Question Installed new RAM and then got "Critical Process Died" ?

[schofield01]

Hi,

PC
Windows 10
AMD Ryzen 5 3600
Asus GTX 1660Ti
RAM Kingston Fury 32GB (2x16 GB)
Motherboard Asus Prime B450M-K

I recently installed two RAM sticks (replaced TForce 16 GB (2x8GB)) and upon start up the pc wouldn’t boot and turned off. [Edit] I also had a Dell display link with mouse, keyboard, LAN, video plugged into the pc when turned on.

I looked up several threads to get advice on starting the pc up - I replaced the old RAM and removed/reinserted the motherboard battery, started and got to the bios, booted with the saved bios, then got to a critical error message screen

From here I looked up other threads as the pc wouldn’t auto repair, nor could I proceed with any of the standard command prompt repair options.

I tried resetting windows and that wouldn’t allow me to proceed, tried booting in safe mode and it also wouldn’t proceed.

I’ve attempted to follow the advice on using windows image creation tool (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-upgrade/f7a8808c-bace-4ff3-a5ac-e9070f5de938) to generate an ISO onto a USB to boot windows, however the laptop im using to run this for some reason won’t show me the option to install to a flash drive (it just automatically attempts to install to C drive).

Previously I saved a backup image onto an external hard drive, but I’m unsure how to use this (I’ve never had to retrieve data from a backup) in the current advanced options section of the ‘critical process died’ menu?

If all options are exhausted, what is the process of reformatting the pc (without the original windows serial - it was a custom build with windows pre installed)?

Any advice or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Darkbreeze]

"ASUS Prime" is not a motherboard model. What is the ACTUAL model?

 

[schofield01]

"ASUS Prime" is not a motherboard model. What is the ACTUAL model?

Apologies, I’ve updated the post, mb is Prime B450M-K

 

[Darkbreeze]

You don't "install" to a flash drive. You will need to create bootable media using a different computer AND you will NEED to choose the "create media for use with another computer" option when you do so. Very clearly outlined in ALL of the clean install guides. Then, you will need to attach the flash drive to one of the USB ports on the motherboard, go into the BIOS and either set that flash drive as the bootable device OR choose the one time boot override option on the save and exit tab of the BIOS, selecting that flash drive as the drive to use for the temporary override.

That is how you initiate a Windows installation.

Clean install guide at the following link and please, start from scratch, create new media, follow ALL of the directions, do not skip ANYTHING thinking you know a better way. You don't. There is ONE way to do it properly and this is it.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

As to the memory, are you saying you have the same problem with BOTH different memory kits? Neither kit will work, even if you do a hard reset of the BIOS after changing kits? Have you tried the memory individually, with only ONE DIMM installed at a time in each of the two memory slots to see if it works that way and is only not working when both are installed? Did this system EVER work normally, and just started having problems out of the blue or problems didn't start until you tried changing memory?

What are the actual model numbers of the two different memory kits? Is the memory from BOTH kits memory that came together in ONE kit, or are any of the kits made up of memory that was purchased as single sticks regardless of whether those single sticks were the same model or not?

What is the current motherboard BIOS version? For B450 platforms, memory was a VERY BIG problem early on, and even later on in some cases, but in most cases later BIOS versions cleaned a lot of that up so if you are on an older or original BIOS version, that might be your entire problem. So what BIOS version is currently installed?

Does this system still have the ability to reach the BIOS even or do you simply get nothing, no POST at all, when you power on?