[SOLVED] Games not Installing, System BIOS slow. Any Help Whatsoever Welcome!

[stagefright]

Hello Tom's Hardware forum! I'm in DESPERATE need of help regarding a completely bizarre problem

Timeline of Events:

While playing CS:GO, my keyboard disconnects and reconnects every 5-20 seconds. (Corsair K95) Later on, I get a Disk Write Error when updating games. I thought this may be a Steam issue as it was a Tuesday, and they were performing server maintenance.

However, I come to my PC not posting and displaying a blinking underscore, that flashes in the top left and sometimes in the middle of the screen. I attempt to fix this by creating a Windows 11 USB drive and reinstalling the OS.

While in the BIOS, I notice it’s lagging an extreme amount, takes several seconds for input to register, furthermore it looks like it’s running at about 1 frame a second, making it difficult to do anything with the mouse.

As I was running Windows 11 on an unsupported i7 7700K, I thought that a BIOS update or something along those lines wasn’t enabling the system to post, so I decided to downgrade from Windows 11 to Windows 10 thinking this may be a corrupt OS file issue.

Windows 10 successfully installs. I redownload and install all required essentials (drivers, software, game launchers, etc)

When I try to update CS:GO for example, the download bar finalizes, however, stops halfway through the Installation progress, and the entirety of Steam stops responding, then proceeds to unfreeze, however upon pressing anything it stops responding again. No matter how many times I attempt to redownload the game, the identical problem occurs.

Upon downgrading the system, I now also get an unrecognized USB error, which is shown as “Unknown USB Device (Link in Compliance Mode)” in Device Manager.

Everything about the computer just takes longer to process. For example, opening browsers, or loading This PC in the file browser.

Any help whatsoever would be highly appreciated, as I’m completely stuck regarding what the issue may be. If I had to guess myself, I’d think this is a faulty drive or motherboard. Please let me know if you require any screenshots, videos, or further information that may help with the diagnosis.

Kind Regards,

Tomasz.



System Spec:
CPU: i7 7700K
GPU: ASUS STRIX ROG GTX 1080
MOBO: ASUS Maxiumus Hero IX
RAM: Corsair LPX (2x8GB @ 3200)
DRIVES:
M.2 - Sarbent 500GB
SATA 1 - Samsung Evo 850 250GB
Older drives I've carried from system to system...
SATA 2 - TOSHIBA MK2561GSYN 250GB
SATA 3 - WD Blue 1TB
SATA 4 - WD Blue 4TB

 

[rgd1101]

how full are the ssd?
try unconnected all the other ssd?
check the ssd health?
check cpu temp?
brand and model of the psu?

 

[stagefright]

Hello! Thank you so much for your response!
Prior to the OS reinstall the main Sabrant SSD was around 40% full, now due to it holding Windows.old it's about 80%.
The Samsung Evo is entirely used for games, and sits at around 75% usage.
Other drives are HDD...
TOSHIBA - 45%
WD 1TB - 80%
WD 4TB - 15%

I haven't tried connecting the other drives. I'll attempt that now and post an update in the next reply.

What software do you recommend to check the SSD health?

CPU temps are OK. 34C Idle doesn't ever get too toasty. Watercooled by a Corsair H110i RGB PRO XT.

PSU is an EVGA SuperNova 650 G2

Thank you.

how full are the ssd?
try unconnected all the other ssd?
check the ssd health?
check cpu temp?
brand and model of the psu?

 

[stagefright]

May I add - by stating ''computer takes a lot longer for things to process'', this includes web pages, which will take ages to load, and will crash even before loading at times. It's pretty much impossible to do anything without the computer bugging out.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Firstly I would unplug everything you don't need right now, peripherals, your extra drives. Where is CS-GO and Steam installed, your OS drive or storage drive?

 

[Nighthawk117]

Also, in case you haven't already. Hit start and type View Reliability History and see if the reliability monitor has anything in it that might shed some light on the issue. It would also be worth checking Event Viewer>>>Windows Logs>>>System.

 

[stagefright]

how full are the ssd?
try unconnected all the other ssd?
check the ssd health?
check cpu temp?
brand and model of the psu?

I've performed the SSD health check, here are the results
https://snipboard.io/TrU2wm.jpg
https://snipboard.io/RBSAMT.jpg

I will move on to unplugging the non-necessary drives from the system now.

 

[stagefright]

Firstly I would unplug everything you don't need right now, peripherals, your extra drives. Where is CS-GO and Steam installed, your OS drive or storage drive?

Hello! Thanks for your input! I will try that now.
CS:GO is installed on the Samsung EVO drive. ( SATA - Samsung EVO 850 250GB)
Steam is installed on the Sabrent Drive. (M.2 - Sabrent 500GB)

I've also attached screenshots from the Event Viewer Logs (Filtered by Warnings & Errors), as well as Reliability History data from the day of the OS reinstall.
Looking at these logs I'm guessing the disks are at fault?

https://snipboard.io/UQfgvT.jpg
https://snipboard.io/02Po7J.jpg

I will unplug all peripherals and HDD's now. I'll post an update in the next post.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Is disk 3 the Sabrent drive with Windows on it? Anything hardware wise change about this PC recently, is the drive new at all?

 

[stagefright]

Is disk 3 the Sabrent drive with Windows on it? Anything hardware wise change about this PC recently, is the drive new at all?

Disk 3 is the Samsung EVO, and doesn't contain anything but a few games on it. (CS:GO, PUBG, BeamNG, COD BO)
No recent hardware changes. This problem literally came out of nowhere it seems...
I've had the Samsung drive for around 4.5 years now. Use to be my main OS drive, till about a year ago when I installed my Sabrent M.2 and reinstalled the OS.

Timeline for the past year or so:
3 Months Ago - Upgraded my old Corsair H110i Cooler to an H110i PRO XT RGB
1 Year ago - Installed Sabrent M.2 Drive
1.5 Years ago - Switched from a 6700K to a 7700K, at the same time swapping from an ASUS Prime Z170 to my Maximus IX.

 

[Nighthawk117]

It's a tricky one, I would unplug the other drives first and see if that has any impact. Nothing from your smart stats that suggests an obvious hardware issue with either of those drives, I have a Sammy 850 Evo as well and your stats are fairly similar to mine.

Assuming you don't have motherboard issues for a moment, I have had problems caused by a dodgy SATA cable before, also had a faulty SATA port once as well which caused the PC to randomly freeze when something was plugged into it.

 

[DRagor]

Does the BIOS slowness is repeatable? If yes, then it could be caused by faulty USB device (keyboard being top suspect). So I would disconnect ALL USB devices except mouse and go to BIOS (using either PS/2 keyboard or through Windows restart to UEFI option). If that would fix the problem then one of the disconnected devices is the source.

 

[stagefright]

It's a tricky one, I would unplug the other drives first and see if that has any impact. Nothing from your smart stats suggests an obvious hardware issue with either of those drives, I have a Sammy 850 Evo as well and your stats are fairly similar to mine.

Assuming you don't have motherboard issues for a moment, I have had problems caused by a dodgy SATA cable before, also had a faulty SATA port once as well which caused the PC to randomly freeze when something was plugged into it.

Hello again Nighthawk, I had a play around with the system late last night. I must say, this is getting more and more strange for me.

• I've unplugged all of the drives apart from the Sabrent & Samsung.
• I decided to completely format the Samsung drive (only the one that holds a couple of games), I've tried to reinstall CS:GO on the Samsung drive, the same problem occurs... It downloads the whole game, then freezes and stops responding upon trying to install it.
• I then tried to install the game on the Sabrent OS drive, works like a charm, has no issues what so ever and the game boots and runs.

HOWEVER

• When I unplug the Samsung drive and try to boot the system with just the Sabrent drive, the computer won't POST, and I'm stuck with a blinking underscore on a black screen.
• I've selected it as the boot drive from the BIOS manually and the same problem persists.

At this point I'm happy to just scrap the Samsung drive and buy a new one, however, I'm unable to do so if I can't boot into my OS without it.

Any advice?

 

[stagefright]

Does the BIOS slowness is repeatable? If yes, then it could be caused by faulty USB device (keyboard being top suspect). So I would disconnect ALL USB devices except mouse and go to BIOS (using either PS/2 keyboard or through Windows restart to UEFI option). If that would fix the problem then one of the disconnected devices is the source.

Thank you so much for the reply

The BIOS seems to be running fine now, and I can't repeat this issue.

Please read the above post with regards to the current state of the problem.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Hello again Nighthawk, I had a play around with the system late last night. I must say, this is getting more and more strange for me.

• I've unplugged all of the drives apart from the Sabrent & Samsung.
• I decided to completely format the Samsung drive (only the one that holds a couple of games), I've tried to reinstall CS:GO on the Samsung drive, the same problem occurs... It downloads the whole game, then freezes and stops responding upon trying to install it.
• I then tried to install the game on the Sabrent OS drive, works like a charm, has no issues what so ever and the game boots and runs.

HOWEVER

• When I unplug the Samsung drive and try to boot the system with just the Sabrent drive, the computer won't POST, and I'm stuck with a blinking underscore on a black screen.
• I've selected it as the boot drive from the BIOS manually and the same problem persists.

At this point I'm happy to just scrap the Samsung drive and buy a new one, however, I'm unable to do so if I can't boot into my OS without it.

Any advice?

Something seems messed up with the way your Windows is configured. Do you have another PC and a memory stick handy to create a USB boot drive using the Windows Media Creation Tool, you can try repairing your Windows setup. Still not certain the drive is faulty, could also be bad SATA cable or SATA port. One would hope it's not the latter as that's a really nice board.

 

[DRagor]

HOWEVER

• When I unplug the Samsung drive and try to boot the system with just the Sabrent drive, the computer won't POST, and I'm stuck with a blinking underscore on a black screen.
• I've selected it as the boot drive from the BIOS manually and the same problem persists.

It could be that one of partitions necessary for Windows (though not the boot one) is on Samsung drive and that's why it stops booting without it. Easy to check it - just look what partitions are on Samsung.

 

[stagefright]

Something seems messed up with the way your Windows is configured. Do you have another PC and a memory stick handy to create a USB boot drive using the Windows Media Creation Tool, you can try repairing your Windows setup. Still not certain the drive is faulty, could also be bad SATA cable or SATA port. One would hope it's not the latter as that's a really nice board.

It could be that one of partitions necessary for Windows (though not the boot one) is on Samsung drive and that's why it stops booting without it. Easy to check it - just look what partitions are on Samsung.

Hello boys, after a few hours of messing around with it. I eventually got it to work. I think you're both right in the fact that it was some weird Windows issue alongside the disk partitions.
I've reinstalled the OS and everything works perfectly.

Thank you so much for your input!
Have a wonderful year!

 

[Nighthawk117]

Ah cool, glad you got it working. Thanks for letting us know