- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,587
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Unlike CarTalk's weekly "Puzzler", I don't already have the answer to this one, hence this thread.
I've got a friend, the one that had the Athlon II X4 3.0Ghz rig for like 8+ years, finally got him on a Ryzen / AM4 rig.
Ryzen R3 1200 (not overclocked, that I know of) (new)
Gigabyte B350 or possibly X370 mobo (was open-box / refurb from Newegg, but worked fine for 6 months so far)
GSkill 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3000 kit (was new or like-new)
Asus ROG STRIX RX 570 4GB (was brand new in box from a member here - thanks!)
Silicon Power 512GB SATA 2.5" SSD (was originally new, when we started the process of migrating from Win7 and the old platform)
Rosewill ATX case (new)
Rosewill Valens 80Plus Gold PSU (new)
That's basically it.
The OS install, is an ancient Win7 64-bit SP1 installation, from like 5+ years ago, maybe even 8-10 years ago, when Win7 64-bit was a new OS. Upgraded in-place to Win10 1903, then upgraded to 1909. So, probably very crufty. Friend runs CCleaner regularly.
It's been running more-or-less OK for six months or so, but he did have some issues with his 4K UHD 28" screen that I got him, screen turned to "static". I ascribed the issue to the PC being booted for a week, running internet video streams, and AMD drivers. (I sometimes have issues myself with my rig, that I ascribe to either the fact that I'm pushing my RAM speeds to the edge of my mobo's capabilties, or AMD drivers.)
He, in the past week, has gotten three BSODs. He also goes to "movie sites", and they were in the background, when these BSODs happened. He hasn't had them in a few days, and he's been avoiding visiting "movie sites".
I don't know at this point if the issue is hardware-related (failing RAM, SSD, open-box mobo, otherwise), or software (surely, plenty of cruft and driver issues in his current installation). Could be the Rosewill PSU, I had another friend with a Rosewill gaming PSU with a multi-year warranty that died in the first year or so.
So, at this point, I was going to:
1) Have him run OCCT
SU test, and see if it reboots/BSODs/shuts off.
2) Have him make a Linux Mint 19.3 install USB, and boot off of it, and run that for a while (he may not be able to stand using Linux), OR
2b) Have him install another SSD, with a fresh new copy of Win10 1909 on it, and see if that BSODs at all (if it does, it would indicate a hardware issue).
Or could this entirely be due to visiting "movie sites", and them either: 1) Mining in the background, using WebAssembly in the browser (Firefox), or 2) Trying to inject shellcode, and BSOD'ing in the process of trying to drop it to the filesystem, basically, due to malware.
Likelyhood?
I can try another PSU, if OCCTSU test shows up any anomalies.
I've got a friend, the one that had the Athlon II X4 3.0Ghz rig for like 8+ years, finally got him on a Ryzen / AM4 rig.
Ryzen R3 1200 (not overclocked, that I know of) (new)
Gigabyte B350 or possibly X370 mobo (was open-box / refurb from Newegg, but worked fine for 6 months so far)
GSkill 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3000 kit (was new or like-new)
Asus ROG STRIX RX 570 4GB (was brand new in box from a member here - thanks!)
Silicon Power 512GB SATA 2.5" SSD (was originally new, when we started the process of migrating from Win7 and the old platform)
Rosewill ATX case (new)
Rosewill Valens 80Plus Gold PSU (new)
That's basically it.
The OS install, is an ancient Win7 64-bit SP1 installation, from like 5+ years ago, maybe even 8-10 years ago, when Win7 64-bit was a new OS. Upgraded in-place to Win10 1903, then upgraded to 1909. So, probably very crufty. Friend runs CCleaner regularly.
It's been running more-or-less OK for six months or so, but he did have some issues with his 4K UHD 28" screen that I got him, screen turned to "static". I ascribed the issue to the PC being booted for a week, running internet video streams, and AMD drivers. (I sometimes have issues myself with my rig, that I ascribe to either the fact that I'm pushing my RAM speeds to the edge of my mobo's capabilties, or AMD drivers.)
He, in the past week, has gotten three BSODs. He also goes to "movie sites", and they were in the background, when these BSODs happened. He hasn't had them in a few days, and he's been avoiding visiting "movie sites".
I don't know at this point if the issue is hardware-related (failing RAM, SSD, open-box mobo, otherwise), or software (surely, plenty of cruft and driver issues in his current installation). Could be the Rosewill PSU, I had another friend with a Rosewill gaming PSU with a multi-year warranty that died in the first year or so.
So, at this point, I was going to:
1) Have him run OCCT
SU test, and see if it reboots/BSODs/shuts off.2) Have him make a Linux Mint 19.3 install USB, and boot off of it, and run that for a while (he may not be able to stand using Linux), OR
2b) Have him install another SSD, with a fresh new copy of Win10 1909 on it, and see if that BSODs at all (if it does, it would indicate a hardware issue).
Or could this entirely be due to visiting "movie sites", and them either: 1) Mining in the background, using WebAssembly in the browser (Firefox), or 2) Trying to inject shellcode, and BSOD'ing in the process of trying to drop it to the filesystem, basically, due to malware.
Likelyhood?
I can try another PSU, if OCCT
SU test shows up any anomalies.
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