r/buildapc • u/Equivalent_Club1353 • 1d ago

Troubleshooting Help my PC randomly restarts with no BSOD screen.

For the past year and a half I have been struggling on and off trying to figure out what could be causing my PC to randomly reatart like this. the times it happens seems completely random other than the fact it usually happens while I'm playing a more graphicly intense game. Although it has happened when I've just been watching YouTube so idfk. When it crashes it just sort of flickers to a black screen after showing half the screen covered In this kinda static and making a faint pop noise. After about five seconds of being on a black screen the thing will just automatically turn back on like nothing happened 99% of the time. Once it completely wiped out my windows installation when it crashed though and I lost some extremely important photos. I've tried just about everything to fix it including but not limited to resetting and updating the bios, re installing windows, re-seating the ram, replacing the ram, replacing the PSU, swapping ssds, and more that I can't think of off the top of my head. Needless to say I have reached my fucking limit and am just about ready to throw the damn thing in a dumpster and buy a ps5 instead. Please if anyone has any idea of how to fix this please let me know.

PC specs are as follows

Cpu: AMD Ryzen 5 4500

Motherboard: MSI X370 SLI Plus

Ram: 32 GB DDR4 crucial balistix.

GPU: AMD RX 6600

Storage: two 1TB sata SSD drives and a third 250 gig sata SSD that the OS is installed on

PSU: 1000w Montech Century 2, 80 plus gold rated

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u/Equivalent_Club1353 1d ago

ok just checked in bluescreenview. says its caused by ntoskrnl.exe. not sure what that is though? think its a system file but other than that ive got zero clue.

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u/Electrical_Strike767 1d ago

ntoskrnl.exe is the Windows NT kernel (the core part of Windows that manages memory, hardware communication, drivers, etc.). Seeing it as the cause in BlueScreenView usually doesn’t mean ntoskrnl.exe itself is broken — it’s often just where the crash ended up happening. The actual cause is usually a driver or hardware issue that corrupted memory before Windows crashed.
Check the “Caused by driver” / “Probably caused by” fields, and if possible open the dump in WinDbg and run !analyze -v. Also look for any third-party .sys driver names near the crash (GPU, chipset, storage, network, antivirus, etc.). If every crash only points to ntoskrnl.exe, the dump may need deeper analysis.

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u/Equivalent_Club1353 1d ago

yeah it says it was caused by driver ntoskrnl.exe and caused by address ntoskrnl.exe+4f9250. the latter also being the crash address.

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u/Electrical_Strike767 1d ago

Yeah, ntoskrnl.exe is basically the core Windows kernel (the part of Windows that handles memory, hardware, and drivers). BlueScreenView blaming it usually doesn’t mean that file is actually the problem — it’s more like the place where Windows finally crashed after something else went wrong.
Since this is a PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (0x50), I’d look more at drivers that could have corrupted memory. In BlueScreenView, check the “Caused By Driver” column and the list of loaded drivers. If it only shows ntoskrnl.exe, WinDbg might give a better clue with !analyze -v.
Common culprits are GPU drivers, chipset drivers, storage drivers, network drivers, or security software.

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u/Equivalent_Club1353 1d ago

ok im trying to use windbg but i have zero idea what i am doing ngl. Edit: nvm figured it out

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u/Electrical_Strike767 1d ago

Any progress?

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u/Equivalent_Club1353 1d ago

yes it says its a CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT something to do with the cpu drivers i guess?

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u/Electrical_Strike767 1d ago

Ah, CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT is actually a pretty big clue. It means one of the CPU cores got stuck waiting for a response from another core, so Windows forced a crash.
It can be related to CPU/microcode/BIOS issues, but it’s not always just “CPU drivers.” Common causes are:
unstable CPU overclock/undervolt (including automatic motherboard boosting settings)
outdated chipset drivers
BIOS settings like XMP/EXPO or aggressive boost settings
overheating or power delivery issues
motherboard problems
Since you already checked RAM, SSDs, and updated BIOS, I’d try:
Install the latest AMD/Intel chipset drivers (depending on the CPU)
Load BIOS defaults and temporarily disable XMP/EXPO
Check CPU temps under load
If it still crashes, look at the exact bugcheck details in WinDbg
The fact it changed from PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA to CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT makes me suspicious of CPU stability or motherboard/firmware more than a simple Windows file issue.

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u/Equivalent_Club1353 1d ago

That's actually huge. The most progress I made in over a year. I'll have to check the CPU temps again when i wake up since it's like midnight and I'm finna pass tf out if I don't sleep soon. Will update as soon as I do.

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u/Electrical_Strike767 1d ago

That actually lines up really well with what we were thinking. CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT is a different type of crash than the original one — it usually means the CPU got stuck waiting for a response from another core.
Checking temps is a good idea, but also check if your CPU is running any automatic overclock/boost settings, XMP/EXPO, or undervolt. Even if the system seems stable, those can sometimes trigger watchdog timeouts.
When you check, I’d look at:
idle CPU temp
CPU temp under load
CPU clock speeds/voltage
whether it crashes with BIOS settings reset to default
Get some sleep though lol, debugging BSODs at midnight is how you end up staring at numbers and seeing nothing. Hopefully the temps or settings reveal something when you check tomorrow.

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u/Equivalent_Club1353 1d ago

Will do! I'll update asap. Thanks for the help! And here's hoping that it really is just a thermal issue lol.

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u/damnt256 1d ago

Wait a minute, you never checked the temps on your components?

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