[SOLVED] Windows 10 not booting, stuck on spinning dots

[jsndwn]

Hi all, please can anyone help? I've built a PC for a family friends child for gaming and I've been having some trouble since building it. Hours and hours of troubleshooting has turned up nothing so hoping someone on here might have encountered the same problem?

From the beginning, built the computer, installed Windows 10, installed all software/drivers etc. No problem. A few restarts after it decided not to boot into Windows 10, just getting stuck in spinning dots and/or automatic repair. Through troubleshooting this issue after many steps I had relocated the USB keyboard and mouse to different ports and that finally allowed me back in Windows. After a few reboots it seemed to work fine and I handed the PC over to the parents for Christmas. Christmas day comes and the parents call saying the computer was stuck on the Windows icon trying to start automatic repair. After a few troubleshooting steps I wasn't able to get them any further so I went and collected the PC to do some further tests.

First step was to reinstall Windows as could have been corrupted. Created a boot USB but the computer wouldn't boot to USB, just stuck on Windows logo with spinning dots. After trying hundreds of things, reformatting the USB, various Windows images, etc it seemed to randomly work. YAY! Reinstalled Windows, installed software/drivers, etc, rebooted a couple of times and seemed all okay. Upon my final reboot of the system to make sure it was all still good to hand back, it decided to do exactly the same thing. So back to the beginning, created a boot USB but the computer wouldn't boot to USB, just stuck on Windows logo with spinning dots. After trying hundreds of things, reformatting the USB, various Windows images, etc it seemed to randomly work again. YAY!

On this final install of Windows I decided not to install any drivers/software and it wasn't connected to the Internet so no Windows updates. Same thing... Windows logo or motherboard logo with spinning dots. Not sure if it's related or whether the BIOs is handing over USB to Windows, but the keyboard and mouse seem to always disconnect at this point too, have RGB and it goes off when the spinning dots appear.

Troubleshooting steps I've taken (that I remember):
Boot Windows into Safe mode - no boot
Uninstall Windows updates - none to uninstall Memtest86 - No errors
WD full disk check using Hirens - No errors Placing RAM modules into various slots - little luck with booting using single DIMM but back to the same issue again
Factory reset BIOS - No luck
Various BIOs updates/downgrades - No luck Reset this PC option in Windows recovery (once it finally worked) - Went successfully, again no network or driver installs... upon reboot stops wanting to boot again
New motherboard with all the above performed again - No luck

PC Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600
MSI B450 GAMING PRO CARBON AC / Aorus B450 AORUS ELITE
MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER Ventus 6GB OC
WD Blue 3D NAND Internal SSD M.2 SATA - 1 TB
HyperX FURY 16GB (2x 8GB) 3200MHz

Any help would be greatful appreciated thank you!

 

[jsndwn]

Installed PopOS to disk now, no problems rebooting at all

 

[jsndwn]

@Colif any ideas what I could try now? Completely lost for ideas right now

 

[Colif]

can you try an older installer? it might be a 20H2 bug.

It lets you restart linux? but not windows... so has to be the installer? there are no other differences.

installer only thing we haven't swapped out.

 

[jsndwn]

can you try an older installer? it might be a 20H2 bug.

It lets you restart linux? but not windows... so has to be the installer? there are no other differences.

installer only thing we haven't swapped out.

Older installer, as in an older version of Windows that's not 20H2?

Used Sept2016 copy of Windows with the same thing, I'll try and get a 1909 or 2004 copy if I can and give it a go. Thanks

 

[Colif]

so it does it on any version of windows... stares blankly... i would put linux back on and run some tests again. at least it works in linux.

only part that is same is CPU and it passes tests. Still makes me wonder, maybe bent pins?

I will see if anyone else can think of a reason why.

 

[jsndwn]

so it does it on any version of windows... stares blankly... i would put linux back on and run some tests again. at least it works in linux.

only part that is same is CPU and it passes tests. Still makes me wonder, maybe bent pins?

I will see if anyone else can think of a reason why.

Tried various versions of Windows 10 installer now going back to 1809 R2, all giving spinning dots and blue screens after ~5 minutes giving "DRIVER PNP WATCHDOG" error

CPU pins are fine, checked each time I changed motherboard as I'm paranoid about CPU pins

Appreciate all your help by the way!

 

[jsndwn]

Ok so I've borrowed a similar spec computer from a friend, all same specs basically apart from it's a Ryzen 5 3600 not a 2600.

After swapping of all parts one at a time to the known working computer I get the same symptoms when the CPU is swapped. Same Windows logo and spinning dots when trying to boot to Windows and USB Windows installer, Linux works fine however as it did on the other computer. Placing the known working CPU into the faulty system, works perfectly!!!

Think I've found my problem 😁 now waiting on delivery of the replacement. Even know at this point it's pretty much confirmed it's a faulty CPU I'll wait until the system is up and running perfect before marking as solved.