I recently built my own PC, but I'm running into some major issues with blue screens showing up and the sad face emoticon. I can't even play Roblox without it crashing! I opened up the case and ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool, which indicated that there are hardware issues. I also removed my 500GB HDD to test my storage, and it turns out the HDD has 0% health. I'm really lost here and could use some guidance from more experienced builders. What hardware issues could be causing this?
3 Answers
You might want to try booting your PC with just one stick of RAM in the correct slot as per your motherboard's manual. If you have a dual DIMM setup, make sure to check which slots to use for single-stick configurations. If one stick works but the second one doesn't, that second stick might be faulty.
To get a better idea of what's going on, you’ll want to look for dump files, which are created when the blue screens happen. If you can boot into Windows normally or even in Safe Mode, check the C:WindowsMinidump directory for any dump files. Zip them up and upload them to a file sharing site like catbox.moe or mediafire.com. Having multiple dump files can really help diagnose the issue. If you don’t see any, follow a guide on enabling small memory dumps to get more information in the future.
The Windows Memory Diagnostic tool mainly tests your RAM, not the hard drive. If it's showing errors, it's likely your RAM causing issues. Another good step is to run Memtest86+ for a thorough check on your RAM. You can find a guide on how to use it on the tech support community wiki.
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