put together all the parts over the weekend, installed windows from usb. so far so good. Now every time it boots into windows it freezes after a few minutes. usually just in the middle of driver downloads. I checked cpu temps in bios, but it’s not getting above mid 40’sC. What am I missing?
Parts List
Old GPU everything else new.

Try it with just the one stick of RAM (and combinations thereof) for troubleshooting.

Ta, I got the impression that was the next thing to try. any opinion on memtest?

Worth running after testing both memory sicks speratley to see if you still get an issue and a suspect faulty one.

Unlikely to be the same but with my build a couple of years ago I had a similar issue – initially I managed to get Windows installed then had a few blue screens then on about the 4th reinstall attempt I couldn’t even get through it before it would crash. Same with one DIMM in (tried both separately) and temps weren’t an issue. Took it to local PC repair place and they couldn’t figure it out either (they tried other RAM and graphics card), they didn’t charge me as a result which was nice (although I felt a bit guilty as I’d bought all the bits off the Internet and built it myself…).

In the end I figured it must be either the CPU or motherboard and requested a warranty replacement of the motherboard, the manufacturer said the pins were damaged on it (and they could attempt a fix for £90 but couldn’t guarantee it). I was sure I hadn’t damaged the pins but hadn’t taken pictures before mailing it to them so had no proof. In the end I declined their offer and I just bought a new motherboard from a different manufacturer. On fitting it (with the original CPU and other parts) it worked fine and has done ever since.

My story is why I won’t be building my next PC myself and post it as a cautionary tale whenever I see anyone recommending it as a no brainer option. The £100-200 I saved building it myself was lost due to the £250 replacement motherboard cost (not factoring in my time and the hassle factor). I accept it’s rare this kind of issue happens but I still don’t think the little you save makes it worth the risk. My previous PC arrived DoA from overclockers.co.uk, I just followed the returns process for that and had a working replacement a few days later and wasn’t out of pocket.

Just a thought, if running 4 sticks with XMP enabled, that might be an issue too, I’d try each stick individually at ‘stock’ 2400mhz and then go from there. Or for a quicker test, leave all 4 sticks in but set them to 2400mhz and see if tou still get freezes.
Also check memory voltages are correct in BIOS

It might not be possible to run 4 sticks at 3200mhz, so you may need to figure out at what point above 2400 up to 3200 it becomes stable, assuming thats what the issue is.

any opinion on memtest?

Accept no substitute. Tremendously mature code, there’s nothing better.

They’re both forks of the same codebase, memtest86 is more suitable to modern UEFI machines, memtest+ for legacy BIOS hardware.

Any secondary HDD ? Just built daughter a new gaming PC a few months back, SSD and a HDD. HDD was faulty (could hear the clicks) and only caused issues if you tried to use it, constant crashes. Eventually got a replacement (ebuyer were slow on exchanges).

I don’t build Pc’s much any more but I’d personally just try another Windowed install and see if it is the same. Then go from there. Sometimes you just get a “rogue” install.

I’d also reseat everything on the mobo too.

Good luck matey.

Only time I had anything like was a clock error, the MB insisted on clocking it at high fsb low multiplier instead of the correct combo. Manually inputing the correct settings solved the issue, that said I’m not sure anyone multipler locks cpus these days.

tried each stick in slot 1, still freezes with each stick, although also randomly has no video output about 1 in 5 times. XMP wasn’t enabled initially. I’ll check the bios for voltage tonight. ran memtest86 on 1 stick. Blimey it’s thorough, took 5 hrs to do 1 stick, should I have done it with all 4 in or would that take 4 times as long?
I’ll try a re-installation too. do I need to wipe the partitions or just overwrite the C:
no additional storage yet.

Have you tried it with XMP enabled aswell?

Last time I had a problem like that after much swapping and substitution and running of memtest etc it turned out to be a faulty power supply. Just something else to try swapping if you’ve got another one lying around.

Does the motherboard have onboard video. Removing the GPU and seeing how it goes without that is worth a try. I had similar symptoms after I shifted house and my wife told the moving guys to put my PC into the truck, against my instructions to leave all the computer stuff for me to take in the car. Anyway, the PC started playing up and when I opened it up, the fan on the GPU had got shaken loose and it was overheating.

Also, downloading the most recent drivers from the manufacturers’ websites and installing those manually is a good idea. The generic Windows ones often cause problems.

Does the motherboard have onboard video. Removing the GPU and seeing how it goes without that is worth a try

I thought that but I don’t belive that set up has onbord graphics.

not tried xmp enabled yet.
can swap out the power supply tonight.
no on chip graphics unfortunately, but the GPU was working in the machine I robbed it from.
haven’t managed to download the nvidia drivers yet as it keeps freezing. i’ll download on the old machine and usb it over

no on chip graphics unfortunately, but the GPU was working in the machine I robbed it from.

It’s possible there are compatibility/driver issues with the new mobo or Windows installation.

**** arse
Crashed during bios update and borked the motherboard.
Supposedly recoverable, but I’ve got to strip all the components back out.

the GPU was working in the machine I robbed it from.

Does it have an additional on-card power connector that you’ve forgotten?

Does it have an additional on-card power connector that you’ve forgotten

Nope, standard 8 pin, although that’s by the by till tomorrow now.

Just want to say I feel your pain.

Hopefully you can get the bios sorted and I would personally just try for a new reinstall after that and see if it works. Check the latest bios is the way to go,too. Sometimes it isn’t. Occasionally the latest bios release can have issues. Googling will show up any known problems with certain bios releases.

I don’t really see a need to repartition but you can if you wish and it’s certainly a belt and braces approach.👍

Update,
replacement mobo, updated to latest bios and a reparation later and it’s all up and running fine. only minor hiccup is I trashed a usb stick doing the reparation thinking it was a partition on the NVME, doh.

So the motherborad was D.O.A?

DIfficult to diaganose as new mobos and PSUs are rarley faulty, glad you got the bottom of it though, In fact I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never had a new part thats been faulty, and it’s a pain to single out a particular component if you don’t have spares or a mate with spares you can swap with for diagnosis.

You should be able to reformat the USB stick.

Good outcome op.👍

Latest AMD x570 chipset drivers for some reason have the ‘balanced’ power profile set to minimum CPU @100% and max at @100%, so worth setting minimum to 5 or 0 for a quieter PC. To drop about 10 degrees on average set PCI link power management to off, min CPU to 0 and max to 99%.

Another thing to look at is Clock Tuner (CTR) by 1usmus, overclock and undervolt at the same time, its pretty slick in its operation, working on getting the best for your CPU. But.. an overclock across all cores is prob best for productivity but not gaming where leaving the CPU controlled by PBO may be better.