CW4

Stay away from the 3500x if I was you... " Like the 3600, it packs half a dozen Zen 2 cores that come clocked at 3.6 GHz for the base. ... The key difference is the lack of SMT (simultaneous multithreading) support for the 3500X, where the R5 3600 packs 6-cores / 12-threads, the 3500X features just 6 threads, much like the Core i5-9400F " Get the 3600 as it will do 12 threads which is much better performance. The cooler that comes with the 3600 isn't the best in the world but there are good coolers out there that are reasonable to add. Just built a 3600 system for my brother and that cpu out preforms my R7-2700x in games but is a little bit behind when it comes to video processing/converting. Here is a review with some benchmarks on the 3500x... Ryzen 5 3500x review

Is this an Intel or AMD system?

Try this from over at MajorGeeks.... Driver Booster 7.3.0.663 Driver Booster 7.3.0.663

👍 Congrats

Try going to the Task Manager and the StartUp tab. Disable all startup items and reboot. See if it's stable. If so go back and enable 1 at a time ( or 2 or 3 if you have a bunch of them ) restart and see if it's stable. Rinse and repeat until you have have a crash. This might identify a program of driver that isn't playing nicely with your system.

Evil are you running an antivirus? If so try shutting it off and see what happens. Seems your system runs when you boot to safe mode, so I think there is a program that is acting up. And is this Win10 Home or Pro?

Can you get into your event viewer to see what is causing the error? Here's a long read but it might help. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/fix-distributedcom-error-10016-windows/

These are from the COD2 and F-Tag1 servers....

At least it's just your fingers, most of the time it's my brain... I'm can be such an idiot.....

The info here is just a tad old but it goes over the pros and cons of a boatload of CPUs. I'm not a Intel nor AMD fanboy... I'm a bang for the buck fanboy.... https://www.pcgamesn.com/best-cpu-for-gaming-2019

The last two gens of AMD's run a lot cooler than the older ones. The RYZEN 7 3700X now only draws 65w max as compared to the old FX 8350 125 watts. Amd has come a long way in the past two years.

Best bang for the buck all around cpu's.... Amd Ryzen. A R7 3700x or better will hold you for years. AMD X570 chipset Mobo. The ASUS AMD AM4 ROG Strix X570-E Gaming ATX Motherboard with PCIe 4.0, WiFi 6, 2.5Gbps LAN, Dual M.2, SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.2 Gen 2 has nice features, but pricy. Start with 16gb of DDR4 3200 or better get 32gb. Water cool the thing and what ever video card that you like. RTX 2070 super works for me. Add a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 NVMe ssd and a bluray burner and a 750w to 800w PS and you should be good to go. Of course this is my Top Tier with my budget I would have to scale back a bit on things. An Intel build would give you a few more FPS in some games but for video processing and multi-tasking AMD is looking at Intel in the rear view mirror. JMHO and I could be wrong....

You have people that you meet on the net then you have people that you meet that become friends. Dadda was a friend that was at top of my list. Sir, you will be sorely missed. RIP

Glad that it wasn't worse. My bike accident crushed my right elbow and broke my left ankle. Be safe out there...

Got that right Smeg. Plus the GTX 970 runs faster than a RX 570 and neck and neck with the RX 580 in games. Even with today's AAA titles it still does a good job at 1080p. In BF V 1080p and Ultra settings it benches at 60+ fps. Not bad for this old war horse.