New Windows 10 Desktop Keeps Crashing

I built a system for a friend and it's constantly crashing. We've done several memtest86 5.01 passes with no errors, but I'm doing a longer one as I type this. The BSOD is usually related to ntoskrnl.exe, and from my experience, that's usually hard drive or memory. The SSD shows decent health in HD Sentinel, but perhaps I should test that too?

We tried lowering the memory to 1866 and the machine still crashes.

This is the build:
Windows 10 Professional x64 (Upgraded from Windows 7)
Intel Core i5-6600
ASRock Socket 1151 H170 Pro4
2x8GB DDR4 2666 CORSAIR Vengeance LPX
Gigabyte Radeon 390X 8GB GV-R939XWF2-8GD (rev. 1.0)
Samsung 830 256GB
Toshiba 3TB 7200rpm
Antec Three Hundred Black Mid-Tower
Corsair 600W Modular CX600M
DVD Burner

Windows 7 Pro x64 was installed first, as that's the legit product key we had. I did the install and let the upgrade kick in, and then ran the W10 upgrade. Attached is a screenshot of the last minidumps. He said there were many more (most pointing to ntoskrnl), but he had to do a system restore of sorts, so all I could find was one minidump when he gave the PC to me, and the other one dated today happened when I launched CPU-Z.

I ran FurMark for a few min and the machine didn't crash, and no artifacts. I don't know enough about FurMark these days so I don't want to damage the GPU. Send away any advice, but remember I'm no novice, so speak to me in any crazy language you want.

I'm posting this thread as putting several heads together may save me days of wasted time!!

I'm guessing the problems are (listed in order):
-Memory
-GPU Driver
-GPU itself
-SSD
-Format/Re-Install with fresh Windows 10 (now that it's been activated)
-Motherboard

I saw ATI and dx errors there too...points to the driver.

Avoid furmark.

Swap amd drivers after cleaning with ddu.
Make sure chipset and ME drivers are up to date for the board as well as its bios.
Clean install of 10.

Yes, my original thought upon analysis of the 01/10 BSOD he gave it to me with, but do I disregard ntoskrnl and assume driver?
Could the driver fail b/c of memory?

EarthDog said:

I saw ATI and dx errors there too...points to the driver.

Avoid furmark.

Swap amd drivers after cleaning with ddu.
Make sure chipset and ME drivers are up to date for the board as well as its bios.
Clean install of 10.

Click to expand...

So all drivers are already up to date. Memtest86+ ran for 16 hours with 8 passes and no errors before I stopped it.
I uninstalled 15.12 AMD drivers and going to run DDU and re-install. I guess I'll uninstall the chipset and ME drivers also and re-install, but this makes me wonder if the GPU hardware is at fault, since everything was up to date anyway. PC is not OCed at all, and case airflow is great.

The only thing I noticed is there is a Crimsom Edition 16.1 Hotfix. I don't understand why it's called "hotfix" if it's a new version. I'll just go with that.

g0dM@n said:

So all drivers are already up to date. Memtest86+ ran for 16 hours with 8 passes and no errors before I stopped it.
I uninstalled 15.12 AMD drivers and going to run DDU and re-install. I guess I'll uninstall the chipset and ME drivers also and re-install, but this makes me wonder if the GPU hardware is at fault, since everything was up to date anyway. PC is not OCed at all, and case airflow is great.

The only thing I noticed is there is a Crimsom Edition 16.1 Hotfix. I don't understand why it's called "hotfix" if it's a new version. I'll just go with that.

Click to expand...

Garo,

May or may not be related but several have advised me that Memtest86 is not reliable with DDR4 memory.
That's what I was preparing to use from a boot disk before I was advised that it's error / false reading
prone. AIDA64 and Orthos (Prime 95 ) seem to be very reliable.

RollingThunder said:

Garo,

May or may not be related but several have advised me that Memtest86 is not reliable with DDR4 memory.
That's what I was preparing to use from a boot disk before I was advised that it's error / false reading
prone. AIDA64 and Orthos (Prime 95 ) seem to be very reliable.

Click to expand...

P95's latest download doesn't run on W10, so Orthos is what I should do? I'm trying it now and it only runs on 2 cores. I don't really think I need to test the CPU. I've never seen a CPU unstable at stock speeds. I want to thoroughly test the RAM.

I did uninstall drivers, and re-installed everything, even if it was the same/current version. BIOS updated as well, and the 16.1 hotfix from AMD was installed, instead of its 15.12 driver.

I'm running FurMark a bit just to make sure the driver doesn't crash, not too high...

Thanks so much!!

g0dM@n said:

P95's latest download doesn't run on W10, so Orthos is what I should do? I'm trying it now and it only runs on 2 cores. I don't really think I need to test the CPU. I've never seen a CPU unstable at stock speeds. I want to thoroughly test the RAM.

I did uninstall drivers, and re-installed everything, even if it was the same/current version. BIOS updated as well, and the 16.1 hotfix from AMD was installed, instead of its 15.12 driver.

I'm running FurMark a bit just to make sure the driver doesn't crash, not too high...

Thanks so much!!

Click to expand...

Garo,

Orthos is simply Prime95 with a nicer GUI overtop.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/Orthos-Prime.shtml

AIDA64 works nicely too but it's not free. Thirty day free trial run like Woomack
describes here:

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...nnel-memtest?p=7892839&viewfull=1#post7892839

I always like to run two reliable stress type programs like these two.

RollingThunder said:

Garo,

Orthos is simply Prime95 with a nicer GUI overtop.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/Orthos-Prime.shtml

AIDA64 works nicely too but it's not free. Thirty day free trial run like Woomack
describes here:

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/...nnel-memtest?p=7892839&viewfull=1#post7892839

I always like to run two reliable stress type programs like these two.

Click to expand...

I'm running the Orthos one you linked for 31 minutes now and good so far. I was just saying that it only runs on 2 cores.
I may go with the trial after this one runs for 6+ hours. I'm going to run it until I get back from the gym, so that will equate to about 6 total hours.

I've already downloaded the trail version of AIDA64. Thanks, pal!

P.S. OK so I ran two separate instances of Orthos and set the affiinities for 2 cores each (chose them manually).

g0dM@n said:

I'm running the Orthos one you linked for 31 minutes now and good so far. I was just saying that it only runs on 2 cores.
I may go with the trial after this one runs for 6+ hours. I'm going to run it until I get back from the gym, so that will equate to about 6 total hours.

I've already downloaded the trail version of AIDA64. Thanks, pal!

P.S. OK so I ran two separate instances of Orthos and set the affiinities for 2 cores each (chose them manually).

Click to expand...

Garo,

The AIDA64 "tip" came from quite a few others here and I just passed it on.
Initially I was not impressed until Woomack coached me on how to set it
up and use it. I remember the old days when Orthos / Prime95 was to be
run at least 8 hours but I don't think that appliers anymore. I run it
two hours and AIDA64 the same and never missed a stress test on this new
build. Six hours, two instances, on Orthos should clinch it for you.

Orthos.. wow, that is a blast from the past.. Not sure I used that since 2007 or so... wow!

Are they still updating it to use modern CPU instruction sets?

EarthDog said:

Orthos.. wow, that is a blast from the past.. Not sure I used that since 2007 or so... wow!

Are they still updating it to use modern CPU instruction sets?

Click to expand...

Joe,

I don't know. Since the Skylakes are quad cores you need to open two instances, 2 cores each
so Orthos is dated. It still appears to give a hearty stress test and a second run with AIDA64
set to CPU, cache and memory seems to duplicate it to the same conclusions. If AIDA64 was free
then Orthos could be eliminated.

Yikes, lots of hoops to jump through for Orthos. Not sure I would use it personally...

What doesn't AIDA64 give you on the free version of the stress test?

EarthDog said:

Yikes, lots of hoops to jump through for Orthos. Not sure I would use it personally...

What doesn't AIDA64 give you on the free version of the stress test?

Click to expand...

No hoops, just open two instances, 2 cores each.

Once AIDA64 30 day trial is up then it becomes non-operational according to their popup
message so why download another free 30 days for future tests?

You don't have to set affinity to the program to select the other two cores?

Ahhh, I thought that part worked regardless... I have a key so I was unaware that it was DOA after 30 days.

EarthDog said:

You don't have to set affinity to the program to select the other two cores?

Ahhh, I thought that part worked regardless... I have a key so I was unaware that it was DOA after 30 days.

Click to expand...

Initially I wasn't impressed with AIDA64 but I gave it a chance and once you run it through everything while asking
them some tech questions it's quite impressive. Woomack advised of better benchmark settings which are almost
comparable but more one-step complete than the old Prime 95 / Orthos and it sold me. I am about to get a license
key too and then I won't need anything else.

The first code (not highlighted) (and appears to be most recent) is 99.9 percent CPU core instability,
it's usually because of not enough Vcore or the cores can't do that frequency.

Which AIDA64 package are you guys picking up when buying it?

g0dM@n said:

Which AIDA64 package are you guys picking up when buying it?

Click to expand...

Garo,

This one for most of us default users @ $39.95:

http://www.aida64.com/products/aida64-extreme

RollingThunder said:

Garo,

This one for most of us default users @ $39.95:

http://www.aida64.com/products/aida64-extreme

Click to expand...

Thanks, Dave!!

Is it still crashing or was everything worked out?