Hey folks! I built my first PC a couple of weeks ago, and overall it went well. However, I'm hitting a snag with Error Code 31 popping up on my GPU, which I managed to fix initially using DDU. I enabled EXPO and CPU Boost Mode in the BIOS during setup.
The first crash happened while playing Genshin Impact; I alt-tabbed out of fullscreen, and the screen went black. The fans revved up suddenly, and the PC rebooted showing Error Code 31 again, prompting me to reinstall the GPU drivers. Once I did that, I noticed that the motherboard disabled EXPO, so I had to turn it back on myself.
I conducted stress tests like FurMark for an hour, and everything seemed fine regarding temperatures. I also disabled Wallpaper Engine just to rule that out. My second crash occurred after around 3 hours of playing Grim Dawn. Again, there were no noticeable performance or temperature issues, but Error Code 31 returned, and EXPO got disabled once more. RAM and CPU have passed their stress tests without any errors.
I've kept my BIOS updated, re-enabled EXPO, and started logging stats with HWinfo64 to track any future crashes. The Windows Event Log doesn't show anything odd, aside from some Kernel-level warnings. My fan curve is smooth and gentle, so I believe that's not an issue.
Here's a quick rundown of my hardware:
- MSI B650 Gaming Plus Wifi
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- XFX Mercury Radeon RX 7900 XT
- Corsair Vengeance 2x16GB DDR5 6000MHz RAM
- Samsung 990 Pro NVMe SSD
- Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 AIO cooler
- ASRock 850W Gold+ PSU
- Lian Li Lancool 217 case
I've done some research and suspect the RAM timing related to EXPO might be causing these troubles, especially since the crashes happen after a few hours and EXPO keeps getting disabled automatically. I haven't overclocked anything manually—just used the BIOS presets.
Since I'm still within my 14-day return window and have also initiated returns for all my components, I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I love the performance of the PC, but I'm worried about diagnosing the issue in time. Has anyone had similar experiences with Error Code 31, auto-disable of EXPO, and unexpected crashes? What steps worked for you? Should I keep testing or just return everything if I can't find a clear solution soon? Thanks a lot for your help!
2 Answers
You might want to run a RAM test using Testmem5 or OCCT. The new version of Testmem5 can be found on GitHub. If you encounter any memory errors, it's likely that replacing the RAM kit would be necessary. Good luck!
Try lowering the RAM speed a bit after enabling EXPO. If the crashes stop, then you can pretty much assume it's a RAM issue. I’m currently running mine at 5800 MHz instead of 6000 MHz, and I have 128 GB now since the lower speed worked out just fine; the performance difference is negligible.
Did you drop your RAM speed because you had issues previously, or was it just a precaution?
I’ll give that a shot, thanks! How long do you think the test should run?