Crash immediately upon boot - no BSOD

[lurch101]

So over the last week I've been having some wonky boot issues, but now it's solidified and happens the same way every time. Windows will seemingly boot fine, but after coming up to the desktop, things start to fail and hang. The AXTU (ASRock tuning utility) splash screen stays up, so I can't really tell everything that's reporting an error, but the sequence seems to go like this:

Steam - can't log in, can't update
Google Chrome settings can't be loaded
IMF.exe crashes, bug report empty
ASRockAXTU - Application error "The required data was not placed into memory because of an I/O error status of 0xc000000e
Plex Script Host - same error as above

Somewhere in there, explorer dies, I hit OK on all the errors, then shortly thereafter the video times out and won't turn back on.

I originally thought it was a hardware problem, so I removed the Samsung 840 EVO, did a chkdsk on another computer, then updated to the latest firmware. Still the same issues. I removed 3 of the 4 RAM sticks (the fourth I couldn't get to unless I remove the CPU cooler), no changes.

I can get into Safe Mode with Networking just fine, so I'm thinking if I can get an error log I might get some insight into what's crashing. Is that done through event viewer? Many of the suggestions I've seen say I'll need to re-install Windows (or hopefully a repair/upgrade and keep the programs in place), but I'm hoping it's just one of the last things I installed. I've also seen that it might be BIOS related, but how would I check what's wrong there? Would I still get to Safe Mode if that were the case?

Thanks for any help in advance

 

[Paul NZ]

Yup errors will appear in event viewer

Since you can boot into safe mode whats in startup?? Could be something here if it crashes before it gets to windows normally

I would uninstall Asrock tuning Util. Programs like this can cause probs and can crash windows

If youre in safe mode now (if ccleaner isnt installed).

Press the windows key + R type msconfig /startup tab. Untick Asrock Tuning Utils, and IMF.exe.

Looks like this belongs to Malware fighter. Which is useless anyway. Then OK / reboot.

See what happens

That error youre getting looks like it maybe hdd related. It maybe failing / ready to die

 

[lurch101]

I didn't think it was related to the SSD since it does it exactly the same way every time. I do have ccleaner installed, but I can remove it since I've seen some say it will clean out error logs. I don't have it run on a schedule, just when I fire it up. The tuning program has seemed to be running fine since I built the thing a little over 2 years ago. Just use it to control fans, not OC'ing anything. I'll uncheck those for boot and see if I can get further.

I'll see if I can get a screenshot of the startup list. Seeing as it's always the same order, it would seem likely that it's somewhere in the sequence. Fingers crossed. Thanks

 

[Paul NZ]

You can untick error logs in ccleaner. I think its unticked by default anyway.

If you dont uninstall ccleaner, you can save to txt under startup and the uninstall tab. Then copy and paste both of them in here

 

[lurch101]

Sorry, I didn't really follow that last part about ccleaner.

I used Spybot S&D's startup utility and unticked nearly everything. rebooted, similar problems, booted back to safe mode and uninstalled AXTU (the ASRock tuner utility). Still got an error, "Driver cannot be loaded, re-install the program may fix the issue, if it happens again, report the problem with your system configuration as detail as possible" in nice, broken English. So it seems even though the program is uninstalled, there's a corrupted driver still causing problems.

Googling that error linked to other posts here indicating it's definitely an AXTU problem. Wondering if I could re-install it to fix the corrupted driver from Safe Mode? Or if you can shoot me a link on how to find / read an error log.

 

[okcnaline]

Ah... You messed up everything. Now the error will be different and we won't know what caused the BSODs.

Since you can't undo anything, copy files from C:/Windows/minidump to a data hosting website and we'll determine from there.

 

[lurch101]

Minidump folder was empty, don't know if it's because it actually didn't BSOD, just kind of kills everything and times out. Restart button doesn't even respond.

Did have a spot of luck tho: updated the BIOS to the latest, restarted with the same, then had read somewhere to try and swap the SATA cable and MoBo port. Had unplugged the other drives, so just used one hanging there and booted just fine. Got the notification "ATA Samsung SSD 840 SCSI Disk Device driver software installed successfully." So there's one potential error.

During the failed boots, the network adapter always showed a bad connection. This time, device manager showed an error with it and said "This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)." Uninstalled it, downloaded the drivers from the ASRock site, and now it's fine. So there's another potential problem.

Upon starting Chrome, got the notification that preferences could not be read again, making me wonder if there's still potentially a problem with the drive.

Still haven't re-ticked the startup items to see if there's an issue there. Might install the Samsung Magician software I used on the other computer to update the SSD's firmware. I believe it had testing tools.

So for now, I'd say we're at a soft "problem solved." Might try the old cable in the old port again and see if it still happens, but now that we're up and running, seems kinda stupid.

Thanks to everyone for the help! If I can get the issue more defined, I'll post again.