Frequent shutdowns and BSOD's on usually great PC

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Yeah I may end up doing that. Good idea. Going to see how the MB issue works out w/ ASUS first. I think there's a 95% chance they'll send it back to me unchanged

 

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Update: FIXED

MB came back from ASUS with notes on it saying they couldn't duplicate the problem. I began to suspect RAM again so I threw both sticks in my main PC (again) and got some actual memory specific BSOD's this time. Tested them individually and finally found one of the two 8GB sticks to be problematic. At this point, I said HOLY F%($#*% SH#$(%#, and other words.

Put the "good" stick back in BI PC and it's been running flawlessly for 4 or 5 days.

Previously, individually testing BOTH sticks gave me BSOD's. I can't explain that, or why my previous memtest results came back looking perfect. I can only guess that the bad stick of RAM was actively degrading throughout this process. No freaking clue.

Not sure if this has anything whatsoever to do with this, but I realized I had a kill-o-watt meter plugged in the wall, then battery backup into that, PC and a few other things plugged into battery backup. Watt meter was there a few weeks prior to these problems. Never even entered my mind that could cause problems whatsoever, but I've removed it and I now suspect that was a bad idea. Read some reviews where those things fry even when well under max loads. I would think battery backup would normalize anything weird from behind the battery backup, but I have come back to it beeping on 2 occasions. Just chalked it up to the battery backup getting old or under too much load maybe and I removed a couple small things from it.

Anyways, my fault for not thoroughly testing the RAM more. Some lessons were learned and I appreciate all the replies here - seriously made the trouble more bearable being able to discuss the problems.

 

[SantiagoDraco]

There ya go. Great that you figured it out. When we originally discussed testing the modules I don't remember how you said you tested but in any case it's good you found it.

Not sure what you mean by a kill-o-watt meter but I'm a device for testing load? A PC shouldn't draw that much power, not enough to fry a device like that, unless it was simply a bad design to begin with which is it's own problem.

I doubt it caused your memory to fail however. Memory is pretty far down the circutry path so it's unlikely that was the cause. The battery backup or surge protector wouldn't do much if anything to actually regulate power fluxuations to the system unless it was one designed to do so like a smart-ups.

 

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Great that you figured it out.

Thanks a lot for helping me think through it. It would have been a shame to have bought a new PC because a stick of RAM confused me so much.

Yeah I agree with you on the kill-a-watt meter probably not causing weird stuff, but just in case.. Awfully weird timing, and I do think I had too much running to it for too long. Found some pictures where it looked like they melted when used for an extended period of time (under less than max load).