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First of all hello, and thanks for accepting me. 
The following is copied over, so it already includes some edits.
Sorry in advance for a long post - I will try and give as much information as possible to hopefully get an informed response or two - I really am at a loss and quite desperate after a lot of struggle. Everyone who even bothers to read the whole thing is deeply appreciated.
Story time first:
So, about 2 months ago I built the following system:
* MSi X370 Gaming Pro Carbon
* AMD Ryzen 1700X
* G.Skill FlareX 2x8GB DDR4 RAM (F4-3200C14D-16GFX)
* Samsung 960 EVO 250 GB M.2 SSD
* XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS 8GB Graphics card (for main monitor)
* XFX Radeon R9 380P 4GB graphics card (previously used, additional monitors attached)
* be quiet! Dark Power Pro 1000W PSU (old generation, previously used, for maybe too long)
other probably not relevant stuff includes:
* Corsair 110i Liquid CPU Cooler
* 2.5'' SanDisk SSD used in previous setup
* 2 3.5'' HDDs, also previously used
* some case fans
* all in a be quiet! case
All of this is running on Windows 10 and it was going smoothly after the initial setup...
The first problem I noticed (about a month in), was that my new (but cheap) USB headset attached to the front USB3 ports suddenly died, it started only producing distorted noises and then stopped being recognized by Windows. I shrugged it off as a probable case of you get what you pay for but put it aside for the moment to test it on another computer.
After having a friends 2.5'' hard drive in the same port quite some time later and writing lots of data to it, everything seemed fine until I tried to read some of the data off of it. I "crashed", meaning the drive wasn't recognized any more, but everything worked fine on a small laptop. That's when I started to get concerned.
I purchased a simple USB voltage and current tester and a PSU tester, as I was growing suspicious of the old PSU. The USB tester showed 5V flat when everything was fine, and dipped to about 4.7V when a problem occurred, like the headset making noise. The PSU tester showed the 5V SB voltage (not 100% sure what that does) as occasionally spiking to high - I'll try to include a picture.
Further alarmed, but not panicking as the 12V rails seemed to be fine, I decided not to risk it and buy the newest generation of that PSU series, even if it was indeed failing, it served me well for a long time of heavy usage. I pushed the actual ordering back for a few days though, until I observed new issues: Occasionally I would hear a short "rattling" noise, which from experience with old, failing hardware I would accredit to some fan bearing making a noise when changing rpm. Which is odd, since the case fans are not only new, but also powered directly by the PSU and are controlled by a simple 3-step setting on the case. So the noise must have come from one of the 4 CPU fans or the radiator fans. (I am excluding the PSU fan because it was visible (mounted up) and running smoothly and silent as ever. Also I think I heard the noise for a moment today with the new PSU.) Unless I was wrong altogether and it came from one of the HDDs, or even a fan from the external jbod case or something. But I felt confident that the noise came from within the case.
I finally bought the new PSU (Dark Power Pro 11 750W) and on the same day I get a freeze of the OS, after a few seconds of it "slowing down", meaning the mouse pointer actually gets sluggish before it freezes. No commands of any kind were accepted anymore. Later I would find out that when this happens, the RAM spikes to 100% usage lading up to the freeze, with no process in the task manager actually showing as using that much. I did not make it into the resource monitor in time so far to see if I can find out more. I decided to put the whole thing on ice 'til the PSU would arrive the next day.
After I did arrive I went through the ordeal of taking the old one and all the cables out and redoing the cabling with the new one. Happy to have taken care of it, I put everything back together, booted it up and did a few updates for good measure. I decided to stresstest the system a bit and decided to run a round of PUBG. Game crashed instantly. No news there I thought, as there had been an update just prior and that's kind of what the dev does every time. So I started up Minecraft, mostly for fun, and that crashed with a nice message, which has never happened before. Shortly after, the RAM/freeze issue occurred again. On later attempts after making sure everything was up to date and tweaking some settings, I also noticed a weird "shrieking"/humming noise for a moment when trying to start a game. I could not place it at that time.
Thinking the issue might not have been with the PCU (alone) after all, I ran a memory test. No results. I ran prime95 in different modes. No problems. Temperatures seemed to be withing reason. Looked into other options like Hot CPU Tester, but did not feel like purchasing a license to get stuff like the Chipset test, also all the tests take 6 hrs and I wasn't sure if I should do this kind of Burn-In test without narrowing down the issue first. I also attempted some narrowing-down and removed the secondary GPU. Same issues. Removed the main GPU and put the secondary one back. I got PUBG to start (with a lot of fan noise) but heard that alarming shriek again, this time continuous, 'til I killed the game (which was only in menu). I think it might have come from the lower area of the mainboard, possibly PCIe controller or audio stuff. Could be something entirely different also.
Now... About my questions. My current theory (which I looking for confirmation for) is that the old PSU was bad and damaged the Mainboard. Which in itself is already pretty damn devastating. I am worried about further casualties as well though. For instance the fact that removing the main GPU lead to being able to start up a game that I couldn't otherwise. Makes me worry for it. Or the RAM suddenly filling up. Please, do correct me if I'm wrong, but would a fried Mainboard by itself be able to pull such a thing off? Or should I possibly start mourning my CPU too? Also, how likely is it that the RAM or the M.2 SSD were affected/damaged by this?
I am interested to see if anyone could suggest methods of further narrowing down / confirming the issue without causing more damage. Also I'm really not looking forwarding to removing the mainboard and redoing all the stuff like thermal paste and cabling yet again. But I would be somewhat happier if I was sure it was the only broken part, as between the CPU, main GPU and RAM it is by far the cheapest. And even replacing just that I could barely afford right now after all the money I've already put into this. (PC hardware is not cheap in this country.) Not even to mention the time this will take...
Anyway, to sum up: Would you say that my theory is likely? How can I confirm it or rule stuff out? Anyone here who has ever had similar experiences? Any advice on how to proceed in general? Or even on how not to loose my mind?
Thanks in advance for any answers or hints, or even just making it all the way here
EDIT: Just tried running Google Docs in Chrome for some urgent stuff I had to do. After the screen turned off and on a few times I was greeted with this (https://imgur.com/a/vDMSw) Windows 10 "bluescreen". A first for me...
Pictures:
Test of old PSU, HWMonitor stuff:
https://imgur.com/a/5xtjp
Logs:
Full readout from HWMonitor:
https://share.rtechsupport.org/HWMonitor.txt
The following is copied over, so it already includes some edits.
Sorry in advance for a long post - I will try and give as much information as possible to hopefully get an informed response or two - I really am at a loss and quite desperate after a lot of struggle. Everyone who even bothers to read the whole thing is deeply appreciated.
Story time first:
So, about 2 months ago I built the following system:
* MSi X370 Gaming Pro Carbon
* AMD Ryzen 1700X
* G.Skill FlareX 2x8GB DDR4 RAM (F4-3200C14D-16GFX)
* Samsung 960 EVO 250 GB M.2 SSD
* XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS 8GB Graphics card (for main monitor)
* XFX Radeon R9 380P 4GB graphics card (previously used, additional monitors attached)
* be quiet! Dark Power Pro 1000W PSU (old generation, previously used, for maybe too long)
other probably not relevant stuff includes:
* Corsair 110i Liquid CPU Cooler
* 2.5'' SanDisk SSD used in previous setup
* 2 3.5'' HDDs, also previously used
* some case fans
* all in a be quiet! case
All of this is running on Windows 10 and it was going smoothly after the initial setup...
The first problem I noticed (about a month in), was that my new (but cheap) USB headset attached to the front USB3 ports suddenly died, it started only producing distorted noises and then stopped being recognized by Windows. I shrugged it off as a probable case of you get what you pay for but put it aside for the moment to test it on another computer.
After having a friends 2.5'' hard drive in the same port quite some time later and writing lots of data to it, everything seemed fine until I tried to read some of the data off of it. I "crashed", meaning the drive wasn't recognized any more, but everything worked fine on a small laptop. That's when I started to get concerned.
I purchased a simple USB voltage and current tester and a PSU tester, as I was growing suspicious of the old PSU. The USB tester showed 5V flat when everything was fine, and dipped to about 4.7V when a problem occurred, like the headset making noise. The PSU tester showed the 5V SB voltage (not 100% sure what that does) as occasionally spiking to high - I'll try to include a picture.
Further alarmed, but not panicking as the 12V rails seemed to be fine, I decided not to risk it and buy the newest generation of that PSU series, even if it was indeed failing, it served me well for a long time of heavy usage. I pushed the actual ordering back for a few days though, until I observed new issues: Occasionally I would hear a short "rattling" noise, which from experience with old, failing hardware I would accredit to some fan bearing making a noise when changing rpm. Which is odd, since the case fans are not only new, but also powered directly by the PSU and are controlled by a simple 3-step setting on the case. So the noise must have come from one of the 4 CPU fans or the radiator fans. (I am excluding the PSU fan because it was visible (mounted up) and running smoothly and silent as ever. Also I think I heard the noise for a moment today with the new PSU.) Unless I was wrong altogether and it came from one of the HDDs, or even a fan from the external jbod case or something. But I felt confident that the noise came from within the case.
I finally bought the new PSU (Dark Power Pro 11 750W) and on the same day I get a freeze of the OS, after a few seconds of it "slowing down", meaning the mouse pointer actually gets sluggish before it freezes. No commands of any kind were accepted anymore. Later I would find out that when this happens, the RAM spikes to 100% usage lading up to the freeze, with no process in the task manager actually showing as using that much. I did not make it into the resource monitor in time so far to see if I can find out more. I decided to put the whole thing on ice 'til the PSU would arrive the next day.
After I did arrive I went through the ordeal of taking the old one and all the cables out and redoing the cabling with the new one. Happy to have taken care of it, I put everything back together, booted it up and did a few updates for good measure. I decided to stresstest the system a bit and decided to run a round of PUBG. Game crashed instantly. No news there I thought, as there had been an update just prior and that's kind of what the dev does every time. So I started up Minecraft, mostly for fun, and that crashed with a nice message, which has never happened before. Shortly after, the RAM/freeze issue occurred again. On later attempts after making sure everything was up to date and tweaking some settings, I also noticed a weird "shrieking"/humming noise for a moment when trying to start a game. I could not place it at that time.
Thinking the issue might not have been with the PCU (alone) after all, I ran a memory test. No results. I ran prime95 in different modes. No problems. Temperatures seemed to be withing reason. Looked into other options like Hot CPU Tester, but did not feel like purchasing a license to get stuff like the Chipset test, also all the tests take 6 hrs and I wasn't sure if I should do this kind of Burn-In test without narrowing down the issue first. I also attempted some narrowing-down and removed the secondary GPU. Same issues. Removed the main GPU and put the secondary one back. I got PUBG to start (with a lot of fan noise) but heard that alarming shriek again, this time continuous, 'til I killed the game (which was only in menu). I think it might have come from the lower area of the mainboard, possibly PCIe controller or audio stuff. Could be something entirely different also.
Now... About my questions. My current theory (which I looking for confirmation for) is that the old PSU was bad and damaged the Mainboard. Which in itself is already pretty damn devastating. I am worried about further casualties as well though. For instance the fact that removing the main GPU lead to being able to start up a game that I couldn't otherwise. Makes me worry for it. Or the RAM suddenly filling up. Please, do correct me if I'm wrong, but would a fried Mainboard by itself be able to pull such a thing off? Or should I possibly start mourning my CPU too? Also, how likely is it that the RAM or the M.2 SSD were affected/damaged by this?
I am interested to see if anyone could suggest methods of further narrowing down / confirming the issue without causing more damage. Also I'm really not looking forwarding to removing the mainboard and redoing all the stuff like thermal paste and cabling yet again. But I would be somewhat happier if I was sure it was the only broken part, as between the CPU, main GPU and RAM it is by far the cheapest. And even replacing just that I could barely afford right now after all the money I've already put into this. (PC hardware is not cheap in this country.) Not even to mention the time this will take...
Anyway, to sum up: Would you say that my theory is likely? How can I confirm it or rule stuff out? Anyone here who has ever had similar experiences? Any advice on how to proceed in general? Or even on how not to loose my mind?
Thanks in advance for any answers or hints, or even just making it all the way here
EDIT: Just tried running Google Docs in Chrome for some urgent stuff I had to do. After the screen turned off and on a few times I was greeted with this (https://imgur.com/a/vDMSw) Windows 10 "bluescreen". A first for me...
Pictures:
Test of old PSU, HWMonitor stuff:
https://imgur.com/a/5xtjp
Logs:
Full readout from HWMonitor:
https://share.rtechsupport.org/HWMonitor.txt
