I leave my computer running for long stretches because it also acts as a plex server. I turned my monitor on last night to open steam, and the window didn’t render in; I didn’t think much of it, but before I could restart my PC, I got a “memory management” BSOD. I turned off XMP, as well as taking out each RAM stick, but I continued to get BSODs. Either “memory management” or “critical process error”. Some other things I’ve attempted:
I can’t reset the PC; when I try, I’m told “there was a problem resetting your PC”.
I can’t use a system restore point; that also fails.
When I open the terminal and run
sfc /scannow
it finds and fixes corrupt system files every single time (I’ve attempted 3 times now), but I still get a “critical process error” BSOD.
I attempted running
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
before “sfc” but this got an error 87 and didn’t work.
When I turn on the PC, my lights for DRAM and VGA stay lit up for maybe 5-10 seconds, but turn off while I’m in BIOS or the windows startup repair screen (and my monitor is plugged into the graphics card; my CPU can’t do display out).
I’m at a bit of a loss here. My next guess would be to attempt to reinstall windows, but I don’t have another windows PC handy to create bootable media, so I’m hoping I have a thumb drive laying around with an ISO on it, or I’ll need to wait to get one from a friend.
Also, in the event that reinstalling windows is the fix, should I disconnect the drives holding my plex media beforehand? Wouldn’t want to risk them getting wiped
An update: I have a drive with installation media for Windows 10 laying around, but when I got to the point where it was installing files on my boot drive, partway through it said it didn’t have the required files and cancelled.
THE FIX: Turns out it was an issue with my RAM. I plugged in a thumb drive containing memtest, and after running the test received a ton of errors. Swapping in a new RAM kit seems to have totally resolved my issues. The PC boots up perfectly fine now
Are there vendor tools that run off of a flash drive like memtest? I can’t boot into windows at all
Absolutely! Even memtest has a portable one.
https://www.memtest86.com/tech_creating-window.html
There's some to test the hardware and even SSD, but I'd need to know the ssd brand/vendor.
edit: Adding ultimate boot cd as another useful tool that can run on usb
https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
Ultimate boot looks like an extremely useful tool, thanks for mentioning that. After testing each RAM stick in the primary slot for my MOBO, I’m running memtest and getting a lot of errors (now over 500 and still on pass 1)
Most RAM have a lifetime warranty, so please take a picture of the errors and use that to rma (return) to the memory maker for a free replacement.
In the meantime, consider buying new ram (unless you can wait 6 weeks for an rma return lol).
It’s DDR4 so not crazy expensive; I went ahead and got a new kit. Thanks for your help!