[SOLVED] Windows freezing at or just after Logo

[stealthylurker]

Sorry I accidentally posted this in the wrong category. Meant to put this in Windows 10.

So recently my PC seemed to have crashed overnight and I had to hold the power button to turn off as nothing was responding, including the reset button. Afterwards everything rebooted just fine, until it black screened about 15 minutes later and upon restarting I had green lines across both screens. This is when I figured my graphics card was probably dying. But then Windows would freeze halfway into the logo, wheel spun then stopped.

Early troubleshooting determined I could still boot into safe mode, however, I still had green lines which only seemed to worsen, while having my screens hooked up to that the graphics card. I then plugged my main screen into the motherboard, which seemed to also fix the freezing mid-logo. So I decided to build a new PC since mine was aged anyways.

Fast forward a week later and I got my new PC up and running. Now, when I hooked up my old drives to my new PC, it booted fine, once. After that it hitched on the windows logo and then black screened. So I unhooked all but the SSD and it loaded fine. Then I restarted after a couple hours doing whatever and it froze and went black again at/after logo. I disconnected it and downloaded crystaldiskinfo and after another reboot, crystaldiskinfo determined the SSD was healthy. I then decided to just go ahead wipe it. Having done so, it reboots multiple times and never freezes. Well, a few hours later I reboot to check bios to check system fans but changed nothing, it then freezes and black screens at logo. And now having none of the old drives connected everything runs just fine. No freezing whatsoever.

Somewhere in the time waiting on new parts I'd scanned all 3 drives with Avast and Malwarebytes, which came up empty. I've also tried having the old HDDs connected, one at a time, to my new PC and it also freezes and black screens at logo. At this point I've spent the past week trying anything I can think of or find online and it just ends up with the same results.

I tested Linux, specifically Solus, which would boot on the old SSD and run just fine with old HDDs connected. I used that for about 2 days as part of my troubleshooting. No freezes or black screens. However I don't believe I tested it with old GPU connected.

Drives in question:
SSD: Crucial BX100 (bought in 2015)
HDD 1: WD Blue 1TB (bought in 2015)
HDD 2: Samsung 1TB (bought sometime in 2010/11)

Old spec(bought all in 2015):
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Pro4 LGA 1150
CPU: Intel i5 4460
RAM: Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9R
GPU: Sapphire Dual-X Radeon R9 280
Don't remember what version of windows it was running.

New Spec(last week):
Motherboard: Gigabyte x570 Aorus Elite
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX CMK16GX4M2B3000C15
GPU: Sapphire Pulse RX 5700
SSD: Crucial MX500
HDD: WD Blue 4TB
Windows 10.0.18362

Everything so far:

1. First thing I tried was system restore, which windows said it was unable to complete.
2. Can get into bios on old system and new.
3. On reboot with old drives connected, freezes at windows logo, or goes and stays black screen immediately after.
4. Everything except holding down power button is unresponsive when black screened/frozen. Including reset button.
5. Will boot into safe mode without issue.
6. No old drives connected, boots without issue.
7. Tested Linux(Solus), which also boots without issue.
8. Did a clean windows 10 install on old SSD(bx100), same issues occurred.
9. Installed windows 10 on new SSD, everything works fine.
10. Windows auto repair couldn't fix.

Additional note: Now, with none of my old parts hooked up to anything, windows has started freezing on the lock screen after a number of minutes idle. It's happened twice now, the second time windows rebooted on it own about 30 seconds after I tried moving the mouse and pressing a few keys.. I'm just at a complete loss now.

 

[Grobe]

I'm afraid Windows just won't run on that particular computer.

That Linux test you performed, showed that the hardware itself does work.

Also, you have shown that running without additional disks did not resolve the problem.

This lead to some options on where to go further (quick solutions):

• Ditch the SSD and install Windows onto one of your regular hdd.
• Ditch Windows and go Linux as main OS. Windows can always be run in a virtual machine.

And some not so quick solutions - if you opt to spend time to narrow down the issue

• Replace Mobo with another one and hope that Windows behaves better (this one may be a long shot, and is costly)
• In Bios - try to disable as many features as possible. If Windows runs better, try to enable features one by one until the problem occurs again - just remember to write down when enabling and disabling features).
• Also do the same with add-in cards you don't have to use.
• Do a run with Memtest86+ just to ensure the RAM is good working order.

 

[stealthylurker]

I don't know how it wouldn't be able to run windows. The BX100 ran Windows for the past 4 years, 8.1 in 2015 and 10 since 2016. As for the new hardware; It is relatively new, so it might need time to get updated. I will say I haven't had any freezing at the lock screen since I updated windows, so that could have been the cause for that issue.

Once I find time, I'm going to continue troubleshooting.