Startup Issues on New Build

brokenbudget

Honorable
Jul 12, 2013
4
0
10,510
OS: Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit
CPU: Intel I7 3930k
MoBo: MSI X79A-GD45 (8D)
GPU: Radeon HD 7970
RAM: 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 250GB

On startup screen sometimes freezes on the pulsing windows logo. Other times I get a completely black screen or a blue screen.

System runs fine on boot up from the disk. First thing done upon initial startup is updated drivers from Intel, MSI, and AMD websites. Updated windows through Windows Updater.

Reboots during setup and driver installation go fine. I've completely wiped the hard drive and started over several times in hopes I could find some mistake I'd made in downloading drivers but no glaring problems ever showed themselves.

I have changed the hard drive around between the HDD and another SSD with the same problem. I've ran the system as basically as possible with just one stick of RAM changing out the stick used as well as the slot it was in. There are no on board graphics and I don't have another card lying around so I haven't tested without the GPU.

Any help you could give would be much appreciated.
 
Solution


Seriously seems like the motherboard. The motherboard controls how the system shuts down when it goes to sleep, what processes happen when it's shut off and rebooted, and all the power settings. If it was the PSU, you wouldn't be able to get the OS up and running or run games. If it was the graphics card, well, you'd know. If it was the RAM, you'd have issues before even getting into Windows. Before swapping out the board though, I'd dig through the BIOS and see if there isn't some setting regarding power saving or sleep states which...
Well I don't see any conflicts that would cause the issue. Good hardware. If the Windows installations are going fine and so are all the driver installs, pretty much the only thing left to point to is faulty components somewhere. Normally the first piece I'd blame would be the hard drive, but if you've tried multiple drives and gotten the same result, the next most likely culprit is the motherboard. Sadly, I've read that MSI boards, while typically possessing good features and looking pretty slick, sometimes have compatibility and reliability issues. The next thing I'd try is to run without the graphics card, but as you said, no integrated video 🙁

How often does the problem happen? Does it happen on reboots, or only cold boots?
 
Only on cold boots as far as I can tell. also I forgot to mention that when it goes to sleep I can't get my display back up. I can hear the systems rev back up but my display never comes back on
 


Seriously seems like the motherboard. The motherboard controls how the system shuts down when it goes to sleep, what processes happen when it's shut off and rebooted, and all the power settings. If it was the PSU, you wouldn't be able to get the OS up and running or run games. If it was the graphics card, well, you'd know. If it was the RAM, you'd have issues before even getting into Windows. Before swapping out the board though, I'd dig through the BIOS and see if there isn't some setting regarding power saving or sleep states which needs to be changed.
 
Solution


Good luck! Hopefully you won't have to RMA the board 🙁