Frequent BSOD - I'm stumped

Hi all! New to the forum and I'm so glad I found it. I hope someone here can help me put an end to these BSODs!

I've been chasing random frequent BSOD's for months! I have tried so many things to try to solve this, and I don't want to muddy the waters. I'll include some details that I think are clues to the cause but won't include everything and let the logs do the talking. Please feel free to ask any questions if I didn't include a detail you want.

About my build:

• Specs are in my profile.
• Rebuilt my Win 7 HTPC back in March. Only my case, PSU, HDD, and SSD carried over. Went through Windows upgrade workflow to move to Win 10 (can't remember if it was on the old hardware or the new). Installed Plex Media Server. Don't use HTPC as a client, so it just sits running Plex Server, Unified Remote, and Nvidia utilities.
• All drivers should be up to date (though as I write this, Nvidia notified of updated driver).
• Currently running Version 1909. One update is failing to install recently, but the crashes started months before.

About the crashes and my efforts to solve:

• It worked fine for about 5 days then suddenly started crashing 5-10 times a day.
• I have tried every step on every walkthrough I have found, nothing even improves it.
• Crashes rarely seem to be the same. There have been at least 10 different codes. (In just a few minutes today I got 1a, 1e, and 50)
• Crashes seem to "accelerate"- meaning I can have several hours up-time before a crash, then it will crash about 20 minutes after the reboot, 1-2 minutes after that crash, seconds after boot, then won't even make it into windows before BSOD. I just hard shut down at that point and come back to it later.
• I found this forum a couple months ago, but had the PC off for several weeks and wanted to get some fresh logs to upload. That day I also discovered that Plex and Nvidia can sometimes not play nice together. On a whim, I uninstalled/reinstalled PMS. Since then I had maybe 1 crash in over 6 weeks. I thought maybe it was fixed. Suddenly last week it started crashing and went back to the frequent (4-6/day) accelerating crashes.
• This has all been across several Nvidia driver versions, PMS versions, and Windows updates.

I am at my wits end, and just want a reliable media server. I hope someone can get some insight from the logs:
Attachment 298292

I'm happy to provide anything more needed. Huge thanks to anyone who looks into this with me!

Update BIOS - ASRock > B450M Pro4
Check in Windows Update if there any updates of system
Update AMD chipset driver - https://www.amd.com/en/support/chips...ocket-am4/b450

Probably there is a problem with a RAM module or with your motherboard.
Test the RAM with MemTest86+, as explained here: MemTest86+ - Test RAM

Symptoms look like CPU overclocking, CPU overvolting and CPU overheating combined.
(And there appears to be a phenomenon that you need to watch out for when OC'ing CPU and overvolting, where CPU core temp higher than 60 C can cause an error to occur.)

Such phenomenon don't exist with stock CPU frequency and Vcore settings.

Thanks everyone for your input so far! I appreciate you all helping me look into this. I haven't been able to work on the PC today, and It's getting late so I won't be able to tonight. I did want to respond to everyone though. I'll work through the list of things to try when I get home from work tomorrow and update again.

MrPepka said:

Update BIOS - ASRock > B450M Pro4

• Check in Windows Update if there any updates of system
• Update AMD chipset driver - https://www.amd.com/en/support/chips...ocket-am4/b450

• I was on the latest BIOS at the beginning of the crashes. I see now they've released updates in July and August. I'll update to the latest.
• Windows Update is on and has typically been up to date through all of this. Many times I have checked and the machine was fully up to date. About a month ago, KB4574727 failed to install and fails every time it tries. This is the only update currently available on the machine besides the 2004 feature update. I'm holding off on that until I can resolve the BSODs.
• AMD chipset driver - same as BIOS. I'll get to the latest again.

cscarpitta said:

Probably there is a problem with a RAM module or with your motherboard.
Test the RAM with MemTest86+, as explained here: MemTest86+ - Test RAM

RAM has me all sorts of mixed up! I tested it with Windows' built in tool when the crashes started, it told me it was bad so I RMA'd it. I'm on my 2nd set of sticks. Got a crash the first boot after installing the new sticks! Couldn't get it to boot at all after. Ran MemTest and got tons of errors almost instantly. I found some tips recommending stepping the timings down from the max compatible. I did that and it booted. As strange as this sounds, I found that if I ran MemTest immediately after a crash, it would fail, but if I ran it from a "clean" shutdown it would always pass without errors. I know many people say even one bad test is enough to call the RAM bad, but it seemed like the crashes themselves were causing test failure. That could be dumb, maybe I just have really bad luck!. Is it possible for another component to ruin the RAM? I was nervous if I contacted the manufacturer with another RMA for the sticks, they would say something in my system is ruining them and reject me. Does anyone have experience with this? With the new sticks, I had the long stretch without crashes after my uninstall/reinstall of Plex, so I assumed they weren't the problem. Anyway, I'll run MemTest86 again and post the results here.

Is there a way to test the motherboard for problems? I tried to find answers if it could make the RAM go bad or a way to test it, but wasn't able to find anything.

RJARRRPCGP said:

Symptoms look like CPU overclocking, CPU overvolting and CPU overheating combined.

Ztruker said:

Are you overclocking CPU or RAM? If yes, remove all overclocking, set everything to nominal.

Never had any overclocking or overvolting going. Would it be worth trying to underclock (I assume that's possible just like overclocking, right?) FWIW CPU temperatures run between 40-45C at most times. I've had Handbrake peg the CPU for hours straight, and though the temps get up to 70C and hold steady there. Like you said @RJARRRPCGP; that shouldn't be an issue at stock settings (unless 70 is too high?). (Also, I got your PM, thank you for that. But I'm blocked from responding cause I'm new to the forum I think.)

@Ztruker Thanks for diving into the logs! Glad to see the logs had all the old crashes too! Definitely a sick machine! Thanks for the insight that it is most likely hardware. I kept waffling between hardware and driver issues, but I don't have much experience diving this deep and neither had solved it, so I didn't really know what to think. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it!

In summary I will:
Update BIOS
Update chispset drivers
Run MemTest86 and post a pic
Reset the BIOS settings to default to be sure

70 C is not too high for stock CPU frequency and Vcore.

Updated BIOS and chipset drivers tonight. Windows had 2 updates so I applied those (though 1 is the one that repeatedly fails). Was working towards running MemTest and windows crashed. Over and over... Those updates did not solve the problem. BIOS is also set back at the defaults. I'm going to run MemTest and post the results tomorrow.

Also remember that the slot for the RAM on the motherboard can be faulty so if new RAM fails, suspect the slots and test an individual good stick of RAM in all the slots to see if you can identify a bad slot.

philc43 said:

Also remember that the slot for the RAM on the motherboard can be faulty so if new RAM fails, suspect the slots and test an individual good stick of RAM in all the slots to see if you can identify a bad slot.

Thanks for that insight! Good to keep in mind if it fails.

I ran MemTest86 for about 20 minutes last night. I noticed it reported the CPU temperature as 107. It doesn't have a unit, and since most things report computer component temps in C, I worried that was very bad. I ended the test and went right to BIOS to check what it reported: A much more comfortable 48C. I booted back into MemTest86 and it will not get past "Measuring CPU/cache/mem speeds" I have rebooted into it at least 5 times and it gets stuck there every time. I even booted in before I left this morning and came home to it stuck in the same place.

So what do I do if I can't run MemTest86? Quick search seemed to indicate it freezing or going slow is usually the CPU throttling or going into thermal protection, but the BIOS says the temps are fine. Attachment 298628