Question Complete PC disaster - Windows boot freezes, blue screens, random reboots - what to do?

[gerbillover]

Hello. I'm at my absolute wit's end with issues with my PC and could use some serious help from someone with expertise.

I built my system from scratch about 2 years ago, and it's worked brilliantly most of that time. Specs are an MSI X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI motherboard, a Ryzen 5800X CPU, an RTX 3080 GPU, 2 sticks of 8GB Kingston Fury RAM, a bequiet! 850W Platinum PSU, a Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe SSD (boot drive), a 2TB Samsung 870 QVO SSD and a 4TB Seagate Barracuda HDD.

I recently updated to the newest BIOS for my motherboard, and all was well afterwards. However, today I attempted to turn on the PC to discover 3 major issues.

1) This issue I've actually had on and off for a few months now. When turning the PC on, it will often get to the Windows boot screen (with the spinning circle) and then freeze, needing to be powered off. This only happened occasionally before - but now it's happening almost every single boot. It even freezes attempting to enter Automatic Repair or trying to boot into USB drives.

2) When I do make it through the boot screen, Windows will immediately bluescreen with the error BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO every single time. I looked into this error and it seems related to registry corruption. I've been trying to reinstall Windows but doing so with problems 1 and 3 is extremely difficult.

3) When I do make it into tools like Automatic Repair or an installation drive, the computer will sometimes randomly reboot. I managed to make it into Windows on one instance earlier on, and found the error in Event Viewer from the reboots to be along the lines of: "Critical hardware error occurred - Core Processor - Bus/Interconnect Error".

I've tried the following exhausting list of things to fix this issue (the ones here that require me to log in to Windows were tried before it became nearly impossible to do so, when trying to fix problem 1):

• Changing power plan in Windows and turning off fast startup
• Changing various BIOS settings (fast memory boot, secure boot, underclocking various components, etc.)
• Updating the BIOS
• Resetting the CMOS Battery
• Running DISM, sfc /scannow, and CHKDSK, all of which find no issues
• Running a drive diagnostic on my NVME SSD through my BIOS, which finds no issues
• Updating my graphics drivers
• Checking Device Manager for incompatible/outdated/faulty drivers
• Unplugging all non-essential peripherals and trying different ports for them
• Making sure all cables and components in and out of the PC are secure and firmly in place, and giving it a good clean
• Turning on Safe Mode boot (makes no difference)
• Opening BIOS before booting (this helped in the past but no longer makes a difference)
• Checking boot priorities in BIOS
• Running Startup Repair (doesn't seem to find or fix anything)
• Checking temperatures in BIOS and with Afterburner (all are healthy and normal)
• Using an installation drive to attempt to reinstall Windows (as said above, I have not successfully managed to do this yet due to the problems)

It's worth mentioning that when in Windows the computer runs flawlessly outside of these issues - there are no signs of faulty hardware even at high load outside of these problems.

I am fairly convinced at this point, after trying everything I can imagine on the software side, that this is a hardware problem - but based on the wide range of problems occurring, I have no idea which piece of hardware is most likely to be the culprit. Most of my warranties have recently ended and I don't have the money to replace every single piece of hardware - so narrowing down potential problem pieces would be extremely helpful.

I plan on running some tests and diagnostics tomorrow (e.g using memtest from a USB to see if I can determine whether the memory is the culprit), but if I don't find anything I'm about to concede and just send it to a repair shop. Any help, advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lutfij]

1| Did you recreate your bootable USB installer to rule out a corrupt installer for your OS? Speaking of which, where did you source the installer from? You should also make sure you have all drives disconnected apart from the drive you intend to install the OS on to prevent files/a partition going onto another drive.

2| Reads to me like your OS needs reinstalling.

Specs are an MSI X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI motherboard, a Ryzen 5800X CPU, an RTX 3080 GPU, 2 sticks of 8GB Kingston Fury RAM, a bequiet! 850W Platinum PSU, a Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe SSD (boot drive), a 2TB Samsung 870 QVO SSD and a 4TB Seagate Barracuda HDD.
How old is the PSU?

 

[gerbillover]

Yes, I recreated the installation drive from scratch using my laptop. As I said, reinstalling the OS is proving rather tricky with the random reboots and boot freezes, but I will keep trying tomorrow and will make sure to disconnect the other drives.

The PSU is 2 years old - I bought it alongside all the other components.

 

[gerbillover]

I've decided I need to urgently address problem 3 before the other two - since I've just had the computer randomly reboot in the middle of running another chkdsk operation. It's probably fine since chkdsk was in a reading phase, but if it were to randomly reboot during Windows reinstall or a different repair operation I could very well kill one of my drives.

I've now tried a few additional things to try and narrow down the issue (all done from recovery USB):

• sfc /scannow says "Windows Resource Protection could not perform the action specified.", even from a recovery drive, so that is not usable.
• I've run chkdsk on all 3 drives (just to be safe) and no errors or bad records were found (although it did fail to write to the event log).
• Trying to run anything through normal Automatic Repair still completely fails.
• Trying to run DISM results in an initialisation error. I got it to log to the USB, opened the log and wasn't sure if the contents seemed okay or not - I pastebinned it here if someone with a better understanding wants to look.

The random reboots do not seem to be occurring on the recovery USB while using repair tools, so I have some hope that this might not be a hardware issue (although it likely is). Time to try and reinstall Windows again.

 

[gerbillover]

Progress!

I found and followed this guide to try and repair the Boot Manager - and now when I boot, instead of just a BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO error and then a reboot, I get an actual blue recovery screen stating that the operating system failed to start and offering options to check UEFI settings, launch recovery tools, and so on - now I can approach this from a different angle.

Edit (to avoid spam): The boot freezes also seem to have subsided for now, so maybe they were as a result of corrupted UEFI/Boot Manager files.

I've managed to enable boot logging and have copied the boot log to the USB with Command Prompt - available here. Nothing seems particularly suspicious other than a few select drivers that don't start, which could be for various reasons.

 

[hedwar2011]

Did you unplug all other drives, and leave them unplugged until you get Windows back up and stable, except for the drive you are installing Windows on like @Lutfij suggested? They mentioned this to do two things 1) eliminate other drives as being a culprit 2) prevent any corruption from spreading to your boot drive.

If you leave them all connected all the hard work could potentially be for naught in the end.

 

[gerbillover]

Did you unplug all other drives, and leave them unplugged until you get Windows back up and stable, except for the drive you are installing Windows on like @Lutfij suggested? They mentioned this to do two things 1) eliminate other drives as being a culprit 2) prevent any corruption from spreading to your boot drive.

If you leave them all connected all the hard work could potentially be for naught in the end.

I'm going to do that now - now that I've checked them for any data corruption (mostly just in the hopes that the files on them aren't lost)

 

[gerbillover]

Removing the drives has made no difference.

Unfortunately, trying to reinstall Windows currently feels completely impossible with all the reboot issues. I've been trying for hours now and every single time, somewhere along the path of setting up the installation, the PC will reboot. I've remade the USB drive to make sure that wasn't a fluke; no difference. I'm scared that something is mucked up on the hardware level.

 

[hedwar2011]

Removing the drives has made no difference.

Unfortunately, trying to reinstall Windows currently feels completely impossible with all the reboot issues. I've been trying for hours now and every single time, somewhere along the path of setting up the installation, the PC will reboot. I've remade the USB drive to make sure that wasn't a fluke; no difference. I'm scared that something is mucked up on the hardware level.

Since you've done all that let's start from the ground and go up.
1) Unplug anything and everything except keyboard, mouse, monitor, and power cord. Leave them all unplugged for now. If you can get away with it, unplug your network cable too.
2) Internally, disconnect all your storage options EXCEPT for the drive that you're going to be installing Windows on. Leave those unplugged as well. Even disconnect them at the motherboard level if you can. Go ahead and disconnect the power cables from them too (just in case something is going wonky with your PSU).
3) Remove 1 stick of memory leaving the stick in that is furthest from the CPU mount.
4) Try installing Windows from the USB again, get it to the first screen and let it sit. Don't touch nothing and see if it restarts, BSODs, etc.
5) When, and if, it does restart, power it off, pull the DIMM out that was in and swap it for the other one, do the same thing over again.
6) If you don't get reboots from either DIMM, you know neither are to blame for the issues.
7) Unfortunately, we have no way of removing the GPU and eliminating it as your CPU doesn't support integrated graphics BUT all your tests passed so I doubt there is anything wrong with it.
8) If all that still doesn't produce reboots, get Windows reinstalled, and slowly start re-introducing everything one at a time, allowing time between each addition to see if it triggers something.

 

[gerbillover]

Since you've done all that let's start from the ground and go up.
1) Unplug anything and everything except keyboard, mouse, monitor, and power cord. Leave them all unplugged for now. If you can get away with it, unplug your network cable too.
2) Internally, disconnect all your storage options EXCEPT for the drive that you're going to be installing Windows on. Leave those unplugged as well. Even disconnect them at the motherboard level if you can. Go ahead and disconnect the power cables from them too (just in case something is going wonky with your PSU).
3) Remove 1 stick of memory leaving the stick in that is furthest from the CPU mount.
4) Try installing Windows from the USB again, get it to the first screen and let it sit. Don't touch nothing and see if it restarts, BSODs, etc.
5) When, and if, it does restart, power it off, pull the DIMM out that was in and swap it for the other one, do the same thing over again.
6) If you don't get reboots from either DIMM, you know neither are to blame for the issues.
7) Unfortunately, we have no way of removing the GPU and eliminating it as your CPU doesn't support integrated graphics BUT all your tests passed so I doubt there is anything wrong with it.
8) If all that still doesn't produce reboots, get Windows reinstalled, and slowly start re-introducing everything one at a time, allowing time between each addition to see if it triggers something.

Ok, so - I unplugged everything except keyboard, mouse, monitor and power - and completely disconnected my other two drives from everything. And unfortunately, I'm still getting random reboots trying to reinstall Windows. I have tried both sticks of RAM to no avail - and it's worth mentioning I ran memtest86 earlier today which found no errors on a full set of 4 test passes.

It's worth mentioning that when the PC reboots - it's not an abrupt power cycle or anything of that nature, it cleanly restarts - so I don't believe the PSU is at fault here.

Considering I've long used the PC for gaming even just a few days ago with absolutely no display related issues, I also think the GPU is innocent (I did make sure to reseat it).

I've already ruled out the drive too - it's passed various integrity tests and none of the data on it seems corrupted or damaged - so would it be safe to assume this is a CPU or motherboard issue? (Considering the CPU has been running perfectly fine in most cases, I'd lean on it being the motherboard - but I can't say for certain)

 

[hedwar2011]

I didn't notice it before when I looked at the motherboard manual but does your motherboard have a flea power light or LED (it usually lights up when power is still being supplied to the motherboard)? If so, strip everything out except the motherboard, CPU and power. Power it up and let it run and see if you see the light flash off and back on. If so, you know at that point one of those 3 components are your source.

 

[gerbillover]

You seem to be right on the money - I tried this and I've boiled it down to those 3 components. As I already said, I'm doubtful regarding the PSU considering the way it's rebooting and performance being fine otherwise.

On close physical inspection all 3 components look perfectly fine.

I suspect the motherboard, but since I need to take the whole PC apart anyways, I'm going to RMA both the motherboard and CPU. Wish me luck.

 

[hedwar2011]

That's awesome that you have the RMA option after 2 years. Good luck!

 

[gerbillover]

That's awesome that you have the RMA option after 2 years. Good luck!

Sadly I discovered I do not 🙁 So now most likely going to take the PC to my local repair shop who can test the motherboard and CPU for me, will be doing that tomorrow, and then I'll need to replace the faulty component.

 

[Order 66]

I'm afraid that I can't help beyond what has already been covered, but good luck with the repair shop, and let us know when you fix the issue and what was causing it.

 

[gerbillover]

Hello, it has indeed been a while but I have some updates on the situation.

The repair shop tested the PC with a different boot drive installed and found absolutely zero issues - which means all other parts are innocent, thank god. However, the drive itself is not the issue - I replaced the drive and the issue persists, on top of nothing ever showing errors with the drive.

However, progress has obviously been made. Reboots and freezes are less common now, and I've managed to reinstall Windows without issue. The computer still freezes or reboots, usually after about 10-20 minutes of usage, but I can now check error logs and such.

I know the issue is connected to the drive, yet the drive itself is innocent - which means the issue is probably related to the M2 port, improper voltage settings, temperature issues, etc. - and I'm currently investigating these. If anyone has any great ideas or corrections please let me know. Worst case scenario, I'm going to wipe my games SSD and install Windows on that, and see if the issues persist.

 

[gerbillover]

Hello, it has indeed been a while but I have some updates on the situation.

The repair shop tested the PC with a different boot drive installed and found absolutely zero issues - which means all other parts are innocent, thank god. However, the drive itself is not the issue - I replaced the drive and the issue persists, on top of nothing ever showing errors with the drive.

However, progress has obviously been made. Reboots and freezes are less common now, and I've managed to reinstall Windows without issue. The computer still freezes or reboots, usually after about 10-20 minutes of usage, but I can now check error logs and such.

I know the issue is connected to the drive, yet the drive itself is innocent - which means the issue is probably related to the M2 port, improper voltage settings, temperature issues, etc. - and I'm currently investigating these. If anyone has any great ideas or corrections please let me know. Worst case scenario, I'm going to wipe my games SSD and install Windows on that, and see if the issues persist.

Ok. I've been tinkering with the PC for a few more hours and tried a few different things - and I haven't experienced any sort of freezes or reboots in the past 90 minutes whilst using the PC to browse and even game, which is brilliant.

I'll consider this case closed. For anyone who runs into similar problems down the line: I reverted to an older version of my BIOS (one from 2022), as I remembered the freezes starting around the time I updated it. I also changed various BIOS settings:

- Set my RAM to it's clock speed. By default it was underclocked for some reason.
- Disabled Memory Fast Boot
- Changed Precision Boost Overdrive and Core Performance Boost from Auto to Disabled
- Set Power Supply Idle Control to Typical

I also updated CPU and chipset drivers as some of them were erroring.

Edit: One final note. I pinpointed that a lot of my freezes and reboots disappeared for good after I disabled CPU C-States - since I noticed the PC was only recently freezing while idle, not while gaming (so I suspect resting C-states were undervolting the CPU)

I'm not sure what even fixed the issue here, but I'm just glad it's dealt with.

 

[gerbillover]

Hi, I could really use some help troubleshooting an issue with my PC.

For a while now, my PC has suffered from random reboots whilst idle, spitting out a "Cache Hierarchy Error" in the Windows Event Viewer. I've been trying to resolve this in a ton of ways and have had no luck so far. Help would be greatly appreciated. It seems to be a CPU-related error, but my CPU is no longer under warranty and I'd prefer to find a fix for this instead of ordering a new CPU just for the issue to persist.

Specs below:

Spoiler: Specs

MSI X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI Motherboard
Ryzen 5800X CPU
GTX 3080 Ti GPU
bequiet! 850W Power Supply
2 x Kingston Fury 8GB 3200Mhz DDR4 RAM
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVM.e
Samsung 870 EVO 2TB SSD
Seagate Barracuda 4TB HDD

I've tried:

• Reinstalling Windows
• Reinstalling most drivers, and making sure I have the correct chipset drivers
• Disabling C-States, Core Performance Boost, and Precision Boost Overdrive in the BIOS
• Turning up CPU Core Voltages in the BIOS
• Changing Windows power settings to 100% minimum processor state and to high performance
• Checking/testing the computer's power source
• Checking temperatures (they are normal)
• Running memtest (Memory is fine)

No issues occur whatsoever inside of the BIOS or while booting Windows.

If I'm running a rather intensive program, like a high-spec video game, the crashes are almost non-existent.

Any other suggestions for how to fix this issue and what exactly is happening would be strongly appreciated!

 

[Lutfij]

What BIOS version are you on for your motherboard?

Question - Complete PC disaster - Windows boot freezes, blue screens, random reboots - what to do?

Hello. I'm at my absolute wit's end with issues with my PC and could use some serious help from someone with expertise. I built my system from scratch about 2 years ago, and it's worked brilliantly most of that time. Specs are an MSI X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI motherboard, a Ryzen 5800X CPU, an RTX...

forums.tomshardware.com

^ you shouldn't select your post as the Best Answer btw and reading through your current thread, it seems like you issue hasn't resolved.

You didn't answer my question as to where you sourced the installer for the OS. How/when did you go from an 850W unit to a 1000W unit?

 

[gerbillover]

What BIOS version are you on for your motherboard?

Question - Complete PC disaster - Windows boot freezes, blue screens, random reboots - what to do?

Hello. I'm at my absolute wit's end with issues with my PC and could use some serious help from someone with expertise. I built my system from scratch about 2 years ago, and it's worked brilliantly most of that time. Specs are an MSI X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI motherboard, a Ryzen 5800X CPU, an RTX...

forums.tomshardware.com

^ you shouldn't select your post as the Best Answer btw and reading through your current thread, it seems like you issue hasn't resolved.

You didn't answer my question as to where you sourced the installer for the OS. How/when did you go from an 850W unit to a 1000W unit?

The newest version of the BIOS.

I apologise about selecting my own post, I wasn't aware of that etiquette. To clarify, most of the issues with the PC were fixed to the point that I was happy with it's usability, hence why I closed the thread.

I don't use a 1000W unit, actually - that's a mistake on my part. I've edited the original post to correct it. I'm still on the same hardware as before, minus the hard drive I mentioned replacing in that older thread.

Edit: Oh, and I downloaded the installer for the OS onto my USB drive with another laptop from Microsoft's own website, if that's what you're asking.