PC Upgrade problems

dymetrie

dymetrie

dymetrie

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I've been having stability issues with my recent PC upgrade which are causing me no end of headaches in trying to figure out what is wrong.

Have been going through some troubleshooting to try and resolve, but there are some interesting anomalies which may pique the interest (expertise) of the community here.

So after a failed bid to find a cheap and cheerful microPC option to work off of (bought a USFF Optiplex off eBay, first wipe showed it was on a local council's managed device platform! Talked to them and they confirmed they forgot to decommission, so got that sorted and took back control, only for the thing to have random crashes and crap stability!) I fell back on my plan B, which was to upgrade my Ryzen 3 system to a more modern processor to allow for Win11.

My desktop had been unused for around a year (it was in the home office, which was taken over by my wife after lockdown, pushing me to a secondary desk in the living room), but had generally worked fairly well before then.

The target of the build is for my home desktop to be solid and reliable to enable using it for work (so I don't have to ship my work laptop between home and the office all the time), general PC fun and some light gaming.

So I bought a Ryzen 5, and installed this, along with an NVME I'd picked up for the microPC and all looking good. But I get random graphics lock ups, which can only be resolved through a hard reset of the PC. These lock ups happen at random times, without any identifiable load/stress being put on any of the components. I've had them happen just when web browsing, or when starting a game, or a few minutes after start up! But conversely I've had a few 1-2 hour gaming sessions, spent an entire day on Teams video calls and there hasn't been any problem at all!

When checking the Event log after a lock up the only error before the reboot that I see is Event 4101, Display - Display driver amdwddmg stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

So far I've tried:
  • reinstalling GFX drivers
  • downgrading GFX drivers
  • automatic upgrade of GFX drivers
  • Swapping monitor inputs
  • reducing to a single monitor
  • Replacing PSU
  • swapping RAM modules
  • turning off D.O.C.P management of RAM
  • Running RAM modules individually (current test)
Still on the list are:
  • test with an oooooold Geforce 8800 GT
  • OS reinstall
  • OS change to Ubuntu (I really like Ubuntu, but want Win11 as this was the driver to upgrade the CPU)
  • Reducing peripherals plugged in
System upgrade (changes in bold):
  • Ryzen 3 1300x -> Ryzen 5 4500
  • Asus Prime A320M-K
  • Corsair Vengeance 2x8GB DDR4-2666
  • Radeon "red dragon" RX500
  • SanDisk SSD Plus 240 -> Samsung 980 500GB NVME
  • DVD-RW (I know!)
And the PSU was an old (and I mean old, I bought it in 2008 :eek:) EarthWatts 500 Watt power supply (80 PLUS® certified), now replaced with a Kolink Modular Power 700W 80 Plus Bronze Modular Power Supply

But the interesting things I've noticed centre around the motherboard and RAM.

The BIOS version on the MoBo is sitting at 5862, from October 2021. The Asus website says the latest version is 6202, released in July this year; but the motherboard utility won't offer an upgrade (I am hesitant to do it manually).

The RAM is listed as compatible, and rated as 2666. And if I enable D.O.C.P then it will run at that speed, but is being picked up by the BIOS as 1066MHz (so 2133) and turning off D.O.C.P does drop the speed down.

So what I'm after from you, the OcUK experts, is any additional suggestions/thoughts/comments on what to try or do. Any recounted experience of issues like this in the past that you've heard of/encountered. Any google results I may have missed when looking for a solution to the driver issue (that one's a proper minefield with various rants about Radeon's drivers, dodgy hardware and stories of woe).

:)
 
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Bios 5862 does support your cpu but there have been many updates since then many of which give increased compatibility and performance improvements as well as a security fix. I have had a look through the available bios versions and there is no reason that you can't just go and update straight to the latest version. It's good that you couldn't update using software as windows based flashing software is the worst way to do and has the highest chance of failing. As your board doesn't have USB flashback you need to download the latest bios, unzip it if needed and put it on a Fat32 formatted USB stick. Leave the USB stick inserted and reboot the pc. Go into the bios and in the tools section you will find EZ-Flash 3. Fire it up and point it at the new bios on the USB stick and let it run. When complete it will reboot the pc so whatever you do do not interupt the power. Keep in mind that a bios update will reset the bios so any changes you have made will need to be done again.

It's really easy to do and nobody should be afraid to update the bios these days and it's especially important for you guys on AMD as that's how you get the updated Agesa's some of which can give pretty decent performance improvements. EZ-Flash is a good tool and I have never had a bios update fail when using it.
 
If you still have this problem it would appear that there is/was a problem with the Adrenaline driver. Over on Reddit there was a possible fix that worked for several people:-

Had this problem on a 7900XT with Adrenalin 23.7.1. Looks like there is a bug with 23.7.1 but not the standalone driver. After a clean install of Windows 10 fully updated everything was fine, but installing 23.7.1 along side the standalone driver is when the driver started crashing again. Reverting back to Adrenalin 23.2.1 Solved the issue for me.
Click to expand...

You need to uninstall the Adrenaline driver first (many used DDU), download the older driver, select clean install and let it set up. It seems to be a very common problem.

Once you fix this problem you may want to upgrade your memory as yours is very slow and will be costing you performance. Ryzen thrives on fast memory and 3600mhz is the sweet spot.
 
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pastymuncher said:
If you still have this problem it would appear that there is/was a problem with the Adrenaline driver. Over on Reddit there was a possible fix that worked for several people:-



You need to uninstall the Adrenaline driver first (many used DDU), download the older driver, select clean install and let it set up. It seems to be a very common problem.

Once you fix this problem you may want to upgrade your memory as yours is very slow and will be costing you performance. Ryzen thrives on fast memory and 3600mhz is the sweet spot.
Click to expand...

Yeah, have tried clean install of older/newer/standalone drivers already which didn't solve the issue.

RAM wise, it's being identified as 2133, but happily (on the assumption it isn't the RAM causing the crashes :cry:) tweaks to 2666.

An upgrade to 16gb of 3200 is on the list (the fastest the mobo will drive) but want it to be stable first.

An alternative route might be to switch out the mobo, which would open a lot of doors in terms of RAM, of course :cool:
 
**UPDATE**

Looks like it may well be a faulty stick of RAM, which is annoying, but ultimately probably a good outcome as it can be resolved.

First stick had lock ups, but now 26 hours into testing the second stick and it seems solid. Have re-enabled D.O.C.P so it's being recognised as, and running at, 2666 rather than 2133.

Will test through the week (working Wed-Fri) and if it stays stable and crash free then I'll order in 32GB of 3200 (fastest the board will take) so I have double the capacity and a chunk more speed :)

Then the next stage is to move to an ultrawide monitor!
 
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