PC Build Questions, Purchase Advice and Technical Support Megathread — Q4 2026 Edition

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Welcome to the r/AMD Q4 2026 PC build questions, purchase advice and technical support megathread.

If you have a PC build question, need help with a purchasing decision or require technical support, read this post in full. Many of the most common issues can be resolved by trying the steps outlined in this post or by visiting one of the linked websites, subreddits or forums below.

Remember that r/AMD is not a technical support, purchase advice or PC building help subreddit.

r/AMD is community run and does not represent AMD in any capacity unless specified — there is no guarantee anything posted in this thread or subreddit will be seen by AMD.

If you want your issue to be seen by AMD, visit the official AMD PC Processor and Graphics Community or contact AMD Support.

If you've found a bug and want to report it, use the AMD Bug Report Tool and include as much information as possible. AMD can't fix something unless they know it exists and have enough information to reproduce the problem internally.

The AMD Community and AMD Red Team Discord servers are also available to ask questions and get assistance from fellow AMD users and PC enthusiasts.

The Wiki is also available and contains answers to common questions, troubleshooting tips, how you can check if your PC is stable, a jargon buster for FSR, RSR, EXPO, SAM, HYPR-RX and more.

AMD Support also has many solutions and troubleshooting guides you may find helpful:

You may also want to consider the following subreddits, websites and forums, which may be more appropriate for your question or issue and may increase the chances of getting a helpful response.

r/AMDHelp: Welcome to r/AMDHelp! In this subreddit, we discuss, troubleshoot, and share knowledge relating to AMD and their hardware and software products on all supported platforms.
PCPartPicker: PCPartPicker provides computer part selection, compatibility, and pricing guidance for do-it-yourself computer builders. Assemble your virtual part lists with PCPartPicker and we'll provide compatibility guidance with up-to-date pricing from dozens of the most popular online retailers. We make it easy to share your part list with others, and our community forums provide a great place to discuss ideas and solicit feedback.
r/buildapc: Planning on building a computer but need some advice? This is the place to ask! r/buildapc is a community-driven subreddit dedicated to custom PC assembly. Anyone is welcome to seek the input of our helpful community as they piece together their desktop.
r/pcmasterrace: Welcome to the official subreddit of the PC Master Race / PCMR! All PC-related content is welcome, including build help, tech support, and any doubt one might have about PC ownership. You don't necessarily need a PC to be a member of the PCMR. You just have to love PCs. It's not about the hardware in your rig, but the software in your heart! Join us in celebrating and promoting tech, knowledge, and the best gaming, study, and work platform there exists. The Personal Computer.
OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) Forums: Discussion forums for OBS Studio, the free and open source software for video recording and live streaming.
r/overclocking: All things overclocking go here. Learn to overclock, ask experienced users your questions, boast your rock-stable, sky-high OC and help others!
r/techsupport: Stumped on a tech problem? Ask the community and try to help others with their problems as well.
ASRock Forum: Wanna discuss or find out something for your ASRock products? Come and get in ASRock worldwide forums to chat with ASRock global users!
ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) Forums: Discuss and discover the best ways to make the most out of your ROG gear.
MSI Global English Forum: Need more people to discuss with? Click here to find help.
r/buildapcforme: A subreddit dedicated to helping those looking to assemble their own PC without having to spend weeks researching and trying to find the right parts. From basic budget PCs to HTPCs to high end gaming rigs and workstations, get the help you need designing a build that precisely fits your needs and budget.
r/GamingLaptops: The world's largest gaming laptop community. Whether you're buying for the first time or know exactly what you want, this is where you come for real advice, honest benchmarks, and the best deals.
r/SuggestALaptop: A place for prospective laptop buyers to get suggestions from people who know the intimate details of the hardware.

If you need access to drivers, firmware, manuals, need to raise an RMA or have another query or issue for a product not directly from AMD, you may want to consider contacting the manufacturer of your laptop, graphics card, motherboard or system.

Below we have linked the support pages for the most common brands and manufacturers that sell AMD graphics cards, motherboards, laptops, desktops and other systems.

READ BEFORE POSTING

The information below has been written to cover Windows 10 or Windows 11 users, as this will cover the overwhelming majority of users. If you use a Linux distribution, you may wish to use the appropriate forum, subreddit or Discord server for your corresponding distribution.

If you are experiencing any issues, including, but not limited to; games or programs crashing, system crashes, hangs, blue screens of death (BSoD), driver timeouts, system not starting, system freezes, data corruption, system shutting down unexpectedly, visual artifacts, lower than expected performance or any other issue, try the following before making a post — the majority of problems can be resolved by trying the steps listed below.

The suggestions below are not necessarily in any particular order. If a step has already been performed or is not relevant, move to the next step.

If your system won't power on, make sure all cables are plugged in and seated correctly, that the power supply is plugged into a working wall outlet and any switches on the wall outlet and/or power supply are in the ON (live) position.
Make sure your front panel connector is seated and installed correctly. Refer to your case and motherboard manual for correct installation. If your motherboard has a built-in power button, try using this (or bridge the header manually) in case the power button on your case is faulty.
If you have any power related issues, like your system not starting, shutting down, sleeping, restarting or waking from sleep, try to test with a different power supply, as unstable voltages, such as on the 12V, 5V, 5VSB and 3.3V rails can cause a myriad of issues that can be inconsistent and hard to diagnose. You can buy PSU testers like the Thermaltake Dr. Power III, Dr. Power III Pro or a myriad of cheaper ones on Amazon and eBay, which can help you diagnose and check your power supply. Note that these testers don't put a load on the PSU, but they are a helpful aid you can use.
Make sure your memory modules (RAM) are installed in the primary DIMM slots. Some motherboards will not POST (Power-on self-test) if the memory is installed in the secondary DIMM slots. The primary DIMM slots should be labelled on the motherboard or specified in the motherboard or system manual.
If your system does power on, but won't get past the POST screen, ensure your CPU, RAM and GPU are installed correctly. You should also try clearing the CMOS, this can usually be done by disconnecting the motherboard from power and removing the CMOS battery for a few minutes. Some motherboards may have clear CMOS reset jumpers or buttons you can use. Consult your motherboard or system manual on how to clear the CMOS.
If your system still won't POST, check if your motherboard has a Debug LED indicator and consult your motherboard manual to check what step is causing a problem. You could also try removing some components like the SSD, GPU and any other connected devices and peripherals, in case one of them is faulty and preventing normal startup.
Make your motherboard is compatible with the CPU you have. Most AM4 and AM5 motherboards have BIOS flashback, which allows you to update the BIOS without the CPU or RAM. Consult your motherboard manual as the BIOS flashback procedure will very depending on the make and model of your motherboard. When using BIOS flashback, we recommend using a USB 2.0 drive that is 8GB or less and formatted as FAT32, as some implementations of BIOS flashback don't work reliably with USB 3.0 (or newer) drives and/or USB drives that are larger than 8GB in size.
If you are using an AMD Radeon RX 6000, RX 7000, RX 9000 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30, RTX 40 or RTX 50 GPU, ensure you are using separate 6 - 8pin PCIe cables or dedicated 12VHPWR/12V-2x6 cables and not using daisy-chained or splitter cables as these may not be able to supply adequate power to the GPU. Consult your GPU and PSU manual for information on how to correctly connect your GPU.
Make sure your display (monitor/TV) is plugged into the HDMI or DisplayPort output from your graphics card and not the motherboard. Try a different display and if you are using any HDMI or DisplayPort adapters, converters or splitters, remove these and use a direct connection. Try switching between HDMI and DisplayPort and try different HDMI or DisplayPort cables to rule out any problems here. For best results, always use certified HDMI or DisplayPort cables.
Make sure you are running the latest AMD Chipset or Graphics Drivers. Some devices, such as laptops and handhelds may have custom hardware IDs, in which case you may have to download drivers from the manufacturer support page of your laptop or handheld.
If you are experiencing crashes, freezes, hangs and GPU driver crashes, try performing a clean installation of your GPU drivers using the AMD Cleanup Utility or Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) - there are a plethora of tutorials available on YouTube for either.
If Windows Update is replacing your GPU drivers (example below) view the following thread on the steps you can take to resolve and prevent this happening in future.

Message you will see if Windows Update has replaced your AMD graphics driver

Scan your PC for any viruses/malware using Windows Security (formerly Windows Defender) or other reputable Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware solution. Malware, viruses, adware and other unwanted software can cause crashes, freezes, hangs and other performance, security, stability and compatibility issues.
If a game is crashing, freezing, not starting, performing poorly or having other issues, verify and repair the game files through Steam, Epic Games Store, Ubisoft Connect, EA App, GOG Galaxy, Battle.net or whichever game client you are using. You may have to manually reinstall any redistributables like DirectX and Visual C++, as they aren't always reinstalled or repaired when verifying or repairing game files.
If a program is crashing, freezing, not starting, performing poorly or having other issues, reinstall the program or attempt to repair the installation using the program installer/uninstaller.
If you are on Windows and are experiencing stuttering or lower than expected performance, make sure you are using the Balanced or High Performance power plan and restore them to their default values. This can be checked under Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options.
Make sure you are on the latest version of Windows 10 or Windows 11, you have all updates installed via the Microsoft Store and any other updates for your games, applications and utilities are installed.
Make sure you are using the latest BIOS, Firmware and Drivers for your motherboard, laptop, desktop and any other components and peripherals you have connected to your system.
If you have any overclocks, underclocks, overvolts, undervolts, custom power curves or similar: revert everything to stock — including clocks, timings, voltages. Everything to default settings. This includes disabling EXPO, XMP, DOCP, A-XMP or whatever your motherboard calls it. To do this, go into your BIOS and restore the factory settings. This is typically labelled Restore Default, Restore Optimized Defaults, Load Optimized Defaults or some similar variation within the BIOS. If you are using utilities like MSI Afterburner, ThrottleStop, Ryzen Master (etc), restore default settings in these as well.
If you are using Windows 10 or Windows 11, use the built-in System File Checker (SFC) and Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) commands to check for any corrupt or missing system files and attempt to repair any if found. A guide containing SFC and DISCM commands to do this is available here.
If you have a custom PC, recently upgraded, started overclocking or want to know if your current PSU will support a hardware upgrade, use one of the below PSU calculators and make sure the PSU you have (or intend to buy) can supply enough power when your system is under full load. If your PSU isn't able to supply enough power, you will have issues starting your system and experience system shutdown when under load.
PSU Calculators: FSP | Cooler Master | Seasonic | Newegg | be quiet! | MSI | You can also add all your components into PCPartPicker and it will provide an estimate wattage. You should always ensure the PSU you have or intend to buy is comfortably above the max wattage your system can draw when under a full load. You must also note that these PSU calculators assume you are not overclocking. If you are overclocking or intend to overclock, you must take this into account and ensure additional headroom.
Try and apply common sense to an issue, for example if you have flickering on your TV or Monitor, try simple things like changing the HDMI or DisplayPort cable, use a different HDMI or DisplayPort port on the GPU and display. If you've recently installed a mod and that game now crashes, uninstall that mod. If you've started overclocking and now your system crashes, revert your overclock. If one of your memory modules is no longer being detected, is there any physical damage to the memory module or DIMM slot on the motherboard or pins, have you tried reseating it etc...
If you experience crashes, freezes, unexpected shutdown or just want to check if your system is stable, you can stability test your system with the utilities linked below. Remember just because your system turns on, doesn't make it stable.
Remember that overclocking is not guaranteed. Your mileage may vary depending on the setup you have, the silicon lottery of your CPU, GPU, RAM, quality of motherboard and BIOS, as well as the competence and skill of the user. You should always thoroughly stability test your system — many users reading this post will have unstable systems and won't even know it.

The utilities linked below will help you stress test and monitor system information, such as CPU and GPU clock speeds, voltages, temperatures, fan speeds, power usage, load and similar.

OCCT — OCCT is the only comprehensive stability testing software available. 20 years of experience have proved OCCT to be the community's software of choice in terms of stability and performance testing. CPU, GPU, Memory, VRAM, Power supplies are tested in the most efficient and accurate way possible. If there's anything wrong, we'll find it and report it. OCCT includes many advanced features, ranging from per-core CPU testing, varying GPU loads, and much more.
Prime95 — Prime95 has been a popular choice for stress / torture testing a CPU since its introduction, especially with overclockers and system builders. Since the software makes heavy use of the processor's integer and floating point instructions, it feeds the processor a consistent and verifiable workload to test the stability of the CPU and the L1/L2/L3 processor cache. Additionally, it uses all of the cores of a multi-CPU / multi-core system to ensure a high-load stress test environment.
AIDA64 Extreme — AIDA64 Extreme is an industry-leading system information tool, loved by PC enthusiasts around the world, which not only provides extremely detailed information about both hardware and installed software, but also helps users diagnose issues and offers benchmarks to measure the performance of the computer.
Furmark 2 — FurMark 2 is the successor of the venerable FurMark 1 and is a very intensive GPU stress test on Windows (32-bit and 64-bit) and Linux (32-bit and 64-bit) platforms. It's also a quick OpenGL and Vulkan graphics benchmark with online scores. FurMark 2 has an improved command line support and is built with GeeXLab.
MSI Kombustor — MSI Kombustor is MSI's exclusive burn-in benchmarking tool based on the well-known FurMark software. This program is specifically designed to push your graphics card to the limits to test stability and thermal performance. Kombustor supports cutting edge 3D APIs such as OpenGL or Vulkan.
MemTest86 — MemTest86 boots from a USB flash drive and tests the RAM in your computer for faults using a series of comprehensive algorithms and test patterns. Bad RAM is one of the most frustrating computer problems to have as symptoms are often random and hard to pin down. MemTest86 can help diagnose faulty RAM (or rule it out as a cause of system instability). As such it is often used by system builders, PC repair stores, overclockers & PC manufacturers.
MemTest86+ — Memtest86+ is a free, open-source, stand-alone memory tester for IA-32, x86-64, and LoongArch64 systems. It provides a more thorough memory check than that provided by BIOS memory tests. On x86 systems, Memtest86+ can be loaded and run either directly by a PC BIOS (legacy or UEFI) or via an intermediate bootloader that supports the Linux boot protocol. It should work on any Pentium-class or later 32-bit x86 CPU, any 64-bit x86 CPU, and supported Loongson LA64 systems.
SeaTools — Quickly determine the condition of the drive in your computer with this comprehensive, easy-to-use diagnostic.
CrystalDiskInfo — CrystalDiskInfo is open source software for checking HDD/SSD health status.
For more advanced SSD/HDD diagnostic utilities, check the website of your SSD/HDD manufacturer, as they usually offer manufacturer specific software to check the health of the drive and update drive firmware, some examples include Samsung Magician, SanDisk Dashboard, Western Digital Kitfox, Corsair SSD Toolbox and Crucial Storage Executive.

Some motherboards, laptops and desktops may have built-in BIOS diagnostic utilities to stress test certain components or the entire system. Consult your motherboard or system manual for more information.

A truly stable system should be able to run any of these utilities or built-in diagnostics without any crashes, freezes, errors or other issues. These utilities can help you narrow down which component(s) in your system are faulty, aren't installed correctly or have unstable overclocks, underclocks, overvolts, undervolts, custom power curves etc...

If you require help using any of these programs, read the help sections on each website or use Google and YouTube, as there are a plethora of guides and tutorials available. You can also use AI language models like ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini and others, which can provide answers to common questions, provide troubleshooting advice and point you in the right direction.

If you have tried all of the above and are still facing the same issue, it could be a corrupt operating system. Backup any important files or data and perform a clean installation of Windows using a USB.

Only use Windows images that come directly from Microsoft.

Windows Images acquired from non-official sources, especially stripped and debloated images of Windows or scripts and programs that strip and debloat Windows can contain malware, strip crucial Windows components or services and have other issues. For troubleshooting and diagnostic purposes, always use official Windows images that come directly from Microsoft.

The latest Windows 10 and Windows 11 ISO images can be downloaded from the Microsoft Software Download page. You can create a bootable USB or DVD by using the Media Creation Tool. You will need a blank USB or DVD that has at least 8GB free space.

If you have done all the above steps and are still facing the same issue, follow the template below for submitting a request. The more detail you can include the better. If you post something like "pc crashes" or don't list your PC specifications, then don't expect a response, as there's not enough useful information to go on and it will be assumed you haven't read this post or tried any of the steps outlined above.

Below is an example template you could use...

Summary of the issue: LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight will crash if you enable Radeon Image Sharpening and have V-Sync enabled with Adrenalin 26.9.2. This is not an issue if you revert to Adrenalin 26.9.1.

What I've tried to solve the issue: I have reinstalled 26.9.2 with the AMD Cleanup Utility, reset my in-game graphics settings, verified game files in Steam and tried enabling Radeon Image Sharpening again.

System specifications:

Operating System: Windows 11 26H2, OS Build 26300.9550 (Windows Key + R and type winver)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, default settings
CPU cooler: be quiet Dark Rock Pro 6
GPU: PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil, default settings
Motherboard: MSI MEG X870E ACE MAX with 7E85v1A51 BIOS
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 32GB DDR5-6000 CL32 with EXPO enabled
Storage: 4TB WD_BLACK SN8100
PSU: be quiet! Dark Power 14 1000W
Display: Samsung Odyssey OLED G60SD

If you are using a prebuilt PC or don't know your full specifications, include as much information as you can, e.g, HP Z2 Mini G1a workstation with an AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 395, AMD Radeon 8060S Graphics, 128GB RAM, 2TB SSD and Windows 11.

Include links for any logs, dump files, crash or error messages, videos, screenshots or other material you have.

12 comments

r/Amd • u/RenatsMC • 9h ago

READ BEFORE POSTING

Highlights

Known Issues