[EDIT: Actually wasn’t fried. CMOS reset, BIOS update and Windows Safe Mode worked]
It was stupid. A friend has been nagging me to update my bios. I didn’t have a flash drive handy so I gave up on the update for the day. But I was in the BIOS. Hadn’t bee there in awhile. Let’s see what’s around. “Instant 6 GHZ” Don’t know what that means. Click it. Reboot. BSOD. BIOS back to defaults. BSOD. Remove one memory stick at a time. BSOD. Proof again that men with free time and empty minds are a danger to themselves or worse.
Ugh! I was afraid I was going to see something similar with all the tweaking I had to do to get my new PC’s temps under control. Sorry that happened. On the plus side, maybe justification for a PC upgrade? Just avoid the i9 14900 series!
Microcenter recommended a CMOS reset before buying any new stuff, which was nice of them. So I bought nothing and tried the reset and reloading to factory defaults. No Joy.
So a question for the wizzkids out there: The whole rig is exactly one year old. I was pretty happy and did not feel the need for an upgrade. I see this as a failure, not an opportunity. So with my goal to minimize loss and no care for gain, what should I buy: Mobo, memory or CPU? Or are the possible failures to be found equally in any of the three?
What @adlabs6 said. That’s an Operating System screen. Can you force to boot in safe-mode? And try to notepad-open that E:\windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt ?
EDIT: looking into it it’s just some corrupted Config, nothing burned.
Rest assured it can be fixed without buying anything
EDIT EDIT: Ok maybe there can be some level of hardware failure involved…
What is the default extreme memory profile (XMP) for your memory in the BIOS? Turning XMP off, or lowering its level at the very least may help with stability.
I updated the BIOS to the latest and reset the CMOS back to “Optimal” defaults (there seems not to be a ‘factory’ at gigabyte). Still the same failure. This machine has been trouble-free since building it last spring. (Although I did struggle for a week after the build and eventually had to swap mobo brands). But the very boot after clicking that “6 Ghz” button resulted in the first bsod pointing to that same file and nothing has changed since. So it screams “hardware” rather than a corrupted boot to me. I say that but I don’t know much about these things (OBVIOUSLY!) PCs generally work until they don’t, right? This is the first time I have knowingly destroyed one. Which is rich because I belittle the idea of modding or overclocking for this very reason. I’ve lived a life to this point making fun of people like me—ruining their toys because they can’t accept “good enough”.
Anywho, the cheapest thing to replace is the mobo I guess. So maybe I’ll start with that tomorrow.
@komemiute yeah, it won’t boot to safe mode unless I am doing it wrong. I too would like to see the file. At the very least it might narrow down the hardware replacement needed.
Do you have a spare HDD? Even a smaller one? To try a clean install of windows onto…
I had a similar thing with my eldest’s PC some time back - the Windows install got corrupted by a bad stick of RAM. Not only did I need to replace the RAM but I also needed a new install of Windows - the old one couldn’t be recovered.
I wouldn’t want you spending the money on a new MB if that’s not going to get your old install back, and a new install would work fine with your existing HW
Not impressed by Win10/11 in a lot of ways, compared to XP…
(Anyway, you guys (and Microcenter) not only saved me potentially 100s but also the days of frustration, reinstallation, joystick profiles and the rest. As we say here at home: Chooo Arigato!)
In case someone comes back to this thread someday (or I do), here’s the post-crash history of steps I took.
microcenter suggest resetting CMOS which I did by removing the battery.
Using my laptop I flashed an update to the BIOS. None had been done since manufacture (01/23). I also reset the system date and time which were lost with the CMOS update.
Post-bsod blue screen menu gives a list of advanced options to recover. Instead of hitting “F4” for Safe Mode, I mistakenly hit “4” which the screen treated as “Enter” and attempted a normal reboot. This is when I really thought I cooked it. Even Safe Mode wouldn’t boot, I THOUGHT. So for hours the boot either locked up with my mobo logo or a windows bsod.
Tried Safe Mode again, this time correctly tapping F4 and it booted!
Windows offered to roll back to a previous windows update from several days ago and that worked to boot normally. I then did another windows update which brought me back to full-normal. All I seem to have lost were passwords.
I’m glad you were able to resurrect it all without having to buy new parts or go through an unnecessary (or “necessary but only because Windows is the worst”, shall we say ) reinstall.
) reinstall.