I found the cause of the blue screens of deaths (BSOD) and freezing during Windows 11 installation. The problem was caused by the Core Performance Boost (CPB) overclocking feature which is enabled by default in the BIOS.
Here were the steps that I took to narrow down the cause:
I cleared CMOS, and then disabled "DDR5 Auto Booster" which was enabled by default. That did not work.
I tried again, clearing CMOS, and then disabled both "DDR5 Auto Booster" and Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO), both of which were enabled by default. That still did not work.
I tried yet again, clearing CMOS, and then I disabled these three items: Core Performance Boost (CPB), Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) and "DDR5 Auto Booster". Disabling all three items allowed me to install Windows 11 without the BSODs or freezing.
I eventually narrowed it down to CPB only. I cleared CMOS again, that did not work. I then disabled only one option, CPB, that did work.
I do have doubts that disabling CPB, PBO and "DDR5 Auto Booster" fixed the instability in its entirety. This is because I did have additional software hiccups with Linux and Windows even after disabling them. But I am not certain, as I not know if that caused by the CPU instability or software bugs.
So the fault is either on the CPU or the motherboard. The fault could be on the CPU, because it could not handle the stock overclock setting. Or the fault could be on the motherboard, for its apparently unstable default CPB or PBO settings. The Gigabyte B650 Aero G is a powerful board with 16+2+1 and 90 amp VRM. It should therefore be expected that the motherboard would use its capabilities to its advantage (as in overclocking the CPU) rather than let its capabilities go to waste. Usually people who buy this board will also pair it with a water cooler. But I am using this with an air cooler (not recommended by AMD for the 7950x). This may exacerbate the problem. People using
ASUS motherboards have problems with CPB and PBO too.
I do not think the problem is from the Micron RAM. It succeeded four passes of the MemTest86 tests.
I noticed an discrepancy in its labeling of their NVMe slots. I have clearly placed the only NVMe card in the M2A_CPU slot, as shown in the photo and block diagram below. But the BIOS says that the NVMe card is in the M2B_CPU slot!
I have reported these issues to Gigabyte.