How do I figure out what is faulty in my system?

kakacarrotcake41

I bought a Ryzen 5 5600x and a b550 tomahawk and transplanted everything else from my old system. Shortly after putting the system together and after a while of use the system started restarting randomly. I have been trying to figure this issue out for a while now. I have tried resetting all my drives, I got a better power supply, and I even tried getting better cooling. The only way I could get my system to not keep resetting is to put my clock speed of my CPU 3.7 MHz with no boosting or anything. I am writing this to see if there is a solution to this problem or if I just need to get replacements because I did purchase microcenter's two year replacement plan on both my CPU and motherboard. The rest of my system is a RTX 2060, team group 3200 MHz C16 ram, 750 80+ gold NZXT PSU, and a Samsung 970 2tb. Not sure if any of that helps, but everything was working fine when it was in my old system. Any help is very much appreciated.

CKoenemann

Hey there and thank you for reaching out,

I'm a Build Your Own Associate at the Westmont, Illinois MC and I have had a few customers that had experienced similar issues. Some troubleshooting steps that I'd attempt before redeeming that replacement plan would be to:

1. Try a different power strip/plug. (Could be an issue with stable power to the machine)
2. If you can boot and get into Windows, try the Event View app that is built into Windows to see if it can give you insight into why something like this might be happening. In the event viewer you might see a critical process failure and you could cross reference the time of reset with the event failure. With this information you can see possible solutions that Microsoft recommends.
3. You should also try a CMOS reset. This will reset your UEFI and BIOS configuration to the defaults and could solve the issue. At the same time, if you can get into the BIOS without it crashing, I'd also recommend updating the BIOS to the latest non-beta bios from the official MSI website. If you just type "MSI B550 Tomahawk BIOS" into google you will be able to find it fairly easily. There are some risks involved with updating the BIOS if done incorrectly so be sure to use a reputable guide before you attempt on your own.
4. Try testing with individual RAM sticks in both the B2 and then A2 DIMM slots with XMP disabled. If that works then repeat the process with XMP enabled. This could deduce if it is a faulty RAM stick giving you issues.
5. If all else fails, it may unfortunately just be an issue the CPU and/or the Motherboard. Luckily, you have the microcenter replacement plan on both and can be swapped without issue at any Microcenter location.

If there is any of this you don't feel comfortable testing yourself, you can always bring your build into any Microcenter location where our technicians offer a diagnosis service for $39.99. For more information regarding these services, I'd recommend visiting your local service team with your build so they can assist you further.

I hope this helps!

-Christopher K

kakacarrotcake41

I tried out the things you said but my system still continued to turn off. On even viewer it gave me an error code that was associated with CPU failure Would you recommend that I exchange both the items at once or exchange the CPU and motherboard separately if it still doesn't work after I switch the first one out?

iJonesy

Just to clarify, is the PC turning off on it’s own or are you getting a BSOD message first before it restarts? I would be curious if there may be a thermal issue that needs addressed after the migration or possible that there may be bent pins on the CPU possible didn’t install flush in the move as well.

Hope these additional thoughts help,

iJonesy

kakacarrotcake41

I get no notification. The system just restarts on it's own. I also did check for bent pins, but I didn't see any, however, It's possible that I may have just missed them. As for thermals, I have an NH-U12S as the CPU cooler, and according to my hardware monitor it maxes out at about 75 to 80 C under full load.

Ian

Greetings. What is the exact error code or blue screen message you are seeing?

kakacarrotcake41

I am getting "Event 18, WHEA-Logger" on event viewer.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@kakacarrotcake41

Run this: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/bluescreenview-x64.zip

Just to make sure it's not logging something briefly that you can't see. Thermal issues shouldn't result in a restart, it should just shutdown. You checked the temperatures so you know that's out. This sounds like an intermittent power loss. Testing different outlets is a good example. I'll ask a few questions below.

1. Is this primarily happen under load, or on wake? Is it random?
2. Anything else odd in the system, like power cable extensions?

CKoenemann

https://community.microcenter.com/discussion/comment/42083#Comment_42083

I'd say whether you redeem both at once or individually is up to you. If you cannot narrow it down via your own troubleshooting, it might be advantages to only have to open up and rip the guts out of your PC once.

I would try some of the actions recommend by some of the other commenters here, as well seeing if searching in the Windows search bar "View System Reliability" can tell you anything more.

-Christopher K