I'm trying a new CPU in my PC (Ryzen 5500GT) and I'm seeing:

• Sporadic kernel panics during boot.
• Random .ko.zst module files (different one each boot) complaining that ZST decompression failed checksum.
• Random .so's failing to find a symbol and causing programs to crash/fail to start.
• Started a stress-ng sequential session at 5s per stressor and it hung up after a dozen stressors. Couldn't ctrl-c it and also ps didn't work anymore. 😅

Funny thing is, other than that the system runs fine (when it boots, that is).

Switched back to my old CPU (that's the only change in the machine) and all of these things stopped.

That CPU that's doing that is defective, correct? Just double-checking I'm not missing anything else.

I've reset BIOS between CPU swaps and left it at defaults. Could default settings cause a CPU to act like this?

Edit: cooling is good, all temps (chipset, CPU etc.) are in the 30's C in idle, CPU went up to 75C when stressed. Have a tower cooler (Scythe Kotetsu) with a 120mm fan.

I'm also adding some voltage readings I took from sensors while the problematic CPU was installed:

Vcore: 840mV
+3.3V: 3.31V
+12.0V: 12.10V
+5.0V: 5.01V
VSOC: 780mV
VDDP: 900mV
DRAM: 1.21V
3VSB: 3.29V
VBAT: 3.26V