Trying to diagnose what's failing in my PC

[srki9]

Please read the whole thing.

It began when I was watching a video on my PC when it suddenly restarted, no BSOD or anything. After this it just kept restarting as soon as it got to the Windows loading screen. Throughout this whole scenario I've been able to get pass the Windows login screen only a few times for some 30 minutes before it started bootlooping again.

PSU: It seemed like the PC was losing power so I thought it's the PSU. It was 4 months old Chieftec Polaris 650W 80+ Gold. Fans on it would sometimes buzz loudly when I power the PC on for a few minutes then it will quiet down. I know old PSUs tend to have buzzing fans but this one's new so anyway I sent it claiming it is causing PC restarts and it's also buzzing. They actually sent me a new one so I thought that was it - It wasn't. Same problem still but at least I got a new PSU and I can filter it out now.

GPU: Rarely when I power the PC on it would hang for some time before it actually boots. During that time Motherboards VGA LED would flash. I've always suspected that the GPU was gonna fail soon. As I mentioned before occasionally It would let me boot into OS and then I would stress test it using AMD Radeon software. Did it a few times just 3-4 minutes and even ran some games without any issues. Restarts started happening soon but at least I got to test the GPU so I ruled that one out aswell.

RAM: made a bootable memtest86 USB and ran it a few times for around 30-40 minutes, every time 0 errors. The whole cycle would complete and I didn't want to continue longer since it's just gonna do the same thing again.

Storage: I have one 240GB SSD for OS, one 512GB SSD and one 500GB HDD. I left the OS SSD while the other two were disconnected and ran CrystalDiskMark once it let me into the OS and it didn't have any issues but later it still started bootlooping. Then I connected only the 512GB SSD and I tried installing OS on it, before it even started Windows installation it froze until I had to reset it. So it wasn't the OS.

Motherboard, CPU: I don't know how to test these two and they're the only ones left.

I've had all USBs disconnect and stay disconnected while in Windows multiple times since these restarts started happening so I'm thinking CPU has nothing to do with USBs so it's the motherboard that is failing. Once I nudged my PC case while USBs were disconnected and keyboard actually lit up but didn't work.

Note: I didn't have restarts or USB disconnects while in BIOS, memtest86 and Linux Live CD yet.

So in the end I'm thinking it's the motherboard but I'm not completely sure. What do you say?

Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB
MSI B450 Tomahawk Max
Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200CL16 16GB Kit
Silicon Power SSD 240GB, 512GB and Toshiba 500GB HDD
Chieftec Polaris 650W 80P Gold

 

[Kshipper]

The mobo you have is a well known, very good board. What I would have suggested is that you build your PC from know good parts that work with that board. The manufacturer publishes a list called a QVL (Quality Vendor List). This list is usually out of date but at least you could start there to make sure all the parts you are using are on the list. Remove as many parts as you can that are not on the list.

The fact that you don't have parts to swap in like a computer shop would have makes this diagnosis harder.

The fact that is isn't stable during OS install is very telling.....it isn't a Windows issue...it's a hardware stability issue.
When IT people build systems we do a basic build outside the case first and test with the bare minimum before we move on with the rest of the build. Stability testing all the way. You might have to do a complete tear down and rebuild too.

 

[srki9]

The mobo you have is a well known, very good board. What I would have suggested is that you build your PC from know good parts that work with that board. The manufacturer publishes a list called a QVL (Quality Vendor List). This list is usually out of date but at least you could start there to make sure all the parts you are using are on the list. Remove as many parts as you can that are not on the list.

The fact that you don't have parts to swap in like a computer shop would have makes this diagnosis harder.

The fact that is isn't stable during OS install is very telling.....it isn't a Windows issue...it's a hardware stability issue.
When IT people build systems we do a basic build outside the case first and test with the bare minimum before we move on with the rest of the build. Stability testing all the way. You might have to do a complete tear down and rebuild too.

It is a quality board indeed. It makes it difficult not having another GPU to test it. I tried resocketing the CPU and making sure all the cables are properly attached. The issue I'm having with the USBs dying while not in OS in addition to restarts makes me think it is the motherboard.