First - system specs:

CPU: Ryzen 7 7700X

RAM: G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 - F5-6000J3636F16GX2-FX5

Cooler: Thermalright Royal Pretor 130 Ultra 

GPU: Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 

Mobo: Asus ROG STRIX B850-A GAMING WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard 

M.2: Western Digital Black SN770 2 TB

PSU: SeaSonic Focus GX V4 ATX 3 (2024) 850 W 80+ Gold OS: Windows 11

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The problem: I feel like I'm going insane. Several months ago now my system started having problems booting up sporadically.


Previously I had an MSI board, a different set of RAM (also G.Skill) and an NZXT Kraken Elite AIO installed. Every night the computer was shut down and turned back on the next day when I got home from work, but sometimes it would take forever to get to Windows or just not start at all. No BIOS, nothing. Just black monitors.


There would be a yellow DRAM light on the mother board that stayed on the entire time. Reading up on this for the MSI board, it looked like it was memory training but it was doing this far more often than I feel is normal. Eventually, after 5-10 minutes or more sometimes, the light would go to the red CPU light for a few seconds and then the white BOOT light and the system would turn on successfully. 


Did some additional research and it looked like my RAM at the time was not fully compatible with the MSI board so I said fuck it and purchased the Asus board above and the current G.Skill RAM I have now which was probably a stupid decision considering how ridiculous RAM prices are. 


Got everything installed and things were hunky-dory for a bit until they weren't. The same issues started up again along with cooler problems. 


Randomly when starting the PC, the Kraken pump would not be detected at all and the fans would run full blast trying to cool the CPU. BIOS wouldn't detect the pump speed and NZXT CAM was showing 0 rpm. Checked all of the connections five times over, redid the thermal paste, ect. Same issue with the pump but not all the time. It was maddening. 


After getting pissed off enough, I decided it must be a bad cooler and switched to the Thermalright while also replacing my PSU while I was at it for the aesthetics cause I'm a bougey bitch. For a few weeks after, all of my problems appear to be solved... Until this morning. 


Turned on the computer and it just sits there with the yellow DRAM light for several minutes, not doing anything. Eventually, it shut itself off and turned back on with the same yellow light and continued to sit there. I had to perform a hard shutdown, turn off the power switch and hold down the power button for a few seconds before it would finally come on and get to BIOS/Windows. 


I am at my wits end at this point and I'm wondering if it's been my processor all along. On both motherboards I have tried turning on memory context restore, among other BIOS settings and it just keeps doing the same thing randomly. Has anyone else had a similar issue?

Feel like I'm taking crazy pills