how to diagnose motherboard for failure? is there any way without swapping it out?

[frozen lily]

So I think my msi x570 A-Pro is failing cuz of restarting only in games without overheating. And not working ram slots (what I mean is when ram is in it's slots the PC won't boot up and shows a ram led on)
Any help?

[loud notch]

With random shutdowns, I would have the PSU as a suspect before the motherboard. What model PSU?

And not working ram slots (what I mean is when ram is in it's slots the PC won't boot up and shows a ram led on)

Explain more.

[frozen lily]

My power supply is chieftec polaris 750w

[frozen lily]

And for a ram slots, I have 32gb 3200mhz Kingston fury set, which if goes in slots that support xmp mode, aka the motherboard recommended slots, won't turn on. But, if you put only one ram stick in the "right slot" there is a chance it will boot up and the xmp will work

[loud notch]

4x8 or 2x16?

[frozen lily]

2x16

[loud notch]

Are you setting XMP or no POST at all if you use two sticks?

[frozen lily]

Lemme try to change my ram to the right slots without xmp

Because that problem was when xmp was on

[loud notch]

5000 series CPU?

[frozen lily]

No the 3 series

3700x to be exact

Ram light

[loud notch]

It could be the CPU. We can check if Windows is recording any WHEA errors.

Open Event Viewer → Windows Logs → System

On the right hand side you will see "Filter Current log"

[frozen lily]

A closer look

[loud notch]

In the Event Sources dropdown menu, select "WHEA-logger"

[frozen lily]

One sec I'll check that

So there is a lot of warnings

@loud notch

[loud notch]

I don't think the filter got applied

[frozen lily]

I applied filter myself, shown nothing, can't find it in drop down menu

Nvm found it, still nothing

Oh there is one

[loud notch]

Ok, right click on it and save it. Upload it here

Though it looks like it was informational and not an error?

[frozen lily]

Yes it is indeed an info log

No error

[loud notch]

I can look at it, but those are usually nothing

[frozen lily]

Drop it as an xml?

[loud notch]

No, in Event Viewer, you can right click on it and select Save

[frozen lily]

@loud notch like that?

[loud notch]

Yes

It was an event with the Toshiba DT01ACA050.

[frozen lily]

a hard drive? i dont think there could be that critical error with it

[loud notch]

Oh, they can completely prevent POST if they fail. But this wasn't an error, it could just have been something weird

[frozen lily]

so if i unplug it, there is a chance i could get a normal post?

[loud notch]

I don't think it's related

Because it's not an error

[frozen lily]

any ideas then? i mean, the ram problem cant log in windows. it does not even boot up then

and the problem is in any game. even a flash player one

[loud notch]

The problem with shutdowns is that you don't get any errors or logs

So you just have to guess

[frozen lily]

shit. so i gamble the non working component?

[loud notch]

Pretty much. It not POSTing with two sticks might not even be related.

I should check this just to make sure that it's just losing power. In Event View (same place as before), go back to around where it crashed and find the Critical Kernel Power event. Open it and select the Details tab. Screenshot that.

[loud notch]

And I mean just scroll down while looking at the time stamps

[loud notch]

That's the wrong one.

Should be Event ID 41

Brb

[frozen lily]

something like this that is the recent one 9/5/2024 3:51:28 PM

another at 9/5/2024 3:58:09 PM

[loud notch]

@frozen lily Ok, so these are actually bluescreens

Do they line up with when you crashed?

[frozen lily]

yea they do line up

[loud notch]

Both of these are Critical_Process_Died.

Let's check the dump files

[frozen lily]

and there is a lot of these events

[loud notch]

Go to C:\Windows\Minidump and check if you have any minidump files. If you do, go back to the Windows folder and copy the Minidump folder itself to the Downloads folder (You can use the desktop if you don't have OneDrive syncing files). Zip the copied folder and attach it to a post. Please follow the instructions to the letter as Windows doesn't like you messing with files in this location.

@frozen lily You don't see any BSOD right? The screen just goes black?

[frozen lily]

yes, freezes, and boom, black and reboot

[loud notch]

Ok, that's a bit weird with this crash error.

[frozen lily]

no minidump files

[loud notch]

I'll look at the dump files and see what they say

Bleh

[loud notch]

Is Windows on that Toshiba HDD?

[frozen lily]

no it's on samsung ssd

[loud notch]

No dump file and this BSOD makes storage a suspect.

Are you encrypting the storage (E.g. using Bitlocker) ? Haveyou manually set a size for the page file? Are any drives almost full?

[frozen lily]

the ssd is almost full

36 gigs free

of 464

[loud notch]

Ok, that can prevent dump file creation. Though 36GB should fine for the dump file (Though having it that full will cause the SSD to die much faster).

SSDs hate being close to full. You should have 20% free

[frozen lily]

the toshiba hdd is free, 363 gb left

[loud notch]

That doesn't really help the SSD

When it BSODs, it dumps the data you have in RAM to the page file. So you need more than your amount of RAM as available storage.

[frozen lily]

oh, that could be a huge problem, my ssd was almost full all the time

[frozen lily]

if i clean it up that could fix it?

[loud notch]

@frozen lily Check if you have kernel memory dump. A file called Memory.dmp right in C:\Windows. Don't upload it, just yes/no.

[frozen lily]

no, didn't see

[loud notch]

Ok. So there are a lot of different things and I'm not finding a pattern. You should see a Critical_Process_Died BSOD, it shouldn't black the screen.

Critical_Process_Died means that a Windows process crashed. That's usually from a corrupted Windows install which could mean faulty storage.

But faulty storage also doesn't black out the screen when you BSOD

[frozen lily]

well, i did see it today for a few miliseconds, but it's usualy frozen

[loud notch]

@frozen lily Clear up/move like 50GB off the SSD and see what happens. If it crashes/BSODs, check if you got a dump file.

[frozen lily]

one sec

76.9gb free now

[loud notch]

You can also run SFC/DISM. SFC checks the OS, DISM repairs SFC if that gets any errors: https://rtech.support/docs/guides/dism-sfc.html

[frozen lily]

oh i did run it

it found some problems and fixed it, although no results

[frozen lily]

now im checking it for a crash

@loud notch i got it to bsod

[loud notch]

Full BSOD now or did it freeze/crash again?

[frozen lily]

bsod, quick, half transperent

shown a code for a few miliseconds

[loud notch]

There are so many bugs with how the BSOD screen looks

So I don't worry about that

[frozen lily]

didn't see it

[loud notch]

Check for both a kernel dump and minidump (It can create both)

[frozen lily]

all of the critical errors

[loud notch]

Ok. My thought is that there are one out of two possibilities.

1. The motherboard is fucking everything up.

2. The storage is faulty and the RAM thing is a separate issue.

[frozen lily]

so swap the motherboard?

[loud notch]

Do what is easiest for you.

[frozen lily]

i need a working pc, so might just swap out the most vital part of it. sell it on some market place to get some money back

but what would you do?

[loud notch]

I would remove the SSD, install Windows to a different drive and see what happens.

[frozen lily]

clever, might try this rn

but if you were up to buy a new motherboard, what would it be for am4 platform?

[loud notch]

The cheapest one that has what I need

[frozen lily]

Like what?

[frozen lily]

So um, it doesn't even install windows

"You can't install windows on this drive"

[loud notch]

You probably need to format it as GPT. Note that this wipes the drive.

[loud notch]

It's your machine, how would I know what you need?

[frozen lily]

Yo I found the problem

Capacitor missing

[frozen lily]

Alr, thanks though

[loud notch]

@frozen lily Did you find that cap, because that doesn't look like it was in use.

Judging from the dust

[frozen lily]

No I did not, maybe you're right

[loud notch]

@frozen lily I posted the pic to a different server that is dedicated to tech support and half were like "There's solder on the pads, has to be broken off" (Makes no sense to use solder if they aren't putting a cap there) and the other half was like "That is way too clean to be broken off".

[frozen lily]

and what is the results?

[loud notch]

What I posted there.

[frozen lily]

actualy my take was same but i did some research, it came that way