- Mar 3, 2024
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SYNOPSIS
Every single Windows 11 installation keeps getting heavily corrupted (if it gets to install properly at all) even after performing a clean install, format, clean command on DiskPart; cleaning, formatting a clean installing on a different new* disk that was not even in the computer which was also formatted, cleaned and analyzed. RAM, CPU, GPU, SSDs, HDD appear healthy and running within optimal temperatures and voltages.
*This HDD itself is not new but has never been on the system/computer in question before and was only used to back up some files in the past.
ONSET/CONTEXT
While the occasional BSOD has appeared since I bought and assemble the PC a couple of months ago, they were only sporadic and on minor importance, normally caused by a program and easily fixed; however, the past month the rate of BSOD has increased and strange behaviors started to appear. It is worth noting that, while living in a zone with a stable electricity connection, it was around that time that we started having frequent blackouts followed by an energy surge/spike as it came back. At the time I had no UPS as there were none available to support my PSU when I bought the parts (excepting some extremely expensive ones for servers and, even though the face value of machine might not reflect it, I am most definitely not flush with money; I saved a lot for it since I work with 3D graphics) and so I was just able to bought a compatible UPS last week. For all intents and purposes, it is safe to assume that the PC has been connected to the UPS during the tests described above. Also, no other power outages or surges have occurred in the past 2 weeks.
SYMPTOMS/PROBLEMS
Note: Everything performed as the administrator and only user.
ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS
*The HDD itself is not new but has never been on the system/computer in question before and was only used to back up some files in the past.
PC SPECS
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z790-A WiFi
CPU: Intel 13th Gen i9 - 13900K
GPU: NVIDIA - GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming OC
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR5 (4×16GB DDR5 6000MHz)
Storage (System): Samsung Serie 990 Pro 2TB (SSD NVME M.2)
Storage (Personal): Kingston SSD KC3000 4TB (SSD NVME M.2)
Storage (Test): WD 1TB (HDD 2.5) {Added after several corruptions of the original System SSD}
PSU: EVGA Supernova 1000 G5 (80+ Gold 1000W)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Monitor: Samsung Odyssey G9
Video connection: Display Port
Case: Corsair 5000D Airflow
Cooling: Noctua NH-D15 Chomax Black
Due to living on a hot and somewhat humid climate the room in A/C cooled and the PC is on a well-ventilated and elevated part of the room. The filters are cleaned regularly. It´s a small room so the Inverter A/C is more than enough for it and the monitored temperatures never showed any overheating, even during the stress tests.
THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS
After every test showing healthy system components and yet the system still getting corrupted even on different drives, I wonder if the previous month power surges might have damaged the Motherboard (not enough to show physical damage or prevent the system from booting, but enough to keep corrupting data.
Are there any other options on testing? Is there an economically practical (meaning that it costs less than buying a new one) way to repair the motherboard? Should I buy a new motherboard?
NOTES:
Given the nature of the problems and the extent of the system corruption (impeding access) and the constant format and cleaning of the affected drives, event viewer logs and other results occurred during the first stages and during critical system corruption are unavailable.
Every single Windows 11 installation keeps getting heavily corrupted (if it gets to install properly at all) even after performing a clean install, format, clean command on DiskPart; cleaning, formatting a clean installing on a different new* disk that was not even in the computer which was also formatted, cleaned and analyzed. RAM, CPU, GPU, SSDs, HDD appear healthy and running within optimal temperatures and voltages.
*This HDD itself is not new but has never been on the system/computer in question before and was only used to back up some files in the past.
ONSET/CONTEXT
While the occasional BSOD has appeared since I bought and assemble the PC a couple of months ago, they were only sporadic and on minor importance, normally caused by a program and easily fixed; however, the past month the rate of BSOD has increased and strange behaviors started to appear. It is worth noting that, while living in a zone with a stable electricity connection, it was around that time that we started having frequent blackouts followed by an energy surge/spike as it came back. At the time I had no UPS as there were none available to support my PSU when I bought the parts (excepting some extremely expensive ones for servers and, even though the face value of machine might not reflect it, I am most definitely not flush with money; I saved a lot for it since I work with 3D graphics) and so I was just able to bought a compatible UPS last week. For all intents and purposes, it is safe to assume that the PC has been connected to the UPS during the tests described above. Also, no other power outages or surges have occurred in the past 2 weeks.
SYMPTOMS/PROBLEMS
Note: Everything performed as the administrator and only user.
- After these blackouts followed by the power surges/spikes, not only did the number of BSOD instances increased but other problems started to appear, such as:
- Programs randomly closing themselves.
- PC randomly restarting itself.
- Audio devices no longer recognized and settings no longer working (as if the drivers got uninstalled).
- Windows "Settings" app (control panel seemed fine at first) closing when trying to select or search for certain settings.
- Windows "Settings" app missing text and icons.
- Missing Windows functions.
- Java script error messages randomly appearing.
- OS instability (system crashing after a few minutes and taking many attempts/restarts to even get into Windows again).
- Screen occasionally showing plain noise when restarting (until system restarts again).
- System sometimes turning on but not even getting to the BIOS prompt before restarting.
- Devices such as keyboard and mouse not working in Secure Mode.
- Command Prompt unable to perform certain commands even when started in Windows Recovery tools.
- Windows 11 Media Creation Tool unable to complete Windows 11 clean installation on the original (formatted, cleaned) SSD.
- Windows 11 Media Creation Tool unable to complete Windows 11 clean installation on a different (never used on this computer; formatted, cleaned) HDD.
- System sometimes unable to boot into USBs even when selected from BIOS and being thrown back into BIOS again.
- Windows 11 having BSOD and rebooting from the start.
- Windows 11 Media Creation Tool crashing, having BSOD and restarting.
- Successful HDD Windows 11 installations corrupted from the beginning.
- Successful HDD Windows 11 installations getting corrupted over a period of hours.
- Original problems repeating on new Windows 11 installations on the HDD.
- Java script error messages appearing when logging into the new Windows 11 HDD installation.
- Unable to complete all drivers installations and/or upgrades on SSD fresh Windows 11 installation.
ATTEMPTED SOLUTIONS
- Started with the obvious and most simple solutions which include Restarting the system, scanning for viruses, updating the drivers, using Windows troubleshooting tools such as System Repair and others, scanning disks for errors, reconnecting wired devices, starting in Secure Mode, attempting to use System Restore (unsuccessfully as no Restore Point was found), amongst many others. >>>UNSUCCESSFUL<<<
- Perform Memory Check. >>>PASSED<<<
- Check SSD health. >>>PASSED<<<
- Attempted to reinstall Windows 11 with Windows Media Creation Tool and a USB; chose to keep apps and files. >>>UNSUCCESSFUL<<<
- Attempted to reinstall Windows 11 with Windows Media Creation Tool and a USB; chose not to keep apps and files. >>>UNSUCCESSFUL<<<
- Attempted clean install of Windows 11 with Windows Media Creation Tool and a USB. >>>UNSUCCESSFUL<<<
- Attempted to reinstall Windows 11 with Windows Media Creation Tool and an external Drive; chose not to keep apps and files. >>>UNSUCCESSFUL<<<
- Attempted clean install of Windows 11 with Windows Media Creation Tool and an external Drive. >>>UNSUCCESSFUL<<<
- Run CHKDSK to fix errors on the disks, locate and repair bad sectors, (etc...). >>>ERROR / UNABLE TO RUN MOST COMMANDS<<<
- Run DISKPART to analyze, repair, clean, delete, format, convert from GPT to MBR and back to GPT, (etc...) the SDD and, later on, the HDD before attempting to install Windows 11 with Windows Media Creation Tool and either a USB and/or an external drive. >>>SUCCESSFUL<<<
- Update BIOS and Firmware >>>SUCCESSFUL<<<
- Disable XMP profiles and other OC features. >>>SUCCESSFUL<<<
- CHKDSK, DISKPART and SFC kept being sporadically run in between the following attempts as needed. The results varied depending on the situation.
- Install, reinstall and update all drivers (including Intel ME). >>>SUCCESSFUL<<<
- Continued running Memory Check sporadically in between attempts. >>>SUCCESSFUL<<<
- Disassemble RAM array and install 1 stick at a time performing Memory Check for each stick individually. >>>SUCCESSFUL<<<
- Run Norton Bootable Recovery Tool (different drives and burning methods). >>>UNABLE TO BOOT PROGRAM<<<
- Run bootable Avast Rescue Disk. >>>SUCCESSFUL / NO INFECTIONS FOUND<<<
- Run MemTest86. >>>PASSED<<<
- Run CPU-Z and perform test and stress test. >>>PASSED<<<
- Run FurMark. >>>PASSED<<<
- Clear CMOS. >>>SUCCESSFUL<<<
- Check every SDD and HDD health. >>>PASSED<<<
- CPU, RAM, GPU and Motherboard statistics >>>HEALTHY<<<
- Disassemble, clean and reassemble entire rig. >>>NO PHYSICAL DAMAGE FOUND<<<
- Continued attempts to install Windows 11 with Windows Media Creation Tool and a USB on the original SSD. >>>SUCCESSFUL AFTER SOME ATTEMPTS<<<
- Reinstall and update every driver. >>>SUCCESSFUL<<<
*The HDD itself is not new but has never been on the system/computer in question before and was only used to back up some files in the past.
PC SPECS
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME Z790-A WiFi
CPU: Intel 13th Gen i9 - 13900K
GPU: NVIDIA - GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming OC
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 64GB DDR5 (4×16GB DDR5 6000MHz)
Storage (System): Samsung Serie 990 Pro 2TB (SSD NVME M.2)
Storage (Personal): Kingston SSD KC3000 4TB (SSD NVME M.2)
Storage (Test): WD 1TB (HDD 2.5) {Added after several corruptions of the original System SSD}
PSU: EVGA Supernova 1000 G5 (80+ Gold 1000W)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Monitor: Samsung Odyssey G9
Video connection: Display Port
Case: Corsair 5000D Airflow
Cooling: Noctua NH-D15 Chomax Black
Due to living on a hot and somewhat humid climate the room in A/C cooled and the PC is on a well-ventilated and elevated part of the room. The filters are cleaned regularly. It´s a small room so the Inverter A/C is more than enough for it and the monitored temperatures never showed any overheating, even during the stress tests.
THOUGHTS/QUESTIONS
After every test showing healthy system components and yet the system still getting corrupted even on different drives, I wonder if the previous month power surges might have damaged the Motherboard (not enough to show physical damage or prevent the system from booting, but enough to keep corrupting data.
Are there any other options on testing? Is there an economically practical (meaning that it costs less than buying a new one) way to repair the motherboard? Should I buy a new motherboard?
NOTES:
Given the nature of the problems and the extent of the system corruption (impeding access) and the constant format and cleaning of the affected drives, event viewer logs and other results occurred during the first stages and during critical system corruption are unavailable.
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