Memtest86
Posted by HOOONS@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 17 comments
Hoping someone can help me out. I looked through a ton of other posts, but couldn't find one to help solve my issue.
I was having random BSOD and crashing happen while playing CSGO and Marvel Rivals. I ran Memtest86 and got thousands of errors. I removed each stick and performed the test again with the same results. I tested each stick in every slot with XMP on and off, lowered the CPU voltage and retested, updated the chipset drivers, and reset my BIOS. Is there anything I'm missing? I don't have verified good ram to test, but I just bought this ram 3 years ago after my last 2 ram sticks died. Is this definitely bad ram or could I have an issue with the CPU or motherboard? I did wipe all of my hard drives thinking I had a corrupt drive as well.
PC Specs:
Motherboard: ASROCK X570 Phantom 4
CPU: AMD 3600x
RAM: (2) 16gb DDR4 3200 CL16
GPU: AMD rx580 8gb
Thanks in advance!
jhaluska@reddit
Both sticks being bad is suspicious, and your last memory being bad is likely a trend.
I would suspect the motherboard or possibly the PSU is bad. You can likely RMA the memory and get new memory, but I'd probably replace the board.
HOOONS@reddit (OP)
Im just surprised, everything ran fine for the first 3-4 years before I started having issues. Its been like this the last 2 years though and getting worse.
You would do the board before the CPU or PSU? Any reason?
jhaluska@reddit
Mostly just an educated guess off 25+ years of building experience.
Memory's power doesn't directly go from the PSU to the memory, the motherboard has it's own power regulation circuitry to change the voltage down for the memory. This is why you can change it in the bios.
If the hardware (almost always the capacitors) have gone bad, the board may be occasionally giving the RAM a bit too much memory damaging it. PSUs do fail, but they usually just show up as crashes not damaging components.
It also could be a defective memory controller in the CPU and the memory is fine, it just can't read/write to it properly.
It's an ugly situation cause testing components where hardware is getting damaged isn't fun and you basically need a second system to figure out which component is bad.
HOOONS@reddit (OP)
Yea thats where Im at, I know I had a Power supply fail which is why I rebuilt to what I have now and it took my graphics card out with it. I currently have a Corsair 750W PSU. The PC does crash, but it also stutters in game and gets to a point where the game itself will randomly crash. This is the only reason I leaned more towards memory over PSU. Just so I understand, your recommendation is replace the board, RMA the RAM, and leave the CPU or replace that as well?
jhaluska@reddit
Well my idea of what is to blame is:
Motherboard 60%
PSU 30%
CPU 10%
I would do the following:
Buy another PSU, Mobo and CPU. It doesn't have to be an upgrade, it could be a 1300x, 300W PSU and a B350 and a Nvidia 710. As long as it's good is what is important.
Test the RAM in this new setup. If it is bad, RMA it
Then move the CPU into this setup. If it shows memory issues, move the other CPU and see if you damaged the RAM. This will tell you if the CPU is bad.
If both are good, move the Corsair PSU to the setup.
If everything is good, it was the motherboard.
Sell/return everything you don't need. You can put stuff on ebay as is for parts and let them know the symptoms. Some people might have more time to diagnose or willing to replace capacitors.
Alternatively, use it an excuse to upgrade to AM5, or upgrade the CPU/mobo/PSU.
HOOONS@reddit (OP)
Would it be worth upgrading to AM5 right now? I play most games on low settings and never really cared about graphics, just fps. My original thought was to look at a 5600x or something along those lines, then just replace the MOBO assuming I can RMA the RAM due to prices of components. But Im not sure that makes sense. I know my graphics card is my bottleneck right now, so I probably wont see too much of a change if I do upgrade the mobo, CPU, and RAM.
As far as testing goes someone offered to let me borrow RAM, but it sounds like Id be better off testing the "bad" RAM in a known good computer instead?
jhaluska@reddit
If you play on low, a 5600x is really beefy machine. Kind of depends on your budget.
And you're correct, it's better the test the bad ram in a good machine, as my current theory is that your motherboard is killing ram. It's also possible just the memory controller in your CPU died or was damaged and it can no longer read/write memory which would also show up as bad memory. Or the mottherboard voltage circuitry is bad.
They all would show up with similar symptoms. You can try using HW Monitor while in the desktop to see if any voltage looks off. That can be a clue too.
So yes, having someone else test memory would at least tell you something. If it shows up as good, you know the other hardware at least isn't killing memory.
I know it's frustrating, as I've been there a few times myself.
HOOONS@reddit (OP)
Yea, Ill do what you mentioned and watch voltages while idle to see if anything is off, but Im wondering if my best path forward is just fresh ram, a new MOBO, and either a 5600x or 5800xt (Theres one local to me). Im sure both those chips are overkill, but hopefully that means I wont have to replace it for a while! This way I dont have to play the guessing game, and I get a decent upgrade at the same time.
What would cause the memory controller in the CPU to die? Excess heat? Voltage spike?
jhaluska@reddit
Memory controller damage is likely from the motherboard voltages. Excess heat can cause also cause damage, just really rare to get something borderline.
AsRock has gotten a bad reputation for that for their AM5 boards, maybe their later Am4 has a similar problem and only showed up after years. (That said I have an AsRock B550 board myself.) A lot of this is pure speculation on my part.
It's most likely the board (or PSU) is just failing and just on the edge of functionality and has slowly been gotten worse over time. I've seen that a couple times.
So if you replace the board, I'd go with an MSI. I haven't heard anything bad about them lately.
HOOONS@reddit (OP)
Sounds good, thank you for the help!
jhaluska@reddit
Also stuff running fine for years then starting to fail is 90% a capacitor issue.
Which PSU do you have?
TheKitler@reddit
Have you tried a bios update?
Other than that, you probably have a bad part but it could be the CPU, board, or the ram as they all work together.
I'm inclined to say that the ram probably isn't the culprit here as it's less likely for both sticks to have gone bad, rather than for the motherboard or cpu to be causing the issue (in that order).
HOOONS@reddit (OP)
Is there a way to test these? Aside from just replacing them with known good parts?
TheKitler@reddit
Unfortunately not unless you can see physical damage somewhere to confirm.
Did the crashes start happening randomly or did you do a hardware change, cleaning, etc?
HOOONS@reddit (OP)
Randomly, I rebuilt it back on 2020 and it was great for a few years until like 2024 it crashed here and there, then 2025 it started getting bad, then so far this year I can't get through a night without crashing either of those games. But it seems to be only those games
deTombe@reddit
You might have a weak memory controller that happened with my sons 5500 and two different sets of corsair vengeance. What you can try is increasing V-SOC 1.24v and DRAM 1.38v.
HOOONS@reddit (OP)
I updated these settings and am still getting errors sadly