I just finished building this PC last night (Image). I booted it up without trying to install an OS or anything, I just wanted to take a peek at the BIOS, check temps, etc. This is what I saw the very first time I booted. Unfortunately, that's the only pic I took. I may have tampered with some things in the BIOS that I shouldn't have, but nothing too drastic as far as I can remember. The main thing I remember doing was setting the DOCP profile to Profile #1, to change my memory speeds from the auto 2133 MHz to what my rated speeds should be (3200 MHz). I now realize that may have caused instability issues, although I'm not sure that was the problem. I also went into the EZ tuning Wizard, and it basically calculated and applied a small overclock on my CPU, DRAM, and CPU Fan (Something like 5-8%, I don't remember the exact values now). don't think I changed anything else, maybe the Aura Sync from Always On to Stealth or something (Just changes whether the LED's on the mobo stay on or off when the PC is off). Again, I NOW realize I should have left everything alone on my first boot. Anyways- saved my BIOS settings then shut it down. I put Windows 10 on a USB, put it in the new PC, went into the BIOS and set it to boot from the USB.
I hit f10 to save BIOS settings and boot from my USB with Windows 10 on it. It booted to the Windows Setup menu and whatnot. I went through it, and when it wanted me to choose a drive to install Windows to, I clicked my 1tb M.2 SSD and hit next (Without formatting the drive or anything, as those options were grayed out anyways). Keep in mind, neither of my HDDs, nor my M.2 SSD had any data on them beforehand, as they are brand new, so I believe this was fine. It proceeded just fine, and installed Windows 10 onto the M.2 like I wanted. I proceeded to open Microsoft Edge to try and download Opera GX (trusted web browser) and Steam. At this point, I was unaware Windows was doing a bunch of Driver updates or something to that extent in the background, as I unfortunately learned from this video AFTER everything went down last night, although again, I'm not sure trying to install 2 programs is the issue at hand. I hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc and took a quick look at what my hardware was doing. I was stoked to see 0-1% CPU usage and 5% RAM usage, everything looked good, etc. I proceeded to run the Steam installation, and after going through a couple steps....
Out of nowhere, my PC shut down, and restarted. Or tried to anyways, it loaded this screen allowing me to open the BIOS if I wanted (I did not, just let it continue), then a couple seconds later I got this message, which tried to load for a couple more seconds, then my PC turned off and immediately back on again, showed the same 2 screens, then shut off, and so on. After it did this several times, I opened the BIOS from that first screen. It launched just fine and did not crash on me or anything. I tried booting from my M.2 SSD, but it just gave me the same message and did the same boot loop. I basically hit F5 which I believe should reset the motherboard to all of its default settings (Reset the DOCP and overlocking stuff and anything else I had changed in the BIOS earlier). I hit f10 to save and restart, but I had the same boot loop issue. I opened the BIOS again, did a hard shut down, and went to bed.
Now, since then, I have researched a bunch of stuff literally all day today, and obviously nothing has worked as I'm now typing this massive essay. I re-seated my RAM and GPU. I wiped the usb I had installed Windows 10 on and did a clean install again. But whether I try to boot from my M.2 or USB, I just get the same boot loop. The only difference is when I try to boot from the M.2 drive, I get the "Preparing Automatic Repair" message. When I try to boot from the Windows 10 USB, I get this loading screen. No matter what, I CAN get into my BIOS, and I have tried changing a few things I've seen threads about and what have you, but to no avail. I cleared CMOS and tried to boot off the USB, cleared CMOS and tried to boot off the M.2. I cleared secure boot keys in key management, tried to secure boot Windows UEFI mode (rather than Other OS) from my usb, then installed default secure boot keys again. No change. I hit F5 and cleared CMOS again. Tried the same thing but from the M.2. Nothing. I've tried some other stuff too I think, I don't even remember what, but I know it didn't work, lol.
So what I'm thinking so far: I messed something tf up and resetting my motherboard/clearing CMOS/booting from a new USB isn't fixing anything. I'm lead to believe the problem could be something to do with my M.2 SSD. Maybe some important files were corrupted while Windows was trying to install and I was doing other things (setting up steam). Or maybe my PC just crashed due to some hardware error, possibly because of my going where I shouldn't in the BIOS, which perhaps corrupted some important files.
Maybe I can wipe my M.2 SSD from the BIOS somehow? Maybe that would do something? If I have to try and take it out I will, but I wanna be sure there's nothing else I can try first, because that thing is going to be a HUGE PAIN to remove, and I'm clueless as to whether that's even the problem. If you have read this far thank you SO much for your time, I really appreciate it!! And if you have ANY ideas please let me know, I am so frustrated having a $3k build, and I can't evEN BOOT THE THING REEEEEEEEEEE
I hit f10 to save BIOS settings and boot from my USB with Windows 10 on it. It booted to the Windows Setup menu and whatnot. I went through it, and when it wanted me to choose a drive to install Windows to, I clicked my 1tb M.2 SSD and hit next (Without formatting the drive or anything, as those options were grayed out anyways). Keep in mind, neither of my HDDs, nor my M.2 SSD had any data on them beforehand, as they are brand new, so I believe this was fine. It proceeded just fine, and installed Windows 10 onto the M.2 like I wanted. I proceeded to open Microsoft Edge to try and download Opera GX (trusted web browser) and Steam. At this point, I was unaware Windows was doing a bunch of Driver updates or something to that extent in the background, as I unfortunately learned from this video AFTER everything went down last night, although again, I'm not sure trying to install 2 programs is the issue at hand. I hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc and took a quick look at what my hardware was doing. I was stoked to see 0-1% CPU usage and 5% RAM usage, everything looked good, etc. I proceeded to run the Steam installation, and after going through a couple steps....
Out of nowhere, my PC shut down, and restarted. Or tried to anyways, it loaded this screen allowing me to open the BIOS if I wanted (I did not, just let it continue), then a couple seconds later I got this message, which tried to load for a couple more seconds, then my PC turned off and immediately back on again, showed the same 2 screens, then shut off, and so on. After it did this several times, I opened the BIOS from that first screen. It launched just fine and did not crash on me or anything. I tried booting from my M.2 SSD, but it just gave me the same message and did the same boot loop. I basically hit F5 which I believe should reset the motherboard to all of its default settings (Reset the DOCP and overlocking stuff and anything else I had changed in the BIOS earlier). I hit f10 to save and restart, but I had the same boot loop issue. I opened the BIOS again, did a hard shut down, and went to bed.
Now, since then, I have researched a bunch of stuff literally all day today, and obviously nothing has worked as I'm now typing this massive essay. I re-seated my RAM and GPU. I wiped the usb I had installed Windows 10 on and did a clean install again. But whether I try to boot from my M.2 or USB, I just get the same boot loop. The only difference is when I try to boot from the M.2 drive, I get the "Preparing Automatic Repair" message. When I try to boot from the Windows 10 USB, I get this loading screen. No matter what, I CAN get into my BIOS, and I have tried changing a few things I've seen threads about and what have you, but to no avail. I cleared CMOS and tried to boot off the USB, cleared CMOS and tried to boot off the M.2. I cleared secure boot keys in key management, tried to secure boot Windows UEFI mode (rather than Other OS) from my usb, then installed default secure boot keys again. No change. I hit F5 and cleared CMOS again. Tried the same thing but from the M.2. Nothing. I've tried some other stuff too I think, I don't even remember what, but I know it didn't work, lol.
So what I'm thinking so far: I messed something tf up and resetting my motherboard/clearing CMOS/booting from a new USB isn't fixing anything. I'm lead to believe the problem could be something to do with my M.2 SSD. Maybe some important files were corrupted while Windows was trying to install and I was doing other things (setting up steam). Or maybe my PC just crashed due to some hardware error, possibly because of my going where I shouldn't in the BIOS, which perhaps corrupted some important files.
Maybe I can wipe my M.2 SSD from the BIOS somehow? Maybe that would do something? If I have to try and take it out I will, but I wanna be sure there's nothing else I can try first, because that thing is going to be a HUGE PAIN to remove, and I'm clueless as to whether that's even the problem. If you have read this far thank you SO much for your time, I really appreciate it!! And if you have ANY ideas please let me know, I am so frustrated having a $3k build, and I can't evEN BOOT THE THING REEEEEEEEEEE