Load optimized defaults in BIOS broke my PC

[steventhehro]

I was going to completely reformat my PC so I decided right before I do that, I should reset my bios. I rebooted, went into my bios and loaded optimized defaults..saved and exited. I have been unable to do anything since.

It either freezes at the Gigabyte splash page or freezes at the same page with "Preparing automatic repair" at the bottom.

I have reset the CMOS battery and selected the option to restore and boot on the screen but it immediately flashes to "RECOVERY Your PC/Device needs to be repaired. Error code 0xc0000017"

If i reboot from there I just get right back to GIGABYTE preparing automatic repair or just GIGABYTE slash screen.

I've gotten back into the BIOS and tried hitting the use previous values button but to no avail.

PC specs:


PSU: Corsair RM 650W
OS: Windows 10
Motherboard: Gigabyte z97x Gaming 5
CPU: i7 4790k
Memory: 8GB G.Skill
Hard Drive: SSD w/ Windows + 500GB Western Digital Black
Video Card: R9 390X

 

[Sedivy]

Changing bios settings drastically or flashing bios update can do this to a windows installation. But, I don't understand why you're trying to repair it if you're reformatting anyway?
Just get into bios, set it to boot from usb first, before HD, then reboot with your windows install usb plugged in and reformat/reinstall windows, just as you planned.

 

[steventhehro]

Changing bios settings drastically or flashing bios update can do this to a windows installation. But, I don't understand why you're trying to repair it if you're reformatting anyway?
Just get into bios, set it to boot from usb first, before HD, then reboot with your windows install usb plugged in and reformat/reinstall windows, just as you planned.

When I first built this computer, changes were made in the BIOS. Very slight overclocking and what not.

I wanted to absolutely reset the computer to factory defaults, hence why I went into BIOS.

I went in and found an option to boot from a profile that been successful 5 > times and I got back in. I have since use the USB to wipe the partitions and am currently installing windows. I would still like to find a way to get my BIOS reset though.

 

[Sedivy]

Ahh I see. I wouldn't switch back to factory defaults in that case (at least not without an update to latest bios version). Whatever works is your goal at this point. If the no-OC settings aren't stable anymore, don't attempt to force back to those values. You're not changing hardware, right? This is just windows reformat?

 

[steventhehro]

Ahh I see. I wouldn't switch back to factory defaults in that case (at least not without an update to latest bios version). Whatever works is your goal at this point. If the no-OC settings aren't stable anymore, don't attempt to force back to those values. You're not changing hardware, right? This is just windows reformat?

No, not changing hardware. Just trying to reset and hoping that little gaming issues I've been having will disappear in the process. After the reformat, things are feeling better for sure. I didn't get to do much testing, however, so I can't say for sure.

I just figured it would be best to totally reset..but if I have to leave the BIOS alone I will, especially if everything is great as is.

 

[Sedivy]

Yeah if you're on latest bios and you don't have constant instability and crashes, and your temperatures aren't off the charts, I would leave it as is. You can play with the clocks and voltages and while I would think that optimized defaults couldn't possibly introduce more instability, that's clearly not the case here or maybe optimized defaults aren't the one that are supposed to be there for whatever reason.

 

[steventhehro]

Yeah if you're on latest bios and you don't have constant instability and crashes, and your temperatures aren't off the charts, I would leave it as is. You can play with the clocks and voltages and while I would think that optimized defaults couldn't possibly introduce more instability, that's clearly not the case here or maybe optimized defaults aren't the one that are supposed to be there for whatever reason.

Well the constant instability may be an issue now. Just had to restart for a program to complete installation..computer kept shutting on and off (it's done that for quite some time, but sometimes goes weeks or over a month without a hiccup) and then came back up with the freezing splash screen and another time came up and said it could not boot with the current settings and asked if I wanted to do optimal defaults and boot or optimal defaults and reboot or go to settings. I chose optimal and boot. Didn't work. So went back into BIOS and did the same thing I had done before by selecting "load profile" and choosing the profile that had 5 > success attempts. Restarted more but eventually ended up going through and here I am typing this response on it.

 

[Sedivy]

Ouch. Ok. How about this. From optimized defaults what did you change? Did you just overclock CPU? Or CPU and memory? Did you change anything else?

 

[steventhehro]

Ouch. Ok. How about this. From optimized defaults what did you change? Did you just overclock CPU? Or CPU and memory? Did you change anything else?

Okay..well here's the problem haha. When I built the PC in August 2015, I had a guy who is known in my community (ESEA for CSGO) for helping people smooth out their game and optimize performance remote in and change things and walk me through stuff "okay now go to this tab and click this, turn this off, and turn this to 1.5" kind of stuff..and to be frank, I don't even know what he had me do lol.

 

[Sedivy]

Gah. Ok. If you go into bios, and go into your overclocking menu, it should give you an option to switch just your cpu back down to default frequency (non-OC) and voltage. It should be just a single preset. Can you hit that default value and see if it boots? If not, reload the current one.