[SOLVED] Motherboard Causing Numerous Issues?

[Whitefog]

Hey everyone, used the forums a lot in the past to diagnose some other issues but I can't find anything that would fall under this specific issue.

Long story short, my wife wanted to update her Windows7 to Windows10 to play Mass Effect: Legendary edition. Her computer ran pretty well up until we started trying to do anything with it (with a noteable exception: see below). When we tried to update using the windows media creator to simply update her PC to Windows10, it would crash every single time while attempting to do a Windows Update (which so far as I could tell was required). Eventually, we ended up just installing the W10 installer on a USB drive and formatting her SSD, and installed Windows 10 that way.

After the installation, her computer runs extremely slow. There aren't any drivers for the Processor/Chipset that are better than what comes with Windows 10 (MSI doesn't have anything better on their site for it), we've installed the NVidia drivers (which helped a very small bit) but things are still slow. So slow that moving her mouse too quickly causes it to drop frames across the screens.

Here's where things get a little off.

She still cannot use Windows update. It hangs every time she tries to do it. Also, in DxDiag, under her processor, it shows n/a. It shows it on the System page in the Control Panel, but not DxDiag. Also, it shows her Bios as 'V22.4' (and that's all). In comparison, mine (which is the same motherboard) is- BIOS Date: 05/12/15 15:30:43 Ver: 04.06.05.

Attempting to Flash/Update her BIOS leads nowhere. We have it on the USB, we plug it in and select it from the BIOS screen for updates, and rather than showing a screen that says that the BIOS is updating and not to turn off the computer or anything... it just freezes. Nothing. Have to hard reboot.

Lastly, she's been having CMOS battery issues for awhile. If we ever lose power, in order to get her PC to actually boot, we need to restore to defaults in the BIOS and then adjust the boot order (she has other Hard Drives, but the OS is on her SSD) to the SSD to be the primary boot.

Again, her computer worked great under Windows 7, but my gut tells me that the Motherboard has some sort of major issue (especially after the failed BIOS update).

My hardware is basically similar to hers, and my computer runs better following the update to W10. I have 32GB of RAM and a different graphics card but even then I can't imagine it running that awful and slow just from a few small differences.

Edit- forgot to mention. She has one of those Huion tablet-monitors for art, and in attempting to install the drivers for it, it crashes the PC. Get the BSoD every time without fail. Not sure if it's relevant but in conjunction with the Windows Update issues, thought it might be.

Any thoughts?

Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950
RAM: 16 GB
Processor: AMD FX-4350 Quad-Core Processor
PSU: EVGA 750 G3
HDD: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

first, i would try letting MSI's Live Update app search for any possible updates.
if any new BIOS are available it should offer another method of installing it vs the failed direct flash.

i would also;
reset BIOS to optimized defaults and
go for a fresh install of Windows again via USB.
making sure you have the latest x64 install package directly from Microsoft,
disconnect all drives but the main OS drive,
and disconnect from the internet before starting the process.
after install completes
see if Windows is functioning properly(allowing updates, driver installs, etc).
if so, run the Live Update app again.

if nothing helps, i'd say it's definitely past time for a full system upgrade anyway.

 

[Whitefog]

if nothing helps, i'd say it's definitely past time for a full system upgrade anyway.

Yeah that's kind of what we were thinking too. We'll give that a try and if no-go we'll look into the process of putting together something new. Now I just need to convince her that I need an upgrade too...

 

[Whitefog]

So as an update, the MSI live updater threw errors and bluescreened the computer as well. During one of these various attempts, we received the following error: DRIVER VERIFIER IOMANAGER VIOLATION.

So after some quick internet searching, we found that the Driver Verifier could be the issue.

[Fixed] DRIVER VERIFIER IOMANAGER VIOLATION - Driver Easy

Your PC meets BSOD problem with stop code: DRIVER VERIFIER IOMANAGER VIOLATION. Don't worry, you can get solutions from this article.

www.drivereasy.com

After Step 1 (delete existing settings for the driver verifier) we rebooted and things ran great. Processor was found and all.

So I was quick to jump to the Motherboard being the issue but I've never even heard of this Driver Verifier before.

Anyway it's fixed, so thank you for suggesting the Live Updater because that inadvertently led us to the answer!

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i've seen a few times now where Driver Verifier has been identified as causing strange issues within the OS.

but seems odd that it would still cause problems even after a fresh OS install.
maybe one of the older hardware components has a driver that doesn't pass it's scans for some reason.

will have to keep that in mind for future problems.