Multitude of Problems With Windows 8.1

[Ephecs]

Hold onto your butts, this is going to be a long one.

I've had my PC for over a year now, almost two, after building it. I run Windows 8.1 on it, almost since it's been running. However, months after building it, it began running into some issues on startup -- the dreaded automatic repair loop, obscenely long restart times for updates, etc. Eventually, my PC failed to boot at all and just got stuck on the blue Automatic Repair screen. And, instead of fixing it immediately, I just left it alone. Stopped using the computer.

These past few weeks I decided to revisit it because I had put a considerable amount of money into the project and it seemed wasteful to let it sit there broken. I decided to make a different USB Bootable Drive to reinstall Windows 8.1, this time on a Windows laptop borrowed from a friend. I did this because the first bootable drive I made was on a Mac laptop, and I figured that may have caused some problems (my computer tower does not have a CD drive, so this is my only option to reinstall the operating system). Thus, I re-downloaded the Windows 8.1 ISO from Microsoft, made a bootable drive using Rufus, stuck it into my PC and reinstalled completely.

Things got a little better, but... Not really. Once I reinstalled, I tried re-downloading some drivers and such but my PC seemed to be having trouble installing them. I downloaded the genie for my wifi adapter and, for some reason, the installer didn't create a shortcut or application for it anywhere. I learned that certain drivers cannot be installed completely if Windows is not completely up to date. So, I went to Windows Update to check, and I ran into problems there. Windows Update repeatedly got stuck checking for updates and never came to a conclusion. So, now I have a brand spankin' new install of Windows, can't download and install drivers correctly, and still cannot restart the PC correctly without taking obscenely long (upwards of an hour or more).

Just a lot of strange things happening with downloading applications and drivers. Why?

What is going on here? I feel like all of these issues are coming from a single source, I've missed something during installation, something. I have even considered that maybe this is a hardware incompatibility problem (this may not be the case as I am no computer wiz), so I have posted my specs down below. Anything would be helpful. Will confirm answer when a solution arises.

Thank you for reading. If anything is unclear or if this was posted inconsiderately, let me know. I'll be sure to provide any extra information.

PC Specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 760k
Motherboard: MSI A78M-E35
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R7 260X
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance
Hard Drive: 1TB Western Digital Black
Power Supply: 430W Corsair CX430

 

[Colif]

okay, try this and see if it helps
right click start button
choose command prompt (admin)
type SFC /scannow and press enter
once its complete, type this exactly as it is (spacing is important):
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and press enter

SFC cleans and fixes system files, DISM cleans the files SFC uses to compare files, so if sfc failed before, try again after dism and restart PC
if you downloaded all the drivers for PC then it should let you install them.

then try windows update

 

[Ephecs]

okay, try this and see if it helps
right click start button
choose command prompt (admin)
type SFC /scannow and press enter
once its complete, type this exactly as it is (spacing is important):
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and press enter

SFC cleans and fixes system files, DISM cleans the files SFC uses to compare files, so if sfc failed before, try again after dism and restart PC
if you downloaded all the drivers for PC then it should let you install them.

then try windows update

Did what you said. The first command was completed without any problems, the second as well. Computer froze afterward, had to restart. Went into Windows Update, hit Check for Updates, and it has been going for roughly... Two hours now or so. Is this normal? I know there are about 200 updates my computer is behind on, but this long? Should I do something to intervene?

 

[Colif]

200 updates? Win 10 spoils me, cumulative updates ftw

I am not sure what they did with older updates but since November Win 8.1 has been on cumulative updates as well. You get 1 a month once you get to this stage: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3128983/microsoft-windows/how-to-prepare-for-the-windows-781-patchocalypse.html

Its possible they have rolled all the old patches into one big one so you might be best leaving PC for a while and have a look in task manager and see if its actually getting anything via network activity

 

[Ephecs]

200 updates? Win 10 spoils me, cumulative updates ftw

I am not sure what they did with older updates but since November Win 8.1 has been on cumulative updates as well. You get 1 a month once you get to this stage: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3128983/microsoft-windows/how-to-prepare-for-the-windows-781-patchocalypse.html

Its possible they have rolled all the old patches into one big one so you might be best leaving PC for a while and have a look in task manager and see if its actually getting anything via network activity

As I mentioned, I did what you said and shortly after, my PC froze. Had to shut off via power button. Now, the PC turns on fine but nothing on the display. I've heard the common way to fix this is to reset the Cmos battery, but I can't imagine what would have caused this to happen. Have tried turning PC off and on multiple times, still no display.

Honestly, at this point, if there was a way for me to do a complete wipe of my hard drive and start all over on Windows 10, I would. Windows 8 has thrown problems at me constantly since I've had it, lol.

 

[Colif]

You would need to buy a licence to 10 but once you had that its pretty easy to do a clean install

On another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB or DVD

You don't need to wipe drive before, it is part of the process
change boot order in BIOS so USB or DVD is first, hdd second
boot from installer
follow this guide: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-windows-10-clean-install.html

win 10 updates much easier, max of 4 a month.. ever. Most months you will only get 2 updates, drivers are extras.

There comes a time where the amount of updates needed to run windows is so many its easier to upgrade, I upgraded from Vista to Win 7 when it would take days to get to up to date. Win 7 now has 400 odd updates.. win 8.1 has 200. Its like its an incentive to upgrade if your PC can take it. MIcrosoft are trying to avoid that trap with win 10 by releasing a new version every 8 months and rolling all the changes into it so patches never get too big to download

You can upgrade now if you want and buy the licence when you have the money, win 10 can run unactivated for a long time and you only have a few limitations running it like that. None that stop you using it. All you need to do is run installer and when you reach screen asking for a licence, click the "I don't have a key" link and win 10 will continue to install and then remain unactivated until you enter a key.