Hi,
This has been an ongoing issue for me for about two years now and this is just the latest version of it, only now I've recently discovered that I have WHEA and WATCHDOG Windows dump files for when this happens, so I'll try to condense this post as best I can since it's overly long and complicated:
My PC randomly entered some kind of hibernation mode (hibernation/sleep was/is not activated on Windows) when I left my PC for a few hours. It would only bootloop after having to power it down. This has happened before many times, and I thought it was the GPU last time (an RTX 2070 Super), so I was given a refund on it and replaced it with an RX6800, and the same thing has been happening. This also happened with a Vega 64 I had prior to the RTX 2070 Super too. Random restarts followed eventually with periods of bootlooping until I can't even see the BIOS, let alone get near Windows.
I have a spare GT730 GPU that works flawlessly when installed. It's PCIE powered, so I believe this is some PSU-powered GPU compatibility issue with either my Ryzen 3700X or with the Crosshair VII Hero motherboard. I reinstalled Windows altogether yesterday and that helped me get closer into Windows again with the RX6800, but the furthest I get after multiple bootloops is the desktop shortly after logging in before another restart.
Here are my specs:
- ASUS X470 ROG Crosshair VII Hero
- AMD Ryzen 3700x
- ASUS TUF RX6800
- EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G5 80+ GOLD 750W
- 4 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance 3000mhz RAM
And here's a list of everything I've done already to try and fix this:
- using only one stick of RAM
- testing each stick of RAM singularly
- Memtest64 shows no errors (I've done this multiple times over the months)
- using only one hard drive
- disconnecting all hard drives just to see if I could at least get a boot error on screen
- CMOS resets - sometimes several times a day
- Default BIOS settings when I'm able to access the BIOS
- Tested both PCI-E slots with the GT730 and RX6800 (GT730 always works in both)
- Tried a new EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G5 PSU in place of my EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 PSU
- Stress tested the CPU with 3DMark to see if the CPU itself has issues (it doesn't seem to)
- New thermal paste applied to CPU
- CPU reseated
- Disconnecting every PC case cable from motherboard and just using the motherboard's 'start' button to boot
- Trying both the HDMI and DP connections of the RX6800 to the monitor
- Updated motherboard BIOS just released (8/8/2022)
- Reinstalled BIOS multiple times (previous versions to the one released on the 8th of August)
- Manually changed BIOS settings so PCI-E slot was at Gen 3 instead of Auto
- Booted with keyboard as the only USB device
- Uninstalled all ASUS drivers and software
- Uninstalled AMD drivers with their own driver removal software, and with DDU software in Windows safe mode (multiple times)
- Fresh new install of Windows 10
- Tried different power cable
- Tried different outlet
I might be forgetting some other things I've tried recently too.
Here's some info from the most recent WATCHDOG dump file after one of the random restarts happened shortly after I was finally able to get into Windows yesterday. These are also the same as every other dump file I had before I reinstalled Windows yesterday too:
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: LKD_0x141_IMAGE_amdkmdag.sys
And here's more from the WHEA dump file that was generated for the same restart:
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: LKD_0x124_0_AuthenticAMD_PROCESSOR__UNKNOWN_IMAGE_AuthenticAMD.sys
I'm not sure if I'm right, but it looks like there's some incompatibility either with the Crosshair VII Hero motherboard and PSU-powered GPUs, or with the Ryzen 3700X and PSU-powered GPUs, but which is it? Anybody have any ideas based on the above dump file errors? If I need to replace either the motherboard or CPU, I'd rather find out which it is so I don't waste money on both. I think I've narrowed this down as much as I possibly can at this point, so any help is appreciated. Thank you!