Thank you everyone for your support.
Yes, updates began installing as soon as I connected to the Internet after installing the system.
I bought it mainly because of the Corsair thing and the fact that it was on the QVL. Also, Tom's did a review of the kit you have and they had good things to say about it.
Progression is as follows:
Install 1: Windows 10 Pro, 2 September 2023, Corsair modules (non-kit, DOCP)
Install 2: Windows 11 Home, 26 October 2023, Corsair modules (DOCP, then base frequency)
Install 3: Windows 11 Home, 21 November 2023, Patriot modules (DOCP).
I did install 3 because I got that issue with the wireless card, so I thought it was best to nuke it all and go with reset CMOS, plus new system and new modules.
Wireless card issue came back after reboot.
Yours is the RGB Pro (which I am expecting is a better-binned Corsair kit) and mine was the LPX (which is average).
The MX500 is barely used. It was in a drawer for a year (as I bought it in a sale) then when I built the system I installed it as a high-speed storage drive.
Well, to be more accurate it wasn't completely unused, I used it to store some of the excess files from my laptop once or twice in the said year.
The individual Corsair modules booted fine, except if used at 3600MHz in the B1 slot.
So at least I shouldn't be getting a RAM error when booting with the new kit, even if I tried to use individual modules. Still no guarantees about the B1 slot (why try it if it is not recommended?), but a normal boot should always happen.
DOCP timings are fine - you can check the ZenTimings screenshots above.
I am not getting any values that concern me in SMART. If any of the two SSDs is bad, how do I tell? Heat is not an issue as both slots for NVMe drives on this motherboard come with a heatsink on them.
I could try creating a partition on the MX500 and installing Windows on that. Tried so much so far, what's one more? But in that case, should I just remove the NVMe drive from the board?
I'm pretty sure as I bought a sealed box. As of Install 2 I am using version 4802 of the BIOS, so in theory it should support the 5600X3D as well.
Yes, now using a new kit.
Yes, plus reinstall. The speculation happened when Windows 10 was still on there, so the system has been reinstalled twice since then.
No. New RAM is in the QVL.
I don't have a spare - though I could disconnect one of them and use the other alternately and see if anything changes.
I've been using the power supply in my old build for years - and would have if I hadn't decided to build this system. Why would it suddenly go bad?
I have seen the voltages in BIOS and HWInfo64. Didn't see anything weird.
SSD has a heatsink on it, and temperatures are okay in HWInfo - high 40s or low 50s.
Mine is a Gold-rated Seasonic. Not high-end like those Platinum or Titanium units, but it has been rock solid so far.
I have no ASUSware installed in my system. I was aware that Armoury Crate messes with the system's kernel, so I installed all the drivers from manufacturer's websites (for wired/wireless, graphics, hard drives) or AMD's website(chipset).
It's not returnable.
https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B088KSRW4S
In any case I was thinking of keeping this as it's a kit (unlike the Corsairs) and on the QVL.
If you mean updates, there's just two: KB5032007, KB5032190.
As for software, there's just drivers, utilities eg. Cinebench, CPU-Z, CoreTemp, HWInfo, Afterburner, Git, Cheat Engine, VLC Media Player
Third party software: L-Connect 3 (for fans), Auslogics Boostspeed 13, Quick Heal Total Security (my antivirus).
Other stuff is my Steam games, an old game (NFS Hot Pursuit, the 2010 one)
How do I tell? As we've talked about before, the freezes are arbitrary.
My system is not connected to Azure. I used Rufus to make my bootable media, and I am using a local account. I did rename my system, but only because it had some ugly name like DESKTOP-XXXXXXX.
Okay, so what I figure is that there are two issues here, at least.
1. Something is causing the system to freeze, something which is still happening, in spite of RAM change and system reinstalls.
2. I am getting issues with stuttering in my games, none at first, then more and more until the time the slow freezes start to happen and I have to reinstall the system. It's pretty much a given that the slow freezes (meaning the system is responsive at first, but then starts lagging at even a context menu, to the point of eventually becoming completely unresponsive) is the result of a corrupted OS. The new kit may or may not help with the OS corruption, or it may simply be a result of the hard reset I have to do after a freeze, as the system simply doesn't recover from said freeze.
One piece of news I have is that the wireless card error I am having persists after a reboot. A driver reinstall fixes the issue until the next reboot. Now it's even happening that I am getting connectivity errors and network drops. This card worked fine for months - why die so early?
ZenTimings doesn't show a voltage value for the new kit either. This is technically a BIOS issue, but I am on the latest BIOS as of the start of this month (new version is for fixing the Inception vulnerability). Could this instead indicate a motherboard issue?
I have not disabled C-State Control in BIOS (like some people recommend to fix freezing), as I wanted to keep as many settings default as possible. I have, however, disabled motherboard RGB and enabled resizable BAR. I have also not modified any settings in BIOS related to power supply current which some people recommend to change from low power idle to typical.
If the issue is nothing else, could it be the CPU? I ran corecycler as recommended by
@VuurVOS but it froze before it could go past the 12 hour mark. It didn't report any issues in said 12 hours.