Hello. My PC has been working fine for about 4 years now. It recently started having issues when it randomly crashed while I was playing DOOM. This started the pattern of my computer crashing every time I played a game. I thought it was just DOOM but, upon playing Minecraft, Hollow Knight, and even Kongerate.com, my computer continued to crash. I started doing scans to find out the solution to these crashes. I scanned my memory, drives, updated my graphics drivers (Nvidia), all while using Windows integrated scans through Command Prompt (scf /scannow, etc.), or otherwise through their repair options with Shift + Restart (excluding my graphics driver's update which I did through Nvidia's Geforce app).
None of these scans resulted in any solutions or repairs, and instead, dug me deeper into a hole of problems. Various scans would point out that I needed to unlock my drive or repair a file, something along those lines. These instructions sent me down rabbit holes that led to more problems and more confusion.
After the failure with scans, I decided it was best to go the hardware route and start taking out and moving things around my computer. Considering I crashed every time I played a game, my first thought was to move my GPU to a different PCI slot. I was hoping this would work, but instead, it made everything much much worse. After doing this my computer started crashing on boot up. It is able to go through the BIOS options screen but after that, it crashes, either by restarting itself in an attempt to try and repair itself or just by crashing and not restarting. Even more confused, I attempted to move it back to the previous PCI slot, but it persisted to crash. At this point, I had almost no idea what to do so I started unplugging my drives and seeing if it fixed anything. It did not. I removed all of my RAM and individually placed them back, one ram for one boot, to see if it was a ram issue. This did not work. Each time it crashes, it either 1) gives me a different error message every time (I've noticed a trend of Kernel being an issue in the error but it is not consistent), 2) goes into automatic repair, or 3) stays off.
My last idea was the possibility that my Windows was corrupt. I tried reinstalling Windows with my Windows 8 discs and with the use of the windows installation media (flash drive). Both of these resulted in telling me that the installation media is detected and needs to be disconnected before it can update windows. This is one of the most confusing parts for me because I am trying to reinstall windows, with my windows disc, but it is telling me I cannot because it detects windows installation media that isn't even in my computer. If I try it with the installation media and my windows code, it again tells me to take out the installation media, boot up, and then insert the installation media. I can not do this because I can not boot up my computer all the way.
TL;DR - My computer crashed while playing games, after numerous scans and failed attempts to repair, I switched my GPU's PCI slot and it now crashes every time on boot up. I also receive a different error message for every crash or it just tries to unsuccessfully repair itself.
At this point, I have run out of ideas of how to fix my computer. Any and all advice or solutions would be greatly, greatly, appreciated.
A few key points:
-My computer only crashed while playing games, it was fine otherwise.
-Until I switched my GPU I was able to boot up my computer completely, but after switching the PCI slot I could no longer boot all the way.
-Every time I crashed before I switched my GPU it resulted in a different error message and continued to with boot up crashes after moving my GPU
-I updated from Windows 8 to Windows 10 a few years ago, that is why I'm attempting to reinstall with a Windows 8 disc and code.
My Rig:
-OS: Windows 10
-GPU: GTX 970 4G
-PSU: Seasonic SS-620GM Active PFC F3 (FDB Fan) (M12II-620Bronze) 620 Watts, 80 Plus Bronze
-Motherboard: PRIME Z270-A
-CPU: Intel i5-7600k @ 3.80GHz (LGA1151)
-Drives: Samsung SSD 860 EVO (1TB) (contains OS), Seagate ST1000DM003-1ER162 (1TB) (HDD)
-Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 (2x4GB), (2x8GB) 24GB total, all 3000MHz
None of these scans resulted in any solutions or repairs, and instead, dug me deeper into a hole of problems. Various scans would point out that I needed to unlock my drive or repair a file, something along those lines. These instructions sent me down rabbit holes that led to more problems and more confusion.
After the failure with scans, I decided it was best to go the hardware route and start taking out and moving things around my computer. Considering I crashed every time I played a game, my first thought was to move my GPU to a different PCI slot. I was hoping this would work, but instead, it made everything much much worse. After doing this my computer started crashing on boot up. It is able to go through the BIOS options screen but after that, it crashes, either by restarting itself in an attempt to try and repair itself or just by crashing and not restarting. Even more confused, I attempted to move it back to the previous PCI slot, but it persisted to crash. At this point, I had almost no idea what to do so I started unplugging my drives and seeing if it fixed anything. It did not. I removed all of my RAM and individually placed them back, one ram for one boot, to see if it was a ram issue. This did not work. Each time it crashes, it either 1) gives me a different error message every time (I've noticed a trend of Kernel being an issue in the error but it is not consistent), 2) goes into automatic repair, or 3) stays off.
My last idea was the possibility that my Windows was corrupt. I tried reinstalling Windows with my Windows 8 discs and with the use of the windows installation media (flash drive). Both of these resulted in telling me that the installation media is detected and needs to be disconnected before it can update windows. This is one of the most confusing parts for me because I am trying to reinstall windows, with my windows disc, but it is telling me I cannot because it detects windows installation media that isn't even in my computer. If I try it with the installation media and my windows code, it again tells me to take out the installation media, boot up, and then insert the installation media. I can not do this because I can not boot up my computer all the way.
TL;DR - My computer crashed while playing games, after numerous scans and failed attempts to repair, I switched my GPU's PCI slot and it now crashes every time on boot up. I also receive a different error message for every crash or it just tries to unsuccessfully repair itself.
At this point, I have run out of ideas of how to fix my computer. Any and all advice or solutions would be greatly, greatly, appreciated.
A few key points:
-My computer only crashed while playing games, it was fine otherwise.
-Until I switched my GPU I was able to boot up my computer completely, but after switching the PCI slot I could no longer boot all the way.
-Every time I crashed before I switched my GPU it resulted in a different error message and continued to with boot up crashes after moving my GPU
-I updated from Windows 8 to Windows 10 a few years ago, that is why I'm attempting to reinstall with a Windows 8 disc and code.
My Rig:
-OS: Windows 10
-GPU: GTX 970 4G
-PSU: Seasonic SS-620GM Active PFC F3 (FDB Fan) (M12II-620Bronze) 620 Watts, 80 Plus Bronze
-Motherboard: PRIME Z270-A
-CPU: Intel i5-7600k @ 3.80GHz (LGA1151)
-Drives: Samsung SSD 860 EVO (1TB) (contains OS), Seagate ST1000DM003-1ER162 (1TB) (HDD)
-Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 (2x4GB), (2x8GB) 24GB total, all 3000MHz
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