Sudden huge problems with new PC, need help diagnosing.

[Zikar]

I built a new PC very recently and it's been working fine, lots of fun in Cyberpunk.
However, today it just "stopped working."

There are no errors codes or anything so I can only describe the symptoms.

I was playing Cyberpunk and the game crashed. Tried to restart it and the entire system locked up. Restarted the system and Windows updated.
Windows would no lock up not long after starting. Would sometimes show minor graphical artefacts and claimed that it was blocked from accessing the graphics hardware.

I system restored to an older version of Windows. Windows now initially boots up more or less correctly, but some programs will cause it to hang. Trying to update nVidia experience just didn't work (it got stuck on "Preparing to Install") and using OCCT made Windows hang.

I'd appreciate any help in trying to diagnose what is wrong so that I can get it fixed, or have parts replaced.

My system:

Spoiler

MSI MAG B760 Tomahawk WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard

Order MSI MAG B760 Tomahawk WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard now online and benefit from fast delivery.

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Zotac GeForce RTX 4090 Trinity 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card

Order Zotac GeForce RTX 4090 Trinity 24GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB SSD PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (ZP2000GM3A013)

Order Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB SSD PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (ZP2000GM3A013) now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Intel Core i7-13700F (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail

Order Intel Core i7-13700F (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail now online and benefit from fast delivery.

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Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 1000W Fully Modular Native PCIE 5 80 Plus Gold Power Supply

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Corsair Vengeance 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-41600C40 5200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK64GX5M2B5200C40

Order Corsair Vengeance 64GB (2X32GB) DDR5 PC5-41600C40 5200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK64GX5M2B5200C40 now online and benefit from fast delivery.

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[Zikar]

Test SSD https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/seatools/

I used this and no errors came up.

 

[Zikar]

I don't have a spare drive but I could probably get memtest to run. Again, the system seems to stay stable until I try to do certain things.

I put my hardware in the spoiler tag.

 

[Zikar]

I've started to get square artefacts when in windows now, specifically on transparent parts of the UI. I'm pretty convinced that it's the GPU now.

 

[Zikar]

No, all brand new stuff, brand new Windows etc.

 

[Zikar]

Yeah when I tried to stress test the GPU the system hung. As for heat etc I've been keeping an eye on temperatures, at idle the card was in the 40c range and full load the card was high 60c-low 70c.

However, I've noticed since I've gotten these issues the idle temp dropped to the 20c range. I'm not sure what that indicates but it was peculiar and makes me think something stopped working.

 

[Zikar]

So, reseated stuff, got OCCT running and tried the 3D stability test on my GPU, it starts drawing power, then power drops and then the test itself crashed.

 

[Zikar]

Oh yeah, I checked the plugs, I'd already heard about the 4090 sometimes melting that and it's not melted.

I'll have to recheck the exact numbers, but it looked liked what you'd expect from idle and stability testing.

 

[Zikar]

Update: Decided to give it another shot. Reseat, rolled back windows, safe mode, DDU, update Windows etc etc etc, restart after each step to make sure it all takes etc etc.

Seems to be working now. 20 minutes on OCCT stability test and an hour in Cyberpunk and it all ran smoothly.

I have no idea what caused the issue but I can only guess maybe Windows trying to update automatically during a crash just mucked up some drivers.
Even while I was trying to boot into safe mode Windows is trying to auto-update and crap, failing, undoing, kicking me back into Windows regular, not safe mode etc.

I think I let my anxiety get the better of me and not test everything super thoroughly and instead assuming the worst. Anyway, thanks for the help guys, hopefully there won't be any more issues going forward.

 

[Zikar]

Well, I'm back, worked fine for two days, turned it on this morning and getting BSODs, square artifacting, Cyberpunk won't launch without the system crashing and running OCCT's stability test causes it to stop after less than a minute and the screen to go black.

Edit: Wondering why redoing the drivers worked at all. I'm just confused at this point.

 

[Zikar]

So, finally got a chance to look at a blue-screen and it was giving a DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION error. This seems to imply a driver or software issue, but I don't know if it could be caused by those drivers interacting with faulty hardware.

The whole system is brand new and it worked for quite a while before there were any issues so it feels weird for it to be a purely driver issue, there aren't really that many added drivers to the system, if you know what I mean.

 

[Zikar]

Try taking out the GPU and swapping in a lesser GPU.

I don't have a spare one now, unfortunately.

 

[Zikar]

Windows either hangs right after starting or won't even boot any more. I get the motherboard startup stuff then just a stutter-y loading circle forever.