Need help please. Not sure what the problem is... (ram, cpu, motherboard)

[FrustratedPCGuy]

Hi all, put together a new pc recently and installed windows and it was running relatively ok. I tried using xmp and started getting BSODs so I turned that off and it went back to being relatively stable. I updated the BIOS and then everything got way worse. Could hardly get into windows and then eventually just blue screened and then didnt even show the completed "windows loading" animation. So unsure what to do I tried memtest and it cleared two passes with 0 issues and then the next pass it got to test #4 and froze completely. The final line of the log is "2024-11-07 19:43:06 - RunMemoryRangeTest - aborted waiting for CPU #6 to finish (Wait time = 10001ms, BSP test time = 1768ms)". I'm not sure what to glean from this... Does this mean my cpu is bad? or because the test froze is my motherboard the potential cause? Is it the ram that would cause a freeze? The bios is running at default everything by the way after the update. I even back rolled the update to the previously more stable version and still the crashes. I'm really at a loss as to what I need to do to fix this pc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Update: I ran another 2 memtest passes and there was zero errors. But there is obviously some kind of instability issue if memtest froze mid test right?

i7 14700kf
asus tuf z790 gaming w/wifi
corsair vengeance rgb ddr5 6400mhz cl36-48-48-104 1.35v

[David (PassMark)]

Freezes and sudden reboots are hard to diagnose.

Unless you have some high end measurement and test gear and also a lot of technical knowledge, it is trial and error.

Start with the easy stuff.
- Check temperatures & fans
- Run with half the RAM (then the other half), assuming you have 2 or 4 sticks of RAM.
- Turn off any default CPU overclocking / optimization in BIOS.
- Check motherboard, GPU cable connections and re-seat the RAM.

Then start swapping out the hardware.
- Borrow some alternate RAM from a friend or another machine
- Swap out the CPU. If need be buy a cheap I3 for $70 (e.g. Intel Core i3-12100F) just for testing. You can sell it later for $50.
- The move on to the GPU, PSU and motherboard.

It is unlikely that the SSD/HDD is the problem, as MemTest86 doesn't use your internal drive.

Of course exact sequence should be influenced by what spare parts you have already have available.

[FrustratedPCGuy]

Freezes and sudden reboots are hard to diagnose.

Unless you have some high end measurement and test gear and also a lot of technical knowledge, it is trial and error.

Start with the easy stuff.
- Check temperatures & fans
- Run with half the RAM (then the other half), assuming you have 2 or 4 sticks of RAM.
- Turn off any default CPU overclocking / optimization in BIOS.
- Check motherboard, GPU cable connections and re-seat the RAM.

Then start swapping out the hardware.
- Borrow some alternate RAM from a friend or another machine
- Swap out the CPU. If need be buy a cheap I3 for $70 (e.g. Intel Core i3-12100F) just for testing. You can sell it later for $50.
- The move on to the GPU, PSU and motherboard.

It is unlikely that the SSD/HDD is the problem, as MemTest86 doesn't use your internal drive.

Of course exact sequence should be influenced by what spare parts you have already have available.

Thank you for the reply. It is most unfortunate news. I suppose I will be forced to do some of those actions, though I would much rather just return the ram, cpu and motherboard and roll the dice again with new ones if it would take as much effort as you say just to figure out which one is the culprit... Not sure that reasoning would fly with amazon though.

Thank you again for your thorough reply

[David (PassMark)]

Could take it down to your local computer store. Likely they would have a lot of spare compatible parts. Might only take a couple of hours to swap out each major component and retest in sequence.