So I have a fresh Windows 11 install on my PC; I did it to attempt to fix another issue I was having, but it turns out that was due to faulty RAM. Since I’ve been on the fresh install though, I've been encountering hard crashes that I can’t diagnose.
I’ve installed drivers (Chipset, CPU, GPU)
Updated my SSD firmware (though not on my boot drive or for my hard drives)
Updated BIOS
Reset CMOS
Have my GPU running stock and very well-cooled
I do have XMP enabled, as well as PBO on my 5900X. There was no issue with these for the year+ I was on my old Windows 11 install, or on Windows 10 before that, and I’d really prefer to leave these on since I game on this computer.
I leave my computer running with the monitors off most of the time, since it also functions as a Plex server. Recently I’ve been leaving the screens on, and caught a DPC_Watchdog_Violation blue screen which had evidently hard-crashed once it reached 100%. A post from Tom’s Hardware recommended going into Control Panel to install “Standard SATA AHCI Controller” for my SSDs, which I did, but I’m still getting the hard crashing.
I’m at a bit of a loss here; the only real common factor is that my displays are turned off when the hard crashes occur. I left them on all day yesterday with no issue, turned them off through the night, turn them back on the today, still with no issue, and then had a hard crash this afternoon during the 1 hour period I had them switched off. Also, this issue has never occurred while I’ve been using my PC, and it seems to happen at random intervals.
I’ve had issues with hard crashes in the past related to GPU temps and messing with the GPU voltage, or playing with CPU voltage, but never something like this. This didn’t happen while I was using my PC like this on the previous Windows install.
EDIT: Did 2 runs with memtest (all tests selected) and it passed both times. Also ran OCCT with the more demanding workload, and again no crashes
EDIT 2: I finally found a solution. Having tried a ton of different fixes, nothing could make the problem go away, and it resembled previous issues I’d had when components weren’t getting enough voltage. Finally I found this post, and after changing the settings in BIOS (setting Power Supply Idle Control to “Typical”, and Global C-State control to “Off”), I’ve had no further issues.
Boot from a memtest86 ISO and hammer your hardware. If it crashes, the hardware is the issue, if it doesn't, then start looking at software.
https://www.memtest86.com/
Got it. I’ll start it tonight and see how things are looking in the morning
Passed memtest as well as an OCCT run. Maybe I’ll try