Question Previously Working PC Won't Boot

[John Biddle]

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.

 

[COLGeek]

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?

 

[John Biddle]

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.

 

[COLGeek]

I am wondering if the system has integrated video or not. Much of the info can be seen in the BIOS, by the way.

 

[John Biddle]

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.

 

[John Biddle]

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.

 

[COLGeek]

Is the BIOS date/time correct? If not, the motherboard battery needs replaced.

Is this the video card you removed?

https://www.xfxforce.com/gpus/amd-radeon-tm-rx-580-gts-xxx-edition-4gb-3

 

[John Biddle]

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.

 

[COLGeek]

I assume Windows 10 is on this system. Is that correct?

 

[John Biddle]

Yes, I'm almost positive it's home ed also.

 

[COLGeek]

Yes, I'm almost positive it's home ed also.

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

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.

 

[John Biddle]

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.

 

[COLGeek]

Sure, you can try to reset the system. Don't be surprised should it fail to complete.

 

[John Biddle]

You were right it didn't complete; got to 79% during the install but failed.

I'm not sure how to proceed from here given I don't have an optical drive in the target PC and my regular PC has stopped talking to any thumb drives ever since I tried to format one following instructions to create a boot thumb drive. USBs still work for my external hard drive and my phone but none of my 3 thumbs are even recognized in any of my USB ports.

 

[COLGeek]

Is the RX 580 in or out of the system?

The USB issue on your other system needs it own thread, if you want to work through it. Likely something simple like re-installing drivers. But would need to know specs for that system to find what you might need.

 

[John Biddle]

It's out of the system. OK on new thread.

 

[COLGeek]

It's out of the system. OK on new thread.

It may simply be time to bite the bullet with a fresh, clean install of Windows. Sounds like the current installation is corrupted pretty badly.

 

[John Biddle]

Yeah, I've reached that conclusion as well. Thanks for your help and I wish you and yours the very best of a Merry Christmas and a prosperous and healthy New Year.