Question Previously Working PC Won't Boot

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John Biddle

John Biddle

Jan 30, 2024
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Greatgrandson's old PC was working fine for a year. Installed a gift used XFX graphics card from a friend he no longer needed since he upgraded. It worked fine for over a month. He moved and re-setup PC worked for more than a couple weeks. Mother took PC away for awhile, never worked again. Details unknown but unlikely they did anything to inside of box, they are completely nontechnical.

Brought PC to my house and checked all connections inside and out, all good.
Turned on, all fans come on including the one in the PSU, led on XFX video card comes on along with one in a fan. (Power seems good). Also monitor light goes from orange to blue.
Get American Megatrends flash screen which disappears in a few seconds.
Get black screen with a blue 4 pane windows logo & Please wait.
after a couple seconds get a black screen, then a No Signal message box, then a final black screen. No beeps ever.

Went into BIOS and it shows the proper/expected 8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz memory.

Tried startup reapir, couldn't repair
Tried Booting into safe mode - Windows cannot complete installation of safe mode
Tried turning on Boot Logging and just got a black screen after rebooting
Tried turning on Debug Mode and just got a black screen after rebooting
Tried Disabling Driver Signature Enforcement and just got a black screen after rebooting
Tried Disabling Early Launch Anti-Malware and just got a black screen after rebooting

Not sure what to do next. Looking for assistance.
 
Can you discern the specs for this system (make/model if installed components)?

Seems you may be able to completely load Windows from scratch, but that would wipe what is currently on it. Is that an option?
 
I didn't remove the motherboard and cannot see any name on it. Since it's American Megatrends Bios I was assuming (maybe naively) that it was an AM motherboard. The video Card has a big XFX on it but no model number I can see. I'll remove that board and switch the monitor to the on board video to see it it will boot under that config.
 
I removed the video card and connected to onboard video (only dvi, weird). Booted up to what seems like an install windows screen asking for region, time zone, keyboard layout which I answered. After a few moments I got a screen saying it needed to make some changes and that to do so it needed internet. I connected an ethernet cable (how it had been connected, there's no wifi) and it began the process and asked to fill in Microsoft account data. Upon entering the pin the screen went blank, gave the no signal message then blank again.
 
Graphics card (no longer in PC) is XFX RX-Skytec V2.0.
Also, I tried to run the PC on one memory stick, tried each stick in each slot and got same results, so put both back in. Bios recognizes correct amount each time. Memory seems OK.
 
Last edited:
The system date and time are correct. Yes that appears to be the right card. I looked at all 4 photos and all match up perfectly.
 
John Biddle said:
Yes, I'm almost positive it's home ed also.
Click to expand...
Use this guide and attempt to completely reinstall Windows:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com

Remove all partitions on the storage devices, when you get to that step, and then let Windows use its defaults to re-partition the primary storage device.
 
Thanks for this. I haven't read through it yet but from what I have seen it's going to wipe everything on this HD and I have no way to back it up beforehand. It's not mine and my greatgrandson says he has a lot of "stuff" on it, so I'd at least like to try any nondestructive possibilities first before a wipeout and start fresh, which I'll do if needed.

Under Troubleshooting there's an option to "Reset the PC" where it says I can choose to keep personal files then reinstall Windows. Is there a good reason not to try that first?Also, though the Windows 10 on this PC was legit and came with the PC and had been working for more than a year, I don't have an auth code or a recovery disk or Windows install disk. And there's no optical disk drive.
 
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