Advice for a clean Windows re-install

CaptainKristoff

CaptainKristoff

Active member
Hi all, I've been having issues with my PCS PC since Xmas eve when it arrived. It was found after some trouble shooting that I had a faulty motherboard, so I returned the PC to have that replaced. My issue is that it still crashes playing most games though and I really don't know why so as a last ditch solution I'm hoping a clean reinstall of Windows will remedy things.

I've got the serial number for my windows install, though as I understand it I shouldn't need it, and I've got the USB ready with the correct version Windows 10 on it. My issue is that when I got to the "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen, I suddenly felt spectacularly out of my depth! Currently, over my 2 SSD's (the M.2 having Windows on it) the screen states:

Name Total Size Free Space Type
Drive 0 Partition 1 15.0 MB 15.0MB MSR (Reserved)
Drive 0 Partition 2: New Volume 931.5GB 418.2GB Primary
Drive 1 Partition 1: SYSTEM 260.0MB 229.0MB System
Drive 1 Partition 2 128.0MB 128.0MB MSR (Reserved)
Drive 1 Partition 3: Recovery 500.0MB 87.0MB Recovery
Drive 1 Partition 4: Windows 930.6GB 510.1GB Primary

My question is, do I just delete all of these and install, or do I need to keep some? I use this PC for gaming only (as much as it permits) so there's no data I need to preserve, it's just the games and the stores/launchers (Steam, Epic, Ubisoft's launcher, Rockstars etc) so I can just re-download and install all that again.

I'll give a bit more info in case anybody has any other suggestions of a better course of action; basically, most games that I try and play, AC Valhalla, GTA V, Watchdogs 2, Ori and TWoTW being the main I've been trying to get working all crash after between 2mins and about 40mins of gameplay, usually at the shorter end. I've run the System File Check and DISM scan, both fine. I've installed and keep on top of all Windows updates, Nvidia drivers are up to date and I've got the AMD driver updater from their site for the CPU too and have updated the MoBo to the latest non-beta update a few days ago. I also just use the in-built Windows anti-virus.
The event viewer shows the faulting application and module is the game's .exe, and the exception code is usually 0x c0000005.
Also, on boot up, prior to returning it for a new MoBo and after, I get one long beep and 3 short if the monitor isn't on/connected (with the accompanying VGA light) but it seemingly displays fine with or without the beeps. Also, my RAM is 3600Mhz but all games fall over instantly if it's set to that and it fails memtest86 tests, but all sticks pass fine if set to 3200Mhz. Downclocking via the XMP profiles to 3200Mhz seems OK. I've tried going lower but it doesn't stop the crashes. Cyberpunk runs well and hasn't crashed in the last 50 hours of play with the settings all up really high, and Doom Eternal and Dirt 5 run really well too, so I really don't know what that means.

This is a lot of info, thank you if you're still here; any help will be gratefully received! I'm new to PC gaming and knew it wouldn't be as "plug-and-play" as a console, but it can't be that about 60% of the games you play will crash every 10mins, right?!

Case
CORSAIR 275R AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.6GHz/35MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3070 - HDMI, DP
1st Storage Drive
1TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network Card
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KK3-00002]
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
CaptainKristoff said:
I've got the serial number for my windows install, though as I understand it I shouldn't need it, and I've got the USB ready with the correct version Windows 10 on it. My issue is that when I got to the "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen, I suddenly felt spectacularly out of my depth! Currently, over my 2 SSD's (the M.2 having Windows on it) the screen states:

Name Total Size Free Space Type
Drive 0 Partition 1 15.0 MB 15.0MB MSR (Reserved)
Drive 0 Partition 2: New Volume 931.5GB 418.2GB Primary
Drive 1 Partition 1: SYSTEM 260.0MB 229.0MB System
Drive 1 Partition 2 128.0MB 128.0MB MSR (Reserved)
Drive 1 Partition 3: Recovery 500.0MB 87.0MB Recovery
Drive 1 Partition 4: Windows 930.6GB 510.1GB Primary

My question is, do I just delete all of these and install, or do I need to keep some? I use this PC for gaming only (as much as it permits) so there's no data I need to preserve, it's just the games and the stores/launchers (Steam, Epic, Ubisoft's launcher, Rockstars etc) so I can just re-download and install all that again.
Click to expand...
Drive 1 is your system drive, Drive 0 is your other (data) drive.

So leave Drive 0 alone, do nothing to it at all.

On Drive 1 delete all of those partitions, the drive will show all space as 'unallocated space' afterwards. Then select (highlight) that unallocated space and click the Next button at the bottom. The installer will create the correct partition structure and install Windows into the right partition.

And no, you won't need your product key, you can either enter the key if you like or click the 'I don't have a product key' item as you please. :)
 
CaptainKristoff

CaptainKristoff

Active member
I've done the clean reinstall, have the latest non-beta version of my mobo's Bios, as well as the latest driver for the GPU and CPU installed and have done all the updates that were available. I then installed Ubisoft Connect so I could install AC Valhalla, within 3mins it crashed to desktop, same as before. I then installed Steam, GTA V and the Rockstar launcher, booted the game, after about 10mins, crash to desktop.
There's nothing extra installed on the PC and I really don't know what my the issue is. Just got Windows defender antivirus too.

Is anyone more computer literate than me able to look at the info I've put here to see if they can tell me what my issue is, please?

This is a link for the event viewer after GTA5 crashed, (C Valhalla doesn't appear to even register in it) then I've attached the msinfo32 data and dxdiag from after the crash too.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BGhReh5MpHamfXXpuFZhfoxb48GqFyqs/view?usp=sharing

Any help will be MASSIVELY appreciated as I've tried every possible thing I can think of or find in any forum and am really beginning to regret my purchase.

Not sure how relevant this is, but the PCS forum has a section in the desktop guides about the motherboards self-check, one long and 3 short beeps being an issue (though that post sounds like it has no video output, whereas mine does). I get the beeps sequence only if the monitor isn't on/active when I boot it up.
 

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  • GTA V Crash 01 msinfo32.txt
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ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
CaptainKristoff said:
I've done the clean reinstall, have the latest non-beta version of my mobo's Bios, as well as the latest driver for the GPU and CPU installed and have done all the updates that were available. I then installed Ubisoft Connect so I could install AC Valhalla, within 3mins it crashed to desktop, same as before. I then installed Steam, GTA V and the Rockstar launcher, booted the game, after about 10mins, crash to desktop.
There's nothing extra installed on the PC and I really don't know what my the issue is. Just got Windows defender antivirus too.

Is anyone more computer literate than me able to look at the info I've put here to see if they can tell me what my issue is, please?

This is a link for the event viewer after GTA5 crashed, (C Valhalla doesn't appear to even register in it) then I've attached the msinfo32 data and dxdiag from after the crash too.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BGhReh5MpHamfXXpuFZhfoxb48GqFyqs/view?usp=sharing

Any help will be MASSIVELY appreciated as I've tried every possible thing I can think of or find in any forum and am really beginning to regret my purchase.

Not sure how relevant this is, but the PCS forum has a section in the desktop guides about the motherboards self-check, one long and 3 short beeps being an issue (though that post sounds like it has no video output, whereas mine does). I get the beeps sequence only if the monitor isn't on/active when I boot it up.
Click to expand...
I hope you obtained permission from PCS to update the BIOS or you may have just lost your warranty?

Take a look at this thread and upload the System and Application logs as described, along with the driver list. If there are any relevant minidumps in C:\Windows\Minidumps (check the date and time stamps) then upload those as described as well.

If you're saying that you're getting 1 long and 3 short beeps on boot then that would point to a graphics card issue. If you've not done so already pop the card out and back in again.
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
CaptainKristoff said:
one long and 3 short beeps being an issue (though that post sounds like it has no video output, whereas mine does). I get the beeps sequence only if the monitor isn't on/active when I boot it up.
Click to expand...
This may just be the ASUS "feature" where it complains if your monitor is not turned on since your motherboard is an ASUS one
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
ColEyt said:
Could the OP's issue be the 4 X 3600mhz ram issue seen previously with Asus boards or has this been rectified
Click to expand...
It's possible I suppose. The issue does seem to have dropped off the radar so it may have been fixed. The OP is reporting app crashes though, the RAM issue would BSOD. :)
 
CaptainKristoff

CaptainKristoff

Active member
Hi all, thanks for the responses. @ubuysa, no, I didn't ask permission to update my Bios, it honestly never even crossed my mind that I should...

I've gathered the info you requested-
The event logs data is here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BjmCG8_yXl70wKuwPIeoSgCJSpLU2aPJ/view?usp=sharing

The drivers and system info are attached. Under C:\Windows, I don't have a "mini-dumps" folder.

Re the motherboard; the site for it says:
"4 x DIMM, Max. 128GB, DDR4 4800(O.C.)/4600(O.C)/4466(O.C.)/4400(O.C)/4266(O.C.)/4133(O.C.)/4000(O.C.)/3866(O.C.)/3733(O.C.)/3600(O.C.)/3466(O.C.)/3333(O.C.)/3200/3000/2800/2666/2400/2133 MHz Un-buffered Memory", so it should be OK with 3600Mhz form the mobo's point of view, is that correct?

For the CPU, AMD's site says:
"System Memory Specification- Up to 3200MHz. System Memory Type- DDR4

Because of the info from the AMD site I set the RAM to 3200Mhz. At 3600Mhz it would just fall over as soon as a game was booted. Is it right that the RAM needs setting to 3200Mhz because of the CPU, or should 3600Mhz be an option?

If there's any more info I can give you guys then let me know and thanks again for the input so far
 

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  • SysInfo-AdviceForACleanWindowsReinstall.txt
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  • drivers-AdviceForACleanWindowsReinstall.txt
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ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
CaptainKristoff said:
For the CPU, AMD's site says:
"System Memory Specification- Up to 3200MHz. System Memory Type- DDR4

Because of the info from the AMD site I set the RAM to 3200Mhz. At 3600Mhz it would just fall over as soon as a game was booted. Is it right that the RAM needs setting to 3200Mhz because of the CPU, or should 3600Mhz be an option?
Click to expand...
It should be an option I would think, but there have been stability issues with four 3600MHz RAM sticks in an AMD build, so if it's stable at 3200MHz I would personally leave it there.

I don't have your System log just the Application log, but there is a big clue in there I think....

There are a lot of AppCrash informational messages in this log that are for a wide range of applications, some Microsoft and some not. There are several for GTA5.exe which is the one you're complaining about. Most, if not all of these have an exception code of 0xc0000005, which is an 'access violation' error. Most of the time the resource where the violation occurred is RAM.

There are also several informational messages in there for the RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64 feature, this is the WIndows memory leak detection mechanism. A memory leak happens when RAM is not properly relased when a process has finished with it, if left unchecked a memory leak can exhaust your RAM and crash the system.

I think @ColEyt may have been right and these issues may be a (new) symptom of the four RAM cards in an AMD build issue - even though you're running at the usually stable 3200MHz. What I'd like you to try is to remove two of the RAM cards, be sure to remove the correct pair so you keep dual-channel operational for the remaining two cards. Leave it like that for a few days and see whether these crashes continue. If they do then swap the two RAM cards that are still in for the two you took out and run it again on just those two RAM cards for a few days. If the problem persists then it's likely not related to this RAM issue.

See how that goes for a while....
 
CaptainKristoff

CaptainKristoff

Active member
ubuysa said:
It should be an option I would think, but there have been stability issues with four 3600MHz RAM sticks in an AMD build, so if it's stable at 3200MHz I would personally leave it there.

I don't have your System log just the Application log, but there is a big clue in there I think....

There are a lot of AppCrash informational messages in this log that are for a wide range of applications, some Microsoft and some not. There are several for GTA5.exe which is the one you're complaining about. Most, if not all of these have an exception code of 0xc0000005, which is an 'access violation' error. Most of the time the resource where the violation occurred is RAM.

There are also several informational messages in there for the RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64 feature, this is the WIndows memory leak detection mechanism. A memory leak happens when RAM is not properly relased when a process has finished with it, if left unchecked a memory leak can exhaust your RAM and crash the system.

I think @ColEyt may have been right and these issues may be a (new) symptom of the four RAM cards in an AMD build issue - even though you're running at the usually stable 3200MHz. What I'd like you to try is to remove two of the RAM cards, be sure to remove the correct pair so you keep dual-channel operational for the remaining two cards. Leave it like that for a few days and see whether these crashes continue. If they do then swap the two RAM cards that are still in for the two you took out and run it again on just those two RAM cards for a few days. If the problem persists then it's likely not related to this RAM issue.

See how that goes for a while....
Click to expand...
OK, I'll give that a try. Thanks for taking a look at it for me. I'll let you know either way how it goes once I've had a bit of time with the different stick configurations
 
CaptainKristoff

CaptainKristoff

Active member
ubuysa said:
It should be an option I would think, but there have been stability issues with four 3600MHz RAM sticks in an AMD build, so if it's stable at 3200MHz I would personally leave it there.

I don't have your System log just the Application log, but there is a big clue in there I think....

There are a lot of AppCrash informational messages in this log that are for a wide range of applications, some Microsoft and some not. There are several for GTA5.exe which is the one you're complaining about. Most, if not all of these have an exception code of 0xc0000005, which is an 'access violation' error. Most of the time the resource where the violation occurred is RAM.

There are also several informational messages in there for the RADAR_PRE_LEAK_64 feature, this is the WIndows memory leak detection mechanism. A memory leak happens when RAM is not properly relased when a process has finished with it, if left unchecked a memory leak can exhaust your RAM and crash the system.

I think @ColEyt may have been right and these issues may be a (new) symptom of the four RAM cards in an AMD build issue - even though you're running at the usually stable 3200MHz. What I'd like you to try is to remove two of the RAM cards, be sure to remove the correct pair so you keep dual-channel operational for the remaining two cards. Leave it like that for a few days and see whether these crashes continue. If they do then swap the two RAM cards that are still in for the two you took out and run it again on just those two RAM cards for a few days. If the problem persists then it's likely not related to this RAM issue.

See how that goes for a while....
Click to expand...
I phoned PCS for some advice on my issues as different RAM configs didn't fix my problem and they swapped my RAM sticks. The issues remained the same. They then suggested I get the newest bios update that was released a couple of weeks ago, which I did and put on yesterday. It's meant the PC is more stable with the RAM at 3600Mhz, but the crashes still occur as before, it just means that 3600Mhz now behaves the same as 3200Mhz which I found it most stable on.Other frequencies between those 2 are no better or worse. They also asked that I check these RAM sticks, which returned no issues.
I've tried today to play a few games and see how it behaves and have had a lot of crashes. AC Valhalla will crash at random points, sometimes within seconds of booting, occasionally after up to 30mins of play time. GTA V is still crashing after approx 5mins, Watchdogs 2 crashes before it can load, Ori and the Will of the Whisps after about 3-5mins. So I basically haven't been able to actually play anything other than The Spectrum Retreat which didn't crash. I've got a link here with the event viewer info:

AdviceForACleanWindowsReinstall.evtx

drive.google.com drive.google.com

And have attached the msinfo32 file as well.

Oh, and this has been with 4 and 2 RAM sticks in at different points today. As it doesn't appear to be a RAM issue as I've tried with new sticks, are you able to suggest a next step? PCS seem at a loss, especially as it's been returned to have a faulty motherboard replaced, so I wanted to see if there was anything else I could do before contacting them again as I think their next solution will be to return it again; or is that a good idea at this point?
 

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