I recently built a Windows 11 PC, but it has been crashing unexpectedly, especially when I'm doing light tasks like editing a text file or switching windows. Interestingly, it never crashes while gaming or running intense stress tests, which makes it hard to diagnose the problem. I've seen errors like bluescreen codes 116 and 133 in the reliability monitor. After changing some drivers, the system was stable for a bit, but it crashed again after six days. I'm planning to replace the PSU and RAM soon, but I really need a way to consistently reproduce the crashes so I can identify the faulty component before the RMA windows close. My build includes an ASUS TUF Gaming B850 Plus Wi-Fi motherboard, an RTX 5070 Ti, and a Ryzen 9800X3D with 256 GB of RAM.
2 Answers
It sounds like the RAM might be the culprit here, especially since you're using 256GB across all four DDR5 slots. It's generally recommended to use only two sticks for stability. Since your motherboard's QVL lists configurations above 96GB specifically for certain RAM setups, that raises a red flag. I’d start by testing with just two sticks to see if that helps with the crashing.
To get to the bottom of the BSODs, try checking for dump files, which are crash logs that could help identify the issue. If you can access Windows normally, or even in Safe Mode, look in C:WindowsMinidump for any files there. Zip those files and upload them to a file sharing site. Having multiple dump files can be beneficial for analysis. Consider configuring Windows to create small memory dumps if you haven’t already!
I thought it wouldn’t boot if there was a RAM compatibility issue? The B850 Plus does claim to support 256GB. Still, I’ll look into the RAM setup. My main goal is reproducing the crash to identify what’s causing it, so if possible, it would be great to get a process for that.