Question Pc stopped working out of nowhere

[andrswallz]

Hi, new here, i had bought a prebuilt Windows 10 PC two months ago, had been using it just fine, changed my gpu and added an ssd and everything was great.
A week ago it started having problems booting up, it would go into preparing automatic repair loop and then if i was lucky it would start up normaly. But yesterday it didnt work out, and when i was finally able to get into repair it said CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED, now i cant even get to that screen anymore, i can get it to start automatic repair for a second and then it restarts. I can only get into my BIOS/UEFI

Tried booting Windows 10 from USB but it goes into a black screen with a blinking hash and then restarts, then tried installing Linux instead, it says try or install ubuntu, i press enter, and the same thing happens, black screen then restarts.

So now im assuming its nothing to do with OS`s and it might be a faulty component, or maybe my usb is faulty im not sure, i also dont have spare pieces to try on my pc

Pc was working just fine before
CPU: amd ryzen 3 3100
GPU: Radeon RX 6600
MOBO: ASRock b450m pro4
4 sticks of 4 RAM each

 

[DavidM012]

What power supply exact make/model/age?

I suspect ram so I'd start with that. Take out all 4 dimms and try them 1 at a time in socket a2 'til you find one that works (will load windows setup. 4gb is the minimum but it should work) System posts so it probably isn't the mobo and rarely do cpus simply fail for no reason.

What are the dimms exactly? Make/Model/Part Number / writing on the label if it has any.

S'pose you could read your cpu vCore to see if it's within norms.

There's an image to the screen so doesn't sound like gpu error

What drive(s) are attached to your system?

What Case, Cooler and fans are you using?

 

[andrswallz]

What power supply exact make/model/age?

I suspect ram so I'd start with that. Take out all 4 dimms and try them 1 at a time in socket a2 'til you find one that works (will load windows setup. 4gb is the minimum but it should work) System posts so it probably isn't the mobo and rarely do cpus simply fail for no reason.

What are the dimms exactly? Make/Model/Part Number / writing on the label if it has any.

S'pose you could read your cpu vCore to see if it's within norms.

There's an image to the screen so doesn't sound like gpu error

What drive(s) are attached to your system?

What Case, Cooler and fans are you using?

Couldnt find the brand so maybe its generic but its an atx 650w psu, has a blue light on fan and has braided cables.

Alright ill try the ram tomorrow, but what should i boot? My old windows ssd, or the bootable usb drive?
Rams are Ballistix sport ddr4 @2400 mhz

Sorry not sure what cpu Vcore is.

The Pc came with a 180gb ssd and a 1tb hdd, i later installed an m.2 ssd, ive tried booting with some of them disconected, but never all, also unplugged all usbs.

Sorry for not knowing all the details since the pc was prebuilt, but the case is quite an old one, the psu is on the top, and the case has handles so it can open from the sides, only has 2 chasis fans one front bringing air in and one back getting the air out, 1 cpu stock cooler and fan, and the psu fan.

 

[DavidM012]

At this juncture 'whatever will boot' is good enough you are only looking to see which of the dimms may be defective. This approach has a drawback though: If they all have a problem or if it isn't the dimms there's not a lot of useful information to work with.

It's just in case it might be one or two or three of the dimms not 4 of them. Just the only obvious thing you can practically do anyway.

vCore is the operating voltage of your cpu the value will be there somewhere in the bios. If you aren't familiar enough with your PC to troubleshoot, you'll have to go to a shop.

 

[andrswallz]

At this juncture 'whatever will boot' is good enough you are only looking to see which of the dimms may be defective. This approach has a drawback though: If they all have a problem or if it isn't the dimms there's not a lot of useful information to work with.

It's just in case it might be one or two or three of the dimms not 4 of them. Just the only obvious thing you can practically do anyway.

vCore is the operating voltage of your cpu the value will be there somewhere in the bios. If you aren't familiar enough with your PC to troubleshoot, you'll have to go to a shop.

True, anything would be helpful, tried all 4 rams but doesnt seem to be the problem either, cant boot into anything, tries to boot the OS but then restarts. Sometimes it doesnt even do that but i assume its because its trying to boot from dvd drive.

Then i tried unplughing all drives and booting ubuntu off usb, was able to get into memtest and saw nothing wrong, but still couldn't install or try ubuntu.

Cpu says 4 cores running @ 3636 Mhz 1100 mV
Also might have someone i can take the pc to.

 

[Nighthawk117]

changed my gpu and added an ssd and everything was great.
A week ago it started having problems booting up, it would go into preparing automatic repair loop and then if i was lucky it would start up normaly

I would remove the new GPU and put it in the old drive and see if the problems go away. If they do then that would suggest a problem with one of the new components.

 

[DavidM012]

I don't know what you're doing how could you install ubuntu if the drives were unplugged? Could load memtest... presumably windows setup loads off a usb?

You're confusing me PC stopped working out of nowhere is starting to sound more like did something but not sure what it was

boots to os and restarts... that could just be windows is corrupted somehow but the system is working and all you needed to do was run windows setup or something.

-clean install instructions

What else changed oh your gpu and drive.

well it seems like you're trying to learn new things while troubleshooting without unconfusing instructions so if you can get someone to look at it, I would.

Do you want to save any data from your old windows? For example etc. All sorts of things to think about and how. Have you registered your windows key with a ms account etc? Lots of details.

And your Target drive needs to be plugged in to install the operating system. Etc. Do you really know wot you're doing?

 

[andrswallz]

I would remove the new GPU and put it in the old drive and see if the problems go away. If they do then that would suggest a problem with one of the new components.

Only have the gpu and cpu doesnt have integrated graphics, and i never removed the old drive, only added.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Only have the gpu and cpu doesnt have integrated graphics, and i never removed the old drive, only added.

Are you still booting off the original drive?

 

[andrswallz]

I don't know what you're doing how could you install ubuntu if the drives were unplugged? Could load memtest... presumably windows setup loads off a usb?

You're confusing me PC stopped working out of nowhere is starting to sound more like did something but not sure what it was

boots to os and restarts... that could just be windows is corrupted somehow but the system is working and all you needed to do was run windows setup or something.

-clean install instructions

What else changed oh your gpu and drive.

well it seems like you're trying to learn new things while troubleshooting without unconfusing instructions so if you can get someone to look at it, I would.

Do you want to save any data from your old windows? For example etc. All sorts of things to think about and how. Have you registered your windows key with a ms account etc? Lots of details.

And your Target drive needs to be plugged in to install the operating system. Etc. Do you really know wot you're doing?

I only wanted to see if i could start the installation o try it, pressumably it can run on the usb.
And no windows doesnt load off of usb either, the most i can get is the blinking underscore on top left of screen, but it restarts right after.

Sure maybe i did something but as far as i know it was all software, before everything died i checked a few times to repair windows boot files but that showed nothing wrong.

Yeah ill probably take it to get checked.

I would like to keep as much as possible but at this point i dont care if i lose some stuff, i assume i can keep what was not on my boot drive. I also had my ms account and windows was activated as well.

Yeah i tried it both plugged and unplugged, was just trying anything now, maybe not, i was trying to see if it was easily identifiable online, but sure i can take my pc to someone else ig.

 

[andrswallz]

Are you still booting off the original drive?

Yep never changed it, just boots into windows automatic repair, and restarts after a second.

 

[DavidM012]

Often windows setup repair fails to diagnose or automatically fix windows problems sounds like your install got corrupted somehow.

to retrieve data you want is another kettle of fish needing a spare drive usually tbh if you take it to a shop they will not bother with the hassle of that good that you have already a microsoft account and stored your key.

Not sure why windows setup USB only reaches 'blinking cursor' stage on the screen - if your system works enough to boot windows startup repair it should be working enough to load windows setup from a usb.

There's nothing wrong with it besides a corrupt installation but windows setup won't load from usb? Don't know.

 

[andrswallz]

Often windows setup repair fails to diagnose or automatically fix windows problems sounds like your install got corrupted somehow.

to retrieve data you want is another kettle of fish needing a spare drive usually tbh if you take it to a shop they will not bother with the hassle of that good that you have already a microsoft account and stored your key.

Not sure why windows setup USB only reaches 'blinking cursor' stage on the screen - if your system works enough to boot windows startup repair it should be working enough to load windows setup from a usb.

There's nothing wrong with it besides a corrupt installation but windows setup won't load from usb? Don't know.

Yeah thats what i think too, but i think its strange that it wont boot off a usb either.

Yeah true, dont care if i lose a bunch of stuff tho, i just need a working pc at this point.

Yeah very weird that it does that, dont know what it is, i think the blinking cursor means that its opening up wibdows setup, and maybe for some reason it gets interrupted.
Yep corrupted install is what makes sense, but the rest doesnt.

Still i really apreciate the help, its helped me see some of the things that aren't the problem, i will keep trying stuff and update on what happens.

 

[DavidM012]

Make a new windows 10 setup usb?

 

[andrswallz]

Make a new windows 10 setup usb?

Sure, i can try another usb, just have to get one first. Also tried previous versions of windows 10 as well.

 

[DavidM012]

Well I don't know what version of windows you had installed my windows 21h1 fell apart and the media creation tool wasn't working, so I downloaded the iso from an external source, used rufus to make the usb and then did a clean install and then downloaded 22h2 from MS and did a clean install of windows 10 22h2.

Don't know what really happened to versions of things with windows 10 but don't want to go there anyway. Just a clean install of 22h2 worked for me and then keeping the setup usb up to date every few weeks in case anything else changed.

21h1 was the first time in years a windows version update or whatever overhaul they did, messed wit meh system.

 

[andrswallz]

Well I don't know what version of windows you had installed my windows 21h1 fell apart and the media creation tool wasn't working, so I downloaded the iso from an external source, used rufus to make the usb and then did a clean install and then downloaded 22h2 from MS and did a clean install of windows 10 22h2.

Don't know what really happened to versions of things with windows 10 but don't want to go there anyway. Just a clean install of 22h2 worked for me and then keeping the setup usb up to date every few weeks in case anything else changed.

21h1 was the first time in years a windows version update or whatever overhaul they did, messed wit meh system.

Not sure either but i had the automatic updates so id say the latest, and if it wasnt, would making a usb from that version help? I could try downloading other isos and trying.
Yeah i guess ill have a backup usb from now on just in case.
Very strange, sucks that stuff like that can just happen.

 

[DavidM012]

There ain't no instructions with it. I found 21h1 simply wouldn't automatically update to 22h2 at the time there was only the media creation tool on microsoft now there is 22h2 update assistant. So something got fixed since then, sort of but still no real explanation.

 

[andrswallz]

Just remembered something, on the windows 10 bootable usb i was able to get it to say a bunch of stuff about NTFS, and the last thing it said was trying to boot the bootx64.efi, then it restarted, not even a could not find booyx64 error.
Update: this happens when i set the boot option on my uefi to partition 2 of the usb.

 

[andrswallz]

Also if i select the usb partition 1 to boot, there are some dotted lines on the screen.
If i dont select anything and just let the post run then the ASRock logo stays on there for a while

 

[andrswallz]

Got a <Mod Edit> old laptop that runs windows 7, removed the hdd and plugged in my boot drive ssd, i was able to get to the windows repair screen, the problem is that i cant execute any of the options since they require password and i didnt know my password at the time it saved on the drive, and it doesnt update to the latest one. I got the blue screen saying critical process failed when trying to launch into it though

 

[andrswallz]

Sorry for so many posts, this ahould be the last, i plugged in the windows 7 hdd from the laptop into my pc, i clicked on boot normally, i saw the starting windows text and the animated logo, then it just restarted, so something keeps making the pc restart and doesnt let any OS run.

 

[andrswallz]

Last post, seemed to be a motherboard issue, appearently my generic psu might have not been able to protect the mobo when my power went out, not sure what exactly was happening, but ive now replaced the mobo, cpu and psu.
Thanks for everyones time and help.