Long shot questions regarding computer hardware

Well Hi!

I have a problem that I'm mostly getting ignored on computer diagnostic forums, and I can't get the best of answers just on the google searches. So, I was hoping someone here might be able to help.

I recently moved my system into a new case, specifically the BeQuiet! Dark Base Pro Rev 2. While I was doing it, I reseated my CPU with a fresh coat of Arctic silver, and since then, I've been getting Bsods about ones a day with the old chestnut of Hal, Pshed and ntoskrnl showing up on my bluescreenview minidump files. I've had this before, and when I did, reinstalling windows fixed it permanently. This time, well, it's been three weeks and I'm still getting the problem. It's not an overheating issue, because I'm seeing the CPU temp and it's never peaking idle over 35C, or over 45C under load (I use a AIO liquid cooler). First it seemed like it would be RAM, but memtest is coming up clean. I've got all overclocking disabled on the BIOS/UEFI level, no software based overclocking installed in the whole system. Malware bytes paid licenses deep scan comes up clean, chkdsk comes up clean. I went one by one in my device manager and all drivers are up to date. I even rest my CMOS for good measure, and my BIOS is the latest that ASUS has for my board.

So, if my RAM is good, my temps are good, my driver are good, my Win 10 install is fresh, my thoughts are that either the CPU or the Mainboard is damaged, possible a pin, but I can't see any obvious damage.

BSODS mostly happen while not under load. I can run RDR2 for hours and hours just fine, but watching youtube videos seems to trigger it, sometimes just regular browsing too with no streaming video. I experimented with underclocking the RAM, and that gave me a three day relief, but today I got another BSOD. I've been leaving the system with an infinite stream in my browser (thanks Giant Bomb Infinite) and It crashed two hours after I left it alone while at work.

I would really rather not have to replace my mainboard, or worse, my CPU, but I kinda think that's all that is left.

My Specs are as such:

GTX 1080

ASUS Prime 390-z motherboard

Intel i5-9600k @3.7ghz

32 GB Corsair Vengeance RAM at 2400k Frequency

Asus Bios 1502

Cosair n60 AIO cpu cooler

I can provide my Dxdiag or minidump files if needed, just didn't want to post them cold, and obviouslytthis is not a tech support forum, so any help or opinion is greatly, greatly appreciated.

Have you tried to see if you'd applied too much paste and it's now making intermittent contact with pins?

@merxworx01: I did. No overlap or spillage that I can detect. I do suspect a pin might be blocked, but I don’t see any obvious stuff on either the socket or the bottom of the cpu.

I know you memtested and it came back clean, but I'd try going a couple of days with 16 GB. If you still BSOD, swap the sticks for the other 16 GB. If you STILL BSOD after swapping sticks, it's probably a motherboard issue.

Memtest doesn't always catch errors. I've had bad RAM test clean at least two separate times. Heck, I've had ASUS boards just not like certain RAM before, despite being compatible in every way. Then again, the motherboard being messed up would be kind of on par with my ASUS experiences in the past couple of years.

Some of the most headaches I've ever had come from a random USB device causing problems... either the device or the port it was plugged into. I've had usb issues give me problems in games, BSODs... everything across the board.

You could remove/move all USB devices and try to single something out. I'm not sure how easy it would be to check though if you cannot recreate the problem reliably however. One of the first things I try when i run into problems nowadays.

@jerknuts: the only thing I have is a Bluetooth dongle for my Xbox one controller. I’ll take it out for a few days and see if that helps.

@kay-the-stray: I’ll give that a try. Thanks for the heads up that me test isn’t always reliable.

Thank you both.

@jerknuts: the only thing I have is a Bluetooth dongle for my Xbox one controller. I’ll take it out for a few days and see if that helps.

@kay-the-stray: I’ll give that a try. Thanks for the heads up that me test isn’t always reliable.

Thank you both.

Worth trying to reseat your CPU (also remove and reapply thermal paste), memory, maybe even GPU while you are there.

Like someone already mentioned could even by a faulty DIMM slot. Try alternating using only a single DIMM slot. Even retry with the other RAM stick.

Without equipment to test or swap out, your best bet is simply using the process of elimination to determine the point of failure. Maybe even test for a while with no graphics card.

This could be so many things and without replacing each thing one by one hard to troubleshoot.

some ideas that jump to mind and I don't think it has anything to do with your paste unless you got it into the pins somehow, in that case you will no likely be able to fix it.

Bad DIMM slot: move your RAM around or remove some to troubleshoot

Over tightened or unevenly tightened CPU cooler: this can cause seemingly random issues in my experience

hard drive fault: could be hitting bad sectors and causing crashes

This could be a million things, yeah, but here's what I'd do:

• Do ALL of the following with only the minimum plugged in - keyboard, mouse, one monitor, ethernet, and power.
• Double check all of the connections on your motherboard. Reseating them all would be a good idea, but at least make sure they're all in.
• Memtest passing is a good sign but it's not a hundred percent certain that the memory isn't bad or that a slot isn't bad. Try starting your computer with only one stick of RAM in the first slot and running Giantbomb Infinite to see if it BSODs. If it does, try moving that same stick to another slot. If it still fails, try taking that stick out and putting another one into the first slot again and see if it fails. The chance that two slots and two sticks of RAM have gone bad in the exact same way is slim, but it's still worth checking every stick of RAM you've got.
• Try a fresh install of Windows again.
• Get Linux Mint or Ubuntu installed on a flash drive and boot it from a flash drive and let Giantbomb Infinite play using that. If this doesn't fail, it might be your HDD.
• Reseat your CPU again, and clean off the old thermal paste before applying new. Generally I'd advise against messing with a CPU once it's nice and safe and secure and stable on your motherboard - I've never seen a computer that needed thermal paste reapplied, and it's usually only something you should try if your temps are high and not really a normal maintenance thing. Still, in your situation this might help - but I'd still try this last.

EDIT: Also, go into task manager and disable everything at startup. Every last thing. And if you do happen to reinstall windows, use generic drivers to do the Youtube/Giantbomb Infinite test first and then install drivers one by one to see if there's a driver that isn't playing too well with your system. Just a thing I thought of, it's kind of a long shot and I'd still bet on RAM being the issue.