[SOLVED] Windows 10 froze and now freezes on boot ?

[optorian]

So I just got this system working after about 5 months of headaches, I'll leave the links to the old threads below. Long story short, it was a bad DP cable. But finally I got the system to work and it was working perfectly fine up until today. Just for context, even though I don't suspect it being the issue, I installed a bluray optical drive last night. After I installed it, the PC worked completely fine, until I turned it off for the night and the system acted as if it turned off, but the fans wouldn't stop spinning, and the lights wouldn't turn off. I left it for a good 5 mins like that, so I think I just held the power button in until it turned off.

Woke up today and turned the PC on and it started like normal, but after a few hours of using Google Chrome the PC totally froze, couldn't do anything at all. So I manually turned it off and it started to freeze on start up. I then unplugged the PC from the wall and replugged it in. This seemed to fix it because it booted to the Windows automatic repair thing, and I hit the first option which I believe is just boot normally. This seemed to fix it until it happened again, but now no matter what I do, I cannot make it boot.

I've tried:

• reseating the ram, GPU, and all PSU connections.
• I replaced the ram with ram I know works, as well as moving to different slots.
• I flashed the mobo bios to the latest version.
• I cleared the cmos by taking the battery out.
• I also tried to boot to my windows install flash drive, but it freezes when trying to boot to that as well.

I can get into the bios totally fine, and it won't freeze in there. I really don't know what to do at this point, help is greatly appreciated.

CPU: i5 12400f - NEW
CPU cooler: id-cooling se 224-xst - NEW
Motherboard: Asus tuf gaming b660m-plus wifi d4 - NEW
Ram: 2 16 gb sticks of g.skill ripjaws ddr4
SSD: Samsung 970 Evo plus 1tb nvme - NEW
GPU: MSI RTX 2060 Super - 4-5 years ago, still works in old PC
PSU: EVGA Supernova 650 gt - NEW
Chassis: fractal pop air rgb - NEW
OS: windows 10
Monitor: not 100% sure what model, but it's a 144hz Sceptre - 4ish years

Old threads

Question - new pc posts once, then wont post

Hello, so ive had this issue since ive gotten my new parts for a pc im building. the only things that im keeping from my old pc is my gpu, my ram, and some drives, other than that everything is new. when the parts arrived the other day, i set everything up on the motherboard box to test if...

forums.tomshardware.com

Question - Bizarre problem getting new system to boot to the BIOS ?

This is a continuation of another thread about the same subject that's gotten to be nearly 4 months old. I took a pretty long break from this project due to how much it was frustrating me, but recently I took it to a professional, and thought that I had the problem solved on two separate...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[helpstar]

disconnect the bluray drive and try again

 

[Misgar]

Did you have a disc in the Bluray drive when shutting down or starting Windows?

When you installed the Bluray drive, did you check the boot order in the BIOS and move the priority of the optical drive down below the hard disks/SSDs?

If the new Bluray drive is set to a higher priority in the BIOS and there's a disc in the drive, the BIOS will waste time at power on trying to boot from the optical disc. It doesn't however explain the system hanging at shutdown.

It would seem your Windows operating system is sufficiently corrupted that it no longer boots. Since you've cleared the BIOS, check to see if it's set to prioritise booting into Legacy CSM, instead of the more common UEFI mode.

At this stage, I'd suggest unplugging all SATA and M.2 drives, then disable XMP, before fitting a spare SATA SSD and performing a fresh installation of Windows. Do not reconnect your other drives until you've booted into Windows on the new SATA drive at least one time.

I've experienced mixed results after Windows has failed to boot three times and triggered the automatic Repair function. Sometimes automatic Repair fails and I find a fresh install or an in situ Upgrade retaining all programs and personal data is the easiest solution.

 

[optorian]

Did you have a disc in the Bluray drive when shutting down or starting Windows?

When you installed the Bluray drive, did you check the boot order in the BIOS and move the priority of the optical drive down below the hard disks/SSDs?

If the new Bluray drive is set to a higher priority in the BIOS and there's a disc in the drive, the BIOS will waste time at power on trying to boot from the optical disc. It doesn't however explain the system hanging at shutdown.

It would seem your Windows operating system is sufficiently corrupted that it no longer boots. Since you've cleared the BIOS, check to see if it's set to prioritise booting into Legacy CSM, instead of the more common UEFI mode.

At this stage, I'd suggest unplugging all SATA and M.2 drives, then disable XMP, before fitting a spare SATA SSD and performing a fresh installation of Windows. Do not reconnect your other drives until you've booted into Windows on the new SATA drive at least one time.

I've experienced mixed results after Windows has failed to boot three times and triggered the automatic Repair function. Sometimes automatic Repair fails and I find a fresh install or an in situ Upgrade retaining all programs and personal data is the easiest solution.

The optical drive was empty when I shut it off, and the boot priority had the m.2 as the primary drive, then the hdd that I used to have windows on, but i uninstalled it and those were the only options unless i had my windows thumb drive in. I have an old sata SSD that I have some games on, should I unplug all SATA connections and take out the m.2 and install windows onto it to see if it boots? If it does boot, would that mean the m.2 is dead? I've heard some things about Samsung ssds just killing themselves with the firmware they come with, but I usually hear that happen after months, not days. Just a heads up, I'm a bit busy today so I'll probably get to trying stuff out later tonight.

 

[Misgar]

If you can spare the SATA SSD and don't need the data or have it backed up, that's fine.

You need to unplug all other SATA drives and remove any M.2 drives to make sure Windows doesn't dump boot partitions on the wrong drive when you install Windows on the SATA drive.

With any luck there's nothing wrong with your M.2 drive, apart from the fact you can no longer boot Windows from it. I recommend backing up any important data from the M.2 drive ASAP, just in case it's on its way out.

If Windows boots from the SATA drive, you can decide if you want to attempt an in situ Windows Update on the M.2 drive, by booting from a USB Windows thumb drive with installation files of exactly the same version of Windows. If successful, this repairs Windows without deleting any programs or data, unlike a fresh install which wipes everything.

 

[optorian]

If you can spare the SATA SSD and don't need the data or have it backed up, that's fine.

You need to unplug all other SATA drives and remove any M.2 drives to make sure Windows doesn't dump boot partitions on the wrong drive when you install Windows on the SATA drive.

With any luck there's nothing wrong with your M.2 drive, apart from the fact you can no longer boot Windows from it. I recommend backing up any important data from the M.2 drive ASAP, just in case it's on its way out.

If Windows boots from the SATA drive, you can decide if you want to attempt an in situ Windows Update on the M.2 drive, by booting from a USB Windows thumb drive with installation files of exactly the same version of Windows. If successful, this repairs Windows without deleting any programs or data, unlike a fresh install which wipes everything.

To my knowledge there isn't anything important on the sata drive, just games that can be reinstalled. The m.2 doesn't really have much important stuff on it, just would be annoying to have to set everything back up. I'll try this and see how it goes and let you know the results

 

[optorian]

If you can spare the SATA SSD and don't need the data or have it backed up, that's fine.

You need to unplug all other SATA drives and remove any M.2 drives to make sure Windows doesn't dump boot partitions on the wrong drive when you install Windows on the SATA drive.

With any luck there's nothing wrong with your M.2 drive, apart from the fact you can no longer boot Windows from it. I recommend backing up any important data from the M.2 drive ASAP, just in case it's on its way out.

If Windows boots from the SATA drive, you can decide if you want to attempt an in situ Windows Update on the M.2 drive, by booting from a USB Windows thumb drive with installation files of exactly the same version of Windows. If successful, this repairs Windows without deleting any programs or data, unlike a fresh install which wipes everything.

Alright this ain't looking good. I unplugged every sata connection and took out the m.2, and left only my sata SSD drive in (which has never had windows installed). I checked the bios and it showed up just fine, plugged in my boot thumb drive and tried to boot to it and it's giving me the same issue, which leads me to believe it's the motherboard right?

 

[optorian]

Turns out it was the CPU, swapped it out with a new one, that fixed the problem. I tried the old one again and it gave the same issue.