Windows BSOD after upgrading to Z790 Hero motherboard

[ag368]

I recently purchased the Asus Maximus Z790 Hero motherboard and have noticed that Windows has become quite unstable compared to my previous Rampage V Maximus motherboard. I am using all 4 banks of RAM (128 GB) and running the Corsair Vengeance DDR5 5200 MHz. According to  CPU-Z, the memory controller frequency is 1300 MHz, and Uncore is showing 4600. I just selected the Asus XMP I profile in the BIOS (UEFI).

I am getting some intermittent BSODs  with the following information:

031124-74140-01.dmp 3/11/2024 7:38:32 PM SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION 0x0000003b 00000000`c0000005 fffff806`194dae0f ffff8982`48eadbc0 00000000`00000000 Ntfs.sys Ntfs.sys+dae0f NT File System Driver Microsoft® Windows® Operating System Microsoft Corporation 10.0.19041.1 (WinBuild.160101.0800) x64 ntoskrnl.exe+3fd3a0 C:\Windows\Minidump\031124-74140-01.dmp 32 15 19041 14,637,564 3/11/2024 7:40:54 PM

I am currently stuck on Windows 10 and can't upgrade to Windows 11 because the OS will crash with a KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE error right after Windows 10 reboots and re-loads during the Windows 11 upgrade process. I have run the mem86test program through two full cycles twice and I am not seeing any memory issues.

I have heard that manually reducing the RAM speed in the BIOS may help with system stability issues but I'm not sure what setting to tweak. Has anyone seen this issue before with the Asus Z790 motherboards and, if so, what did you do to fix it?

Thanks in advance!

[Jose_Antonio]

Hi, I had just the same problem with my ASUS Maximus Z790 Extreme, no matter the BIOS version I could upgrade.

I've found this article, and after resetting BIOS to default settings and apply the values shown in the article for Z790 motherboards, all went stable, no more BSOD and all games work perfect. And the temperatures are really low.

Optimizing Stability for Intel 13900k and 14900k CPU’s : r/overclocking (reddit.com) 

Hope it works for you.

best regards,

Jose 

[Silent_Scone]

Hi @ag368 

Likely has nothing to do with anything suggested above and is more likely memory instability.

Test again with XMP disabled, also specify which memory kit you are using.

[ag368 · Accepted solution]

Thank you both for your responses. Just a quick note that I was able to successfully upgrade to Windows 11 after removing 2 of the 4 RAM modules but now, even though I'm on version Win 11 23H2, there is an update labeled as Win 11 23H2 trying to install and my PC consistently BSODs with a KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION error. I'm not sure what is causing this behavior.

I'm running Corsair Vengeance DDR5 2 x 32 GB (64 GB kit) rated at 5200MHz. I believe I am using the XMP Profile I in the UEFI as opposed to the ASUS-tweaked XMP Profile II with default settings.

Thanks again!

[Silent_Scone]

hi @ag368 

Makes sense. You can see here as to why combining memory kits is not recommended

[ag368]

Just a quick update regarding the BSOD issue. Removing half the memory and pairing up only the RAM that had sequential serial numbers seemed to fix a lot of the random BSODs. A quick email to Corsair confirmed that they strongly recommend against even pairing the same RAM modules. Sadly, this means that I will have to spend a ton of money if I want to get back to 128GB of RAM on this motherboard as DDR5 memory is super expensive, especially the Corsair Vengeance 128 GB memory kit. Does anyone know if Corsair RAM ever goes on sale? 😁

That being said, I had been getting a BSOD even after removing two of the modules when trying to run a pending Windows 11 23H2 update however it turns out that Comodo was most likely the reason in that case and everything seems to be stable.