Random boots. Tried a few things but no luck!

This build is almost 2 years old.
These are my specs:

• Mobo: Asus M5A97
• RAM: 2x 4gb Microcenter brand
• GPU: Sapphire HD 6450 1GB DDR3
• CPU: AMX FX 8120
• Main HDD: Samsung 830 SSD
• Windows 7

One day out of the blue, I see a blue screen of death. Then the computer restarts and it's been doing that randomly about 1-3 times a day.



Just before this random boot started happening my GPU crapped out and I had that replaced under warranty. I was told by a lot of people that random boots are usually caused by bad RAM. I've ran a few tests on Memtest86 and no errors were shown.



Then I ran a test in Passmark's Burn In Test and everything came up okay (no screenshots here, sorry). Couple of days later My USB slots go a little wonky. I unpluged all the USBs pulled out a few cables and then reassembled everything and things were working fine again (except for the random boot errors). I've started an RMA process for my MoBo but holy hell Asus takes their sweet time with these things.


This was my first build and even though I may have a slight idea of what I'm doing, I'm still a little lost. What should I look for next?

I would say before you RMA your board check the PSU see if you can swap one.

I would suspect either Motherboard or PSU.

wingman99 said:

I would say before you RMA your board check the PSU see if you can swap one.

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trents said:

I would suspect either Motherboard or PSU.

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Thanks for the reply guys, I will change the PSU and report back.

I'd really prefer not to replace the MoBo because then I'll be out of my work computer for a while. If anyone has any suggestions to other software/techniques I can try to identify the problem I'd love to hear it!

xecure said:

Thanks for the reply guys, I will change the PSU and report back.

I'd really prefer not to replace the MoBo because then I'll be out of my work computer for a while. If anyone has any suggestions to other software/techniques I can try to identify the problem I'd love to hear it!

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That's why I always keep a spare computer around.

trents said:

That's why I always keep a spare computer around.

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Of course! It's 2014 I have a laptop and other computers I can use but this was my main machine and i did all my 3d/CAD/programming/graphics work in.

My macbook will have to do in the mean time but I'm hoping this gets resolved asap