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Jan 18, 2020
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Hello!

I saw this active forum and just created an account hoping to get some awesome help from all of you.

Randomly, my newly built computer will crash and automatically restart. It crashes running a speed test, browsing the internet, or just sitting there. I have played many intense games as well, putting the system under an above average load, and never had it restart. It just seems honestly random.

When I open the Event Viewer to see what's happening, under "Windows Logs > System" I see an event labeled 'Critical' level every time the computer has randomly crashed. Under details, the description for all of them read, "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

I think I need to be taking a look at memory dump files but to be completely honest I don't know how to read them, let alone find them. I looked under C:/Windows/Minidump but didn't find anything there.

Any help with this would be appreciated immensely. I will be active monitoring this thread and am more than happy to screen shot anything required as fast as I can. I have "Automatic Restart on System Failure" unchecked as well.

Edit: So far, I have eliminated the video card and RAM out of the equation. I'm concerned this might be hardware or driver related and I'm also assuming clues can be found in the memory dump, but I've tried going through a memory dump last year and it felt like I was reading a foreign language.

Edit 2: It just crashed while I was playing Mordhau, but the game had only been loaded up for about 4 minutes when it crashed. As soon as I mouse clicked to spawn into the game, the computer restarted.
 


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Solution
Please post the dump files if you have them. It's always worth us having a look as the more we see the better.

Hello! I swapped my PSU for the exact same one and everything is working beautifully now!

Thank you all so much for all of your assistance! Seriously, I can't thank you enough.

Even though I bought the same PSU, a Corsair CX750M, there was one difference I noticed between the two; the first one I bought smelled like "new hardware," like a new console... and the new one smells like wet paint.

That is all I have, a data point for the future internet to refer back to.
Have you tried running a memory test? I did noticed there is a new bios available. I'd flash that and then try testing the memory.
 


By memory test, do you mean the built-in tool for Windows? If so, yes, I did that. It was on an ugly blue screen with low resolution. It did two passes of the memory and it took about a half hour.

When you say flash the BIOS, how do you mean?

Edit: I'm going to the MSI website and following their instructions for installing the BIOS for MSI MPG Z390 GAMING AC motherboard, but when I load the M-Flash tool in the BIOS, the files I've moved to the USB drive are not being read.

Link Removed You'll also see a link to a YouTube video created by MSI that explains how to load an update into the BIOS.

Any ideas? Thank you again for all of your help and time.
 


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Goto your mobo support page, download the latest bios. which is 17 and your current one is 16. Then format a usb flahsh fat32, unpack the zip to the root of it. Then boot your machine to the bios and use M-Flash to flash the latest one. With memtests it's best to use Link Removed it creates a boot usb drive for you.
 


I've noticed that the previous
Goto your mobo support page, download the latest bios. which is 17 and your current one is 16. Then format a usb flahsh fat32, unpack the zip to the root of it. Then boot your machine to the bios and use M-Flash to flash the latest one. With memtests it's best to use Link Removed it creates a boot usb drive for you.

Thank you, I'll do that now.
 


Goto your mobo support page, download the latest bios. which is 17 and your current one is 16. Then format a usb flahsh fat32, unpack the zip to the root of it. Then boot your machine to the bios and use M-Flash to flash the latest one. With memtests it's best to use Link Removed it creates a boot usb drive for you.

No dice. I'm following everything exactly as laid out. I downloaded the memtest86 file and allowed it to format my USB drive, and I notice the drive's name changes to "MULTIBOOT." I then "Extract all..." the folder contents into the USB drive. I then restart the computer to BIOS. I start the M-Flash tool. Once I open up the directory while in Flash Mode, I can see that I unpacked all of the file contents into the USB drive before I restart into the BIOS. I can also find '7B17vA6' folder, but when it is opened, all I can select is an '...' symbol.

This is my dead end.

Edit: If it helps, in the BIOS it says the current BIOS version is "E7B50IMS.160"

When you say I'm on 16 and there is currently 17, what do you mean by that? Is there a "E7B50IMS.170" and I'm only on "E7B50IMS.160"?
 


No dice. I'm following everything exactly as laid out. I downloaded the memtest86 file and allowed it to format my USB drive, and I notice the drive's name changes to "MULTIBOOT." I then "Extract all..." the folder contents into the USB drive. I then restart the computer to BIOS. I start the M-Flash tool. Once I open up the directory while in Flash Mode, I can see that I unpacked all of the file contents into the USB drive before I restart into the BIOS. I can also find '7B17vA6' folder, but when it is opened, all I can select is an '...' symbol.

This is my dead end.

Edit: If it helps, in the BIOS it says the current BIOS version is "E7B50IMS.160"

When you say I'm on 16 and there is currently 17, what do you mean by that? Is there a "E7B50IMS.170" and I'm only on "E7B50IMS.160"?

Scratch all of that. I got it updated! Now onto the RAM...
 


It crashed after the BIOS update as well, albeit a few hours later.

I'm uploading a fresh .zip folder with the crash files. As always, thank you for your time and assistance.

Edit: The RAM seems fine.
 


Attachments

It happened again shortly after. Both instances in this particular scenario took place in a game called Squad, once while joining a server and soon after while loading up server lists.
 


Attachments

Hi,
I don't see any dump files in your downloads.

This might be down to two reasons, either your system isn't cofigured to produce them or your getting a certain kind of bugcheck (bugcheck 124 sometimes will not produce dump files for example)

To see if the system will produce dumps please ensure your settings are set like so:
Open the run application.
Type sysdm.cpl in the run box and click ok.
Look across the top of the system properties box for 'Advanced' and click that.
Look for 'Startup and Recovery' near the bottom and click 'settings'.
Near the bottom you'll see a drop down menu under the heading 'write debugging information'.
In the drop down menu choose ' small memory dump (256KB)'
Under 'small dump directory' make sure it says %SystemRoot%\Minidump.
Click ok and your good to go.

Also have you checked your temps? This is always critical on any new build to ensure all is ok. HWiNFO64 is pretty decent and is free toboot:
Free Download HWiNFO Sofware | Installer & Portable for Windows, DOS

Drivers, are they the latest versions available? Please don't use an app to find them for you as they often find incorrect drivers.

Soon as you have dump file please zip and post, thanks. :)
 


Hi,
I don't see any dump files in your downloads.

This might be down to two reasons, either your system isn't cofigured to produce them or your getting a certain kind of bugcheck (bugcheck 124 sometimes will not produce dump files for example)

To see if the system will produce dumps please ensure your settings are set like so:
Open the run application.
Type sysdm.cpl in the run box and click ok.
Look across the top of the system properties box for 'Advanced' and click that.
Look for 'Startup and Recovery' near the bottom and click 'settings'.
Near the bottom you'll see a drop down menu under the heading 'write debugging information'.
In the drop down menu choose ' small memory dump (256KB)'
Under 'small dump directory' make sure it says %SystemRoot%\Minidump.
Click ok and your good to go.

Also have you checked your temps? This is always critical on any new build to ensure all is ok. HWiNFO64 is pretty decent and is free toboot:
Free Download HWiNFO Sofware | Installer & Portable for Windows, DOS

Drivers, are they the latest versions available? Please don't use an app to find them for you as they often find incorrect drivers.

Soon as you have dump file please zip and post, thanks. :)

Thank you for your reply, kemical!

I followed your instructions and changed the section under 'write debugging information' from "Complete Memory Dump" to "Small Memory Dump (256kB)"

My temps are actually phenomenal. I use MSI Afterburner on the regular and keep a constant eye on the CPU and GPU. Under the maximum strain I can put them through, my processor maxes around 62c (Hyper 212 Evo cooler) and my GPU maxes around 71c.

I know it's not the GPU itself causing the random shut downs because they were happening for a few days before I bought and installed it. I ran a memtest, and the sweeps not only came back fine, but I even tried one stick of each solo in the first DIMM2 slot, and the same thing occurred.

The random shut downs have been occurring since first setting up Windows. It reboot randomly A LOT, several times when I was doing the first-time WiFi set up, and several other seemingly random times during the set up.

I'm going to wait for another random shut down and then I'll run the W7F tool.

Thank you for your help!
 


Drivers, are they the latest versions available? Please don't use an app to find them for you as they often find incorrect drivers.

I know the BIOS is now as up-to-date as possible. I will work on the rest of the hardware, but I am a little unfamiliar with driver installation. What I mean is, would I download Link Removed
 


You can use Link Removed to update your intel drivers, it can auto detect them for you.
 


Hi Coffee,

Thank you for the heads up regarding temps, the intel list you posted I would say your only needing the graphics driver.

The most important Intel drivers are the two chipset drivers, engine management and hmm I forget the name of the other one but if you check your motherboard support page you should be able to download whats needed. (or if you post make and model I'll find em for you).

Hopefully once we have that dump file we can find out the issue.
 


Hi Coffee,

Thank you for the heads up regarding temps, the intel list you posted I would say your only needing the graphics driver.

The most important Intel drivers are the two chipset drivers, engine management and hmm I forget the name of the other one but if you check your motherboard support page you should be able to download whats needed. (or if you post make and model I'll find em for you).

Hopefully once we have that dump file we can find out the issue.

Your genuine desire to help me out is absolutely amazing. I can't thank you enough. So far, no crashes yet since I posted this morning!

I noticed both you and nmsuk are Admins. Is there a way to donate to the site for all of your time and efforts?
 


Hi Coffee,

Thank you for the heads up regarding temps, the intel list you posted I would say your only needing the graphics driver.

The most important Intel drivers are the two chipset drivers, engine management and hmm I forget the name of the other one but if you check your motherboard support page you should be able to download whats needed. (or if you post make and model I'll find em for you).

Hopefully once we have that dump file we can find out the issue.

I am downloading driver updates for:

Intel® UHD Graphics 630
Intel® Wireless-AC 9560 160MHz
Intel® Wireless Bluetooth®


I am really really hoping it's the WiFi driver that's been causing all of this.
 


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