[SOLVED] PC crashed and now won't boot beyond windows splash screen. AND upon reset it asks me to setup BIOS.

[Scott Perry]

Greetings! So, I bought Farcry 5 for Christmas on sale in steam. I had played it fine for about 18 hours in several sittings. I had an issue with it constantly asking me to run first time setup when pressing play. The final time I pressed cancel on this question, expecting it to stop trying to run and I could google why it's always asking me to run first time setup. However, it continued to run and even launched the game. Then where the opening screen should be the screen went black with tiny green dots all over it and the PC froze and crashed at that point leaving me no course of action but to reset.

Only when the pc reset the american megatrends bios options screen loaded with press F1 to run bios setup and F2 to load defaults. I pressed F2 and the PC started to boot windows 7 OS, however it gets to the windows logo screen and then it goes black and freezes. I can even hear a "click" as the HDD seems to be shut off.

So, I have done the following:

1. Replaced the BIOS battery incase it had run out and the bios was lost.
2. Flashed the BIOS with a fresh install of it.
3. unplugged the HDD and plugged in a second HDD with nothing but a clean install of win 7 on it to rule out HDD failure.
4. after I F2 or save n exit the bios, and the systems fails to load win 7, I reset and sometimes (not always) it goes to windows recovery screen where I am able to run the repair windows restart program, which takes ages and then fails with the error "restartrepairoffline"
5. I have used the win7 CD to boot from also but again it crashes at the logo screen.
6. I am able to boot in safe mode which is confusing me too.

I must say I am frustrated and perplexed by this, it feels like 2 separate issues, a failure with windows probably requiring a fresh install and a bios chip fail. However since using a different HD with win7 on it gives the same result I feel I can safely rule out a win7 fail and HD fail.

So is my BIOS broken? But then also the initial crash happened when running Farcry5 which is throwing me off a bit, how does a game interact with BIOS? The graphic glitch on crash could that be down to the GPU breaking?
But then if the GPU is broken how can I still have perfect display in safe mode etc? I dunno would it not just not display anything?

I am at the end of my understanding here and I have no clue what to do next, I have started looking into buying a new motherboard but its 6 years or more old socket 1366 so it seems hard to come by now.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[scout_03]

use the hdd maker software to test seams it have bad sector .

 

[Scott Perry]

Ok, but as I said I even tried a second HDD with a clean install of windows 7 on it and nothing else. And I get the same results. So do both HDDs have bad sectors?

 

[scout_03]

iin bios you read the version you did install also how hdd is detect in it .

 

[Scott Perry]

I flashed the bios to the latest version of it for my motherboard as per Asus support downloads center, The HDD is detected and setup correctly in Bios.

 

[scout_03]

try to use another sata cable from board to hdd .

 

[Scott Perry]

yep i have tried a different cable and tried it in every sata port on the mother board, i get the same result everytime 🙁

 

[scout_03]

could you list all your parts i seen some board but expensive for today games and did you try to check you gpu in another system .

 

[Scott Perry]

Asus Sabertooth x35 mobo
Intel i7 CPU
Corsair Vengeance RAM 12 gig
Geforce 670 Ti
Western digital 2000gig HD
(Also tried a second HD which boots fine on a working system so I know I rule out HD failure now.)

 

[Scott Perry]

Do you think it could be the GPU then? I will test that by trying it in this system later today and get back to you on that.

 

[scout_03]

on the board when it start does bios show current date and time since it ask you for bios set up also check in bios how all parts are detect .

 

[Scott Perry]

Yes, Originally I suspected the bios battery may have depleted so it was the first thing I changed. However before I changed the battery it did not ask me to setup time and date on bios. After battery change it did ask me. But only once directly after battery change. Now it remembers the time and date in bios always. It also detects all components. It is all setup perfectly and looks like it should be working correctly. I have no idea why it asks me to setup the bios all the time.

 

[scout_03]

try to strip system to minimal parts then get in bios and set it to is default values see if you ask you more after dont forget to apply change .

 

[Scott Perry]

I have set the bios to default values. It doesn't ask me for more. I have manually gone through every bios setting and made sure it is correct also. Tried all of this already.

Let me just ask, when you boot a computer the bios is responsible for activating the hardware correct? including the hard drive the OS is installed to right? My machine begins to boot to the point the windows logo comes onscreen and from there it should boot straight into the windows password login screen and be good. However a second or two after the logo screen comes on the hard drive disengages. Literally just a click and it stops making it's motorized sounds. At this exact point the boot up process terminates and the screen goes blank and there is no further activity from the machine accept the fans are still powered.

So my guess is that at the point where windows is supposed to kick in and boot up the login screen, the bios fails and cuts the hard drive off thus crashing the boot process. Do you think this could be the case?

 

[scout_03]

you could have a board issue there since it boot then stop what is specs of psu if you could try another in system to check if it not a power issue .

 

[Scott Perry]

An issue with the power supply? I have a Corsair Professional Series Gold AX 1200W Modular PSU (I was future proofing ok lol) ok I shall see if I have another PSU available to me and try that.

 

[scout_03]

on modular recheck if all cable are fully plug in on it and the boad i slight loose or cable not click in could also made issue .