can run for hours without problems if any game is left running in the background, even when minimized.
I've reinstalled Windows several times, tried different graphics drivers with clean removals, disabled or changed XMP and RAM overclocking, turned off Global C-States, disabled PCIe Link State Power Management, and tested with hardware acceleration disabled. None of these changes fixed the issue.
Originally, Linux was stable while Windows crashed, but after updating the motherboard BIOS, Linux began experiencing kernel panics and random reboots too. Since the crashes produce inconsistent errors across both operating systems, I'm wondering whether the problem is related to a failing PSU, motherboard VRM or voltage regulation, CPU memory-controller instability, or low-power state transitions. Could this be a known Ryzen 3000 low-load issue, and what logs or hardware tests would best confirm the cause?
1 Answer
Zen 2 systems can sometimes become unstable during very light loads or low-power transitions. Check Windows Event Viewer for WHEA-Logger entries, especially processor or cache hierarchy errors, around the time of each crash. Those events would point more toward CPU, motherboard power delivery, firmware, or voltage behavior than a normal driver problem. Since Linux is now crashing too, hardware or firmware is more likely than a Windows installation issue. Also test with BIOS defaults, verify the PSU connections, and if possible try a known-good PSU or another compatible motherboard.
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