New build playing up

Stubbsy · 19 Jul 2020 at 10:51

Hi,
I've built the following with guidance from people here, thanks
- MSI B450-A PRO MAX (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
- RYZEN 7 3700X EIGHT CORE 4.4GHZ (SOCKET AM4) PROCESSOR - RETAIL
- be quiet! Shadow Rock 3 High Performance CPU Cooler
- Team Group Vulcan TUF Gaming Alliance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4
PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Blac
- RADEON RX 5700 XT RED DRAGON 8GB GDDR6 PCI-EXPRESS GRAPHICS CARD
- Seagate Barracuda 510 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive
RV.1 (ZP1000CM3A001)
- Corsair 650W PSU

I've had it for a couple of months, in a fairly large old case, but then the power button broke on the case so I swapped it for a BitFenix Neos Case - Black, which is fine but it's a tad smaller than I'd like.

Anyway, particularly recently I've been seeing some instability, and I can't pin down what's causing it.
At idle, the system is fine. Crashes occur when gaming, but weirdly it seems to be during cutscenes (the prerecorded videos!) rather than during actual play.

I've found that an older game called From Dust seems to be really good at crashing the system! Symptoms are, during cut scene, audio will start to stutter and then screen will blank. 5 seconds and then system reboot.

I've logged some sensors and include the plots below. I can't see what, if anything, is causing the issue. Any insight would be appreciated.

Edit: As far as I can tell, these plots end at the point where the system dies. The timestamps from the logs tie up.

CPU and System Fans - they're pretty much all set to 100% anyway

CPU Loads and VCore

CPU Temperature and Power

GPU Plots

Blue160 · 19 Jul 2020 at 11:02

Have you tested your RAM? I’ve had similar crashes which were eventually traced to a failing RAM slot.

Stubbsy · 19 Jul 2020 at 11:09

Blue160 said:
Have you tested your RAM? I’ve had similar crashes which were eventually traced to a failing RAM slot.

How do you recommend me doing that, please?

Blue160 · 19 Jul 2020 at 11:12

Memtest86 is probably still the best way. You need to create a bootable USB and run it before windows loads. https://www.memtest86.com/

Stubbsy · 19 Jul 2020 at 18:04

Memory reports ok

What next? PSU?

VortexA1 · 19 Jul 2020 at 18:19

I would uninstall all of the graphics drivers and reinstall clean. Maybe a driver has become corrupted?

Stubbsy · 19 Jul 2020 at 20:59

VortexA1 said:
I would uninstall all of the graphics drivers and reinstall clean. Maybe a driver has become corrupted?

Any tool you'd recommend using or just download the amd drivers again and tick the clean install box (I think there is one)?

wookiee87 · 19 Jul 2020 at 21:32

Stubbsy said:
Any tool you'd recommend using or just download the amd drivers again and tick the clean install box (I think there is one)?

display driver uninstall is a very good utility (ddu) works on nvidia and amd gpu's once done download the latest gpu drivers and see what happens, tbh i'd also recommend amd's chipset drivers which can be downloaded from amd's website same as the display driver, just be sure to select the correct mainboard revison in your case b450.

i know not keeping chipset drivers upto date can cause all kinds of weird issues from bsod to in game problems

Stubbsy · 20 Jul 2020 at 08:46

wookiee87 said:
i'd also recommend amd's chipset drivers which can be downloaded from amd's website

OK so I've done the following
- removed MSI Dragon Centre (was a load of sh^t anyway)
- updated chipset driver from MSI website for the specific mainboard
- updated to latest BIOS again from MSI website
- reinstalled AMD graphics drivers using Factory Reset option.

Will do some testing

Stubbsy · 21 Jul 2020 at 14:59

Unfortunately this hasn't solved the issue. Machine still reboots occasionally playing some games. Still, oddly, seems to be during cutscenes.
Any other suggestions?

VortexA1 · 21 Jul 2020 at 15:13

Ok. Have you stress tested the computer?

Like a cpu stress test, then a gpu stress test to see what happens when each component is stressed?

Stubbsy · 21 Jul 2020 at 15:16

VortexA1 said:
Ok. Have you stress tested the computer?

I've run the 3DMark benchmarks (Time Spy) a few times which I assume stressed the build, and it doesn't crash during that.
It also runs Passmark's Performance Test with no issues.
Recommendations for other tools I should be using to do this?

VortexA1 · 21 Jul 2020 at 15:34

Furmark I used to use.
Prime for quite a while too.

These are stress tests.

Stubbsy · 21 Jul 2020 at 15:38

Ok I'm running Prime at the moment, slowly watching the cpu temperature increase to about 76... Will see where we go from there. You just leave it running for a while, do you?

Edit: got bored after half an hour. Running the GPU one now.

VortexA1 · 21 Jul 2020 at 16:15

I would leave it for some hours the prime.
Maybe 2 hours

Stubbsy · 21 Jul 2020 at 16:22

I'm thinking I will run both prime and the gpu one at the same time! Genius right?

VortexA1 · 21 Jul 2020 at 16:33

Thing is if one of your hardware components isn't stable so could present itself at seemingly random times, if you stress the omputer making sure that it doesn't go too hot heat, if it's an instability then hopefully it will show up in a stress test.

Stubbsy · 21 Jul 2020 at 16:47

I ran the GPU one for a while and seemed to peak at 87 core temp and 106 hot spot. Seemed stable.

Pc case was bloody hot to the touch afterwards, but it's a steel case - it's bound to heat up if it's full of 80 degree air.

Running them both at the moment but with prime going there doesn't seem to be enough cpu to max out the GPU... Hmmm

VortexA1 · 21 Jul 2020 at 16:48

The cpu will be using its resources with prime.
You must feel at a loss.

VortexA1 · 21 Jul 2020 at 17:34

How about downgrading your drivers to before you started having your crashes in games.
I assume you've put the latest on again after uninstalling/reinstalling?