Brand new PC keeps crashing, as do games, usually as they're booting

[CaptainKristoff]

Hi all, I ordered a PC from here and it arrived on Xmas eve, what great timing I thought! Well, since then I've had multiple crashes and issues so I'm really hoping you may be able to help. I'm pretty new to PC gaming, though have always worked on computers so I'm not utterly clueless... Anyway, to my issues. I booted the PC for the first time and followed all the Windows setup prompts. When that was complete I installed the many windows updates and updated the Nvidia driver to the gaming version as per the already installed app. I then installed Steam and Ubisoft Connect (as one of my SSD's came with Assassins Creed Valhalla for free). I also got a free month of Xbox Game Pass; all seemed good so far. I tried to install the latest Doom from Game Pass but it kept stopping the download shortly after starting. I then tried to install AC Valhalla, seemed to go ok, I booted it up then when in the menu it crashed, then would crash before it booted on subsequent attempts. I then downloaded Quake on Steam (I'd played this on my work gaming PC so knew it was ok, and a small file), that runs fine. I then installed Cyberpunk 2077, mid way through the install the PC crashed. Upon restarting, I finished the install, the game crashed as it booted each time, I verified the files, of which some were corrupt. It crashed again whilst repairing these. I uninstalled and reinstalled Cyberpunk and this time it started, but then crashed in the menu's (character creation) and wouldn't boot again after. I then tried downloading F1 2020, the PC again crashed about 2 hours into the download.

Anyway, I think it's crashed about 6 times, I'll attach the last few .dmp files (EDIT: the crash dump and minidump folders are empty when I search from here to attach them) as they hopefully will help. I've run a dxdiag and had no issue and have checked all the drivers 9the wifi card driver stopped working this morning but that needed updating, which it has done without issue). I'm really at a loss as to why it won't work but am really starting to regret spending so much money on a gaming PC to only play Quake. The first Quake, off of 1996.

Any help will be so massively appreciated, thanks in advance,

Kris

P.S. Whilst writing this F1 2020 finished downloading, booting with DirectX 12 just doesn't start the game and via DirectX 11 it crashes before booting, please help!!

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 (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
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
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™

 

[RogWal]

Hello CaptainKristoff. When the computer bluescreens, is there an error code, message or file name shown? That would help isolate the cause.

 

[Ash_]

Have you run a test, to check how hot the cpu gets? Also, where is the pc located?

 

[CaptainKristoff]

Hi all, thanks for the quick replies! I've missed he BSoD's to be honest as they have occurred whilst downloading a 40gb+ game so I've left it to it. Generally happens after a couple of hours downloading, I come back and it's at the sign in screen after restarting. I haven't run a test to check temp, I'll have to Google how to do that, but the PC is at the end of my desk with plenty of clearance to all sides. My work gaming PC used to sit there and I've run F1 2020 on it for multiple hours when it was in that location, plus it occurs if I boot the PC and try and load the game straight away so it's not had time to get really hot?

The event viewer shows over the last 7 days, 11 event type Critical, Source- Kernel power. Then under error it has 275. This seems to be the error log from trying to boot F1 2020

 

[RogWal]

Could you try running F1 2020 in DX11, rather DX12? This would be to see if DX12 is the cause of your issue when starting your games.

I believe that if you start F1 2020 via the Steam app (rather than its desktop icon), you will be prompted whether to launch the game in DX11 or DX12 (not 100% sure as I do not have that game).

 

[CaptainKristoff]

Hi Rogwal, yeah, I tried both DX11 and DX12, both failed. @Nursemorph I haven't had a blue screen today, just failure to launch any games. I think the error from prior to the last BSoD was "The DTS APO3 Service service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s)." I've had a "Windows failed fast startup with error status 0xC0000001." and a LOT of warnings saying "
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{37399C92-DC3F-4B55-AE5B-811EE82398AD}
and APPID
{37399C92-DC3F-4B55-AE5B-811EE82398AD}
to the user DESKTOP-HD9TSSO\dialk SID (S-1-5-21-1887902726-2522735629-307322222-1001) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC) running in the application container Microsoft.GamingApp_2012.1004.3.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe SID (S-1-15-2-1723189366-2159580849-2248400763-1481059666-1951766778-2756563051-3565589001). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool."

 

[ubuysa]

We need some dumps to really see what the problem is.

Enter sysdm.cpl as a Run command, click the Advanced tab and then the bottom Settings button (in Startup & Recovery).

In the pull down menu select a kernel dump, also uncheck the box that says overwrite existing dumps (we want as many as we can get). The dumps will be written as C:\Windows\Memory.dmp files (they'll be numbered).

You might also want to uncheck the Automatically Restart checkbox too so it stops on the blue screen.

 

[RogWal]

At least we know DX12 isn't the cause of your games not starting. Out of interest, does F1 2020 start in windowed mode (i.e. not full screen)?

 

[CaptainKristoff]

Wow, so much help, thanks all! @RogWal, the game won't boot at all for me to be able to set it to windowed mode, if there's another way of doing it, I don't know it. @ubuysa, I've made the amends you suggested. Will finding the cause of the crashes rectify the issue of games either not booting or crashing in the start menu's? Is there a clue in the fact that Quake will run, but no modern games will? I'll set a game downloading as that seems to be when I tend to get the crashes, hopefully that'll get some useful dump info

 

[ubuysa]

Wow, so much help, thanks all! @RogWal, the game won't boot at all for me to be able to set it to windowed mode, if there's another way of doing it, I don't know it. @ubuysa, I've made the amends you suggested. Will finding the cause of the crashes rectify the issue of games either not booting or crashing in the start menu's? Is there a clue in the fact that Quake will run, but no modern games will? I'll set a game downloading as that seems to be when I tend to get the crashes, hopefully that'll get some useful dump info

I would expect that your BSODs are driver related - they almost always are. The dumps should allow us to identify the failing driver. Since your problems seem to be game related I'd bet one of my wife's mince pies that it's the graphics driver.

Edit: just noticed that you say that downloading is a problem so I may owe you a mince pie! We'll see if we get some dumps.

 

[CaptainKristoff]

@ubuysa I'll happily take a mince pie! OK, so the plot thickens. I set it downloading Dirt 5, it downloaded it, I booted it and I played it without a problem... I then tried Cyberpunk, got through character creation for the first time, then in the opening spiel it crashed. I then tried F1 2020, DX12 wouldn't boot, it looked like it was about to, but then the 'play' button just goes green again in Steam. I tried then DX11 and it launched, got through the first screen but at the second, the PC crashed and I got a BSoD with the stop code: MEMORY MANAGEMENT.

I then went to my C drive > Windows and scrolled down to the one file that was there called "Memory.dmp", its' from yesterday at 18:39 and is 1.47gb in size. There isn't anything form today though...I also can't attach it here via the attach files option

I trust this make it all nice and clear and you know exactly what simple thing I need to do to fix it, right?

 

[Martinr36]

@ubuysa I'll happily take a mince pie! OK, so the plot thickens. I set it downloading Dirt 5, it downloaded it, I booted it and I played it without a problem... I then tried Cyberpunk, got through character creation for the first time, then in the opening spiel it crashed. I then tried F1 2020, DX12 wouldn't boot, it looked like it was about to, but then the 'play' button just goes green again in Steam. I tried then DX11 and it launched, got through the first screen but at the second, the PC crashed and I got a BSoD with the stop code: MEMORY MANAGEMENT.

I then went to my C drive > Windows and scrolled down to the one file that was there called "Memory.dmp", its' from yesterday at 18:39 and is 1.47gb in size. There isn't anything form today though...I also can't attach it here via the attach files option

I trust this make it all nice and clear and you know exactly what simple thing I need to do to fix it, right?

Upload that file to som where on the cloud like dropbox then post the link here so @ubuysa can download it

 

[ubuysa]

Pop the RAM out and then reinsert it fully. If that doesn't help remove a couple of sticks and run with just two. If that's OK then pull those two and try the other two. If you can make it fail with just two a process of elimination should isolate the flaky stick.

I'm not saying it's RAM but it would be good to check.

And yes, please upload the dump to the cloud somewhere. Kernel dumps are always large but we want to see all the kernel data areas.

 

[CaptainKristoff]

OK, will do. Is there anything I need to do/ be mindful of? I've taken a RAM Stick out once before and re-inserted it, so I'm ok with that, but if I'm taking it out and having to leave it out a while whilst waiting for a crash is what I'm thinking?

 

[ubuysa]

OK, will do. Is there anything I need to do/ be mindful of? I've taken a RAM Stick out once before and re-inserted it, so I'm ok with that, but if I'm taking it out and having to leave it out a while whilst waiting for a crash is what I'm thinking?

Yes. It's the easiest way of testing your RAM. Leave a couple of sticks out for a day or so and do all you can to make it fail. If it's ok then swap the two sticks that are installed for the other two sticks and test it again.

Alternatively if you're not happy taking the sticks out you can download Memtest. Use the tool extracted from the downloaded archive to make a bootable USB stick containing Memtest. Boot that stick and allow Memtest to run. Allow it to run all four iterations of the various tests - that will take many hours on your 32GB of RAM, at least overnight possibly longer. Even a single error is a failure.

 

[CaptainKristoff]

Link for the memory dmp from yesterday should be HERE
I don't have an empty USB at the min so I'll try removing a couple of the sticks, then the other 2. I removed and then re-inserted the RAM but then booting F1 2020, the game crashed again. Whilst Googling, it's said that the order and position of the memory is important. Do I just remove 2 sticks next to each other, or of the 4 slots, slots 1 and 3, then after that, slots 2 and 4? Sorry, this is getting out of my limited knowledge, I perhaps rather naively thought it may just work when I bought it. I really appreciate the assistance though and am well aware it's a Sunday afternoon/evening that you're helping me on, so thanks.

 

[Martinr36]

Remove from 2 & 4 so yo have ram in 1 & 3

 

[ubuysa]

Link for the memory dmp from yesterday should be HERE
I don't have an empty USB at the min so I'll try removing a couple of the sticks, then the other 2. I removed and then re-inserted the RAM but then booting F1 2020, the game crashed again. Whilst Googling, it's said that the order and position of the memory is important. Do I just remove 2 sticks next to each other, or of the 4 slots, slots 1 and 3, then after that, slots 2 and 4? Sorry, this is getting out of my limited knowledge, I perhaps rather naively thought it may just work when I bought it. I really appreciate the assistance though and am well aware it's a Sunday afternoon/evening that you're helping me on, so thanks.

As above with the RAM.

I'm downloading the dump but it's getting late in the evening here so I'll probably not get around to it until tomorrow.

 

[CaptainKristoff]

No problem, I appreciate yours and everyone else's help! If you get round to it tomorrow that'd be awesome, I've tried playing Dirt 5 for a bit to see if it was ok (and because my new monitor arrived and I wanted to use it...) And it played ok for the best part of an hour. I've been repairing the Cyberpunk install after validating it found some bad files, about 50gb worth, it's been downloading for about 2 hours without a problem. I'll pick it back up tomorrow and try taking 2 RAM sticks out as suggested. Thanks again!

 

[ubuysa]

In a nutshell your problem is most likely Bitdefender. It's wise to uninstall Bitdefender in any case, it's known to cause many issues and Windows Defender is more than good enough - and it's free.

In your dump there are two driver errors, the first is Bitdefender (atc.sys):

ffffeb00`ae6c7018  fffff804`6e0e8ece Unable to load image \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\atc.sys, Win32 error 0n2
atc+0x38ece

The second driver error is with the Nvidia graphics driver (nvlddmkm.sys):

ffffeb00`ae6c4288  fffff804`736de489 Unable to load image \SystemRoot\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispi.inf_amd64_a51067c0ac557884\nvlddmkm.sys, Win32 error 0n2
nvlddmkm+0x1be489

I've seen this exact same issue in another user's dump from not so long ago, I was of the opinion then (and I still am) that the graphics driver issue is likely a symptom of the Bitdefender failure. ISTR that uninstalling Bitdefender solved the problem.

I would suggest you fully uninstall Bitdefender as see how things go. If you still get BSODs send me the dumps and if it turns out that there is a graphics driver problem we'll handle that separately.