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[JohnnyFootball]

Man that is so weird. I’ve never heard of not being able to get into the bios like that. I don’t know if you mentioned it already but maybe Asus might have a bios update to support certain m.2 drives or something. Well good luck and I’d be curious if you find a resolution.

Btw, I also have a Asus Mobo (ROG Crosshair viii hero WiFi x570) and a Sabrient 4.0 m.2. (1 TB) and it works on either slot right out of the box.

Is it a PCI 4.0 SSD? My 2TB is only 3.0 and it worked in either slot.

 

[Dontero]

There is still the issue of why the

The computer will not boot at all with the 4.0 drive installed in slot 1. I can't even get to the BIOS to make that determination. If the 4.0 drive is installed in slot 1. All that happens when I press the button on the motherboard is all the lights will come on, and the fans will just speed up and slow down. Nothing appears on the screen. That issues doesn't exist when it is installed in slot 2. It boots and reads just fine.

Your motherboard is fucked mate. No need to look anything anymore. Since it is new go to shop and do guarantee change/repair.

Probably some microcontroller somewhere got fucked or is badly put in factory or 1000 other things that lead to such problem. Without proper tools you will not achieve anything.

 

[avajohonson2395]

Consoles can break too.

At least with your Personal computer, you can totally figure out what's wrong with it and replace JUST that part.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Your motherboard is fucked mate. No need to look anything anymore. Since it is new go to shop and do guarantee change/repair.

Probably some microcontroller somewhere got fucked or is badly put in factory or 1000 other things that lead to such problem. Without proper tools you will not achieve anything.

Motherboard is over a year old.

 

[Dontero]

Motherboard is over a year old.

Then look for new one. You got 2080Ti which cost fortune. Buying new motherboard should be huge problem for you.

 

[GHG]

I’ll tell you I had a hell of a time with a Ryzen build I did a few weeks ago. I’m an Intel guy and decided to give it a shot. I had blue screen issues because of my NVME and the RGB software. Something so ridiculous that I have never seen before. Also got crashes from storage coming out of hibernate. I have an X570 board and a 3700x. I’ve never had these quirky issues with my Intel builds but I’ve had to spend days getting this AMD build going. Between skipping certain software installs, multiple failed bios updates that say they complete and then show raid drives in event viewer but no bios, hibernate crashes etc. almost feels like chipset issues. But it’s solid now, cleared cmos, reinstalled windows, disabled hibernate and skipped rgb software except icue.

Which motherboard manufacturer did you go with?

Because I can tell you if it's MSI do NOT install dragon center. Forget about controlling your RGB through the motherboard and use the controller that came with your fans instead (if it came with one).

Dragon center is notorious for fucking around with Ryzen CPU power plans and bios settings. Do not install anything from the MSI website, a lot of it comes with crap you don't need.

You're best off just installing the chipset drivers and Ryzen Master from the AMD website and calling it a day.

 

[Patterson]

Is it a PCI 4.0 SSD? My 2TB is only 3.0 and it worked in either slot.

Yes its a Sabrient 1 TB pci 4.0

i know it works in either slot because I later bought a Sabrient 2 TB pci 3.0 as a scratch drive and moved it just to see if there were any speed increases and found none.

 

[420bits]

You may have a bad cable...

As someone who spent almost 25 years in techsupport and repairing / building computers, a bad cable is a totally overlooked source of error and they can do some really funky stuff in your PC.

My strangest error was due to a bad cable, a few years ago i started to get distorted sounds from my headphones, it happened in games, movies, youtube or spotify but not all the time and i couldn't tie it to something.
At first it seemed to be very random, it could go days without distortion and it could happen multiple times in a 10minute window.

So I started with the obvious, updating all drives / bios etc. - did nothing.
Replaced the onboard soundcard with an old one - did nothing.
So the next step was the obvious culprit, RAM. I've repaired hundreds of computers and RAM is by far the most overrepresented source of error. It can be a bad stick or wrong settings in bios / outdated bios, but anything involving RAM is my first suspect when it comes to faulty hardware after teh obvious driver/firmware/bios upgrades. So I did a 10hour memtest and it showed 0 errors.

Now I'm starting to wonder if my mobo is fucked but that's nothing you usually have a spare one laying around and its a bit of pain in the ass to rip it out and put in a new one.
So I thought that I would just bench the shit out of my PC while watching a movie so I put on my speakers instead of my headphones so I didn't have to sit infront of the PC all day while it did, I ran cinebench, 3dmark, disc-checks and everything I could find and throw at it, it did nothing except showed that everything was fine. No bluescreens, no error messages, no distortion of the sound at any point.

So I was pretty much over it at this point, may as well buy a new Mobo and CPU and get an unwarranted upgrade while I was at it but as I was sitting there browsing for parts I heard one of my drives spin up and a second later, distortion.

The drive was an old HDD, it didn't show any errors when I benched it, it has never ever had a corrupted file on it or showed any problems what so ever, benchmarks were totally fine but for some reason, whenever the drive spun up or wrote / read data to & from the drive, it fucked up the sound.
The drive was mostly in idle mode because I rarely used it so that's why the distortion was so random and since I use headphones 99% of the time I never really hear my computer so I never made the connection to the distortion and drive spinning up.
So I swapped drives and SATA ports and the new drive had the same error, so I replaced the cable and BAM. Distortion was gone.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

You may have a bad cable or SSD

The only time im frustrated you see a windows update. How great was that last one where it planted EDGE as your browser and you CANT uninstall it without going into powershell. MS is a fcking waste.

As someone who spent almost 25 years in techsupport and repairing / building computers, a bad cable is a totally overlooked source of error and they can do some really funky stuff in your PC.

My strangest error was due to a bad cable, a few years ago i started to get distorted sounds from my headphones, it happened in games, movies, youtube or spotify but not all the time and i couldn't tie it to something.
At first it seemed to be very random, it could go days without distortion and it could happen multiple times in a 10minute window.

So I started with the obvious, updating all drives / bios etc. - did nothing.
Replaced the onboard soundcard with an old one - did nothing.
So the next step was the obvious culprit, RAM. I've repaired hundreds of computers and RAM is by far the most overrepresented source of error. It can be a bad stick or wrong settings in bios / outdated bios, but anything involving RAM is my first suspect when it comes to faulty hardware after teh obvious driver/firmware/bios upgrades. So I did a 10hour memtest and it showed 0 errors.

Now I'm starting to wonder if my mobo is fucked but that's nothing you usually have a spare one laying around and its a bit of pain in the ass to rip it out and put in a new one.
So I thought that I would just bench the shit out of my PC while watching a movie so I put on my speakers instead of my headphones so I didn't have to sit infront of the PC all day while it did, I ran cinebench, 3dmark, disc-checks and everything I could find and throw at it, it did nothing except showed that everything was fine. No bluescreens, no error messages, no distortion of the sound at any point.

So I was pretty much over it at this point, may as well buy a new Mobo and CPU and get an unwarranted upgrade while I was at it but as I was sitting there browsing for parts I heard one of my drives spin up and a second later, distortion.

The drive was an old HDD, it didn't show any errors when I benched it, it has never ever had a corrupted file on it or showed any problems what so ever, benchmarks were totally fine but for some reason, whenever the drive spun up or wrote / read data to & from the drive, it fucked up the sound.
The drive was mostly in idle mode because I rarely used it so that's why the distortion was so random and since I use headphones 99% of the time I never really hear my computer so I never made the connection to the distortion and drive spinning up.
So I swapped drives and SATA ports and the new drive had the same error, so I replaced the cable and BAM. Distortion was gone.

My My SSDs are NVME drives. There are no cables involved!

 

[420bits]

My My SSDs are NVME drives. There are no cables involved!

I was guessing that the "Two additional 4TB HDDs. " were old SATA with cables.

My drive (cable) that caused the funky error had NOTHING to do with my windowsinstallation, it was a standalone drive used for backup / FTP.

 

[Deleted member 740922]

Consoles can break too.

True - but you just get a replacement and avoid 99.9% of the OP's hassle.

 

[xpresstuning]

Motherboard is over a year old.

Take it to a PC Shop. I have been using PCs for over 20 years now and I used to be heavy into troubleshooting up until a decade ago, but nowadays i don't have time for that headache so i let someone else do it. And it can be a headache, that machine will act in mysterious ways up until you solve the problem by elimination; It can literally be anything, and it can drive you insane figuring it out. I know it's driven me insane, for example. Yes, it is satisfying wen you solve the issue, but it is not good wen you're wasting two days and still don't quite know what is happening.

The frustrating side of PC Gaming you're describing isn't something that's exclusive to it alone; Mass assembled electronics can be faulty, and sometimes you're drawing the shorter stick. That's life.

True - but you just get a replacement and avoid 99.9% of the OP's hassle.

The hassle is a result of the OP having the choice to solve the problem himself - which is not an option with a home console in most cases. The OP can avoid 100% of his hassle if he takes it to a PC Shop. If the products are still under guarantee, then he can also replace them.

 

[Airbus Jr]

Sometimes...you need to take a deep breath...and realize where you made a mistake...

and start over again....

Geralt of Nvidia were once a mortal too before he ascended into gods....

 

[GHG]

Motherboard is over a year old.

Based on all of your posts it sounds like something to do with the fact that the drive is PCIe 4.0.

Check the following:

• Have you installed the x570 chipset drivers from the AMD website? https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/x570
• What chipset temperatures are you getting? Does the fan spin up? - check in HW monitor
• What's the total number of drives you have hooked up to the system? If you populate more than 6 sata ports on your motherboard and you use also populate 2 m.2 slots then they can end up conflicting each other since they will steal bandwidth from one another on the chipset:

• Check the motherboard is getting enough power and the voltages are stable - again check hardware monitor.
• Check the 4.0 drive in your bios, what does it appear as?
• Might seem silly but check you haven't overtightened the m.2 screw for the drive and for the heatsink (if you're using the motherboard heatsinks) - this can cause shorts, screw them tight enough to be secure but not so much that you are having to use force.
• If all else fails check your bios version - is there an update available?

 

[Deleted member 740922]

The OP can avoid 100% of his hassle if he takes it to a PC Shop. If the products are still under guarantee, then he can also replace them.

Paying out more cash for someone else to sort it out is more hassle.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

I was guessing that the "Two additional 4TB HDDs. " were old SATA with cables.

My drive (cable) that caused the funky error had NOTHING to do with my windowsinstallation, it was a standalone drive used for backup / FTP.

I’ll keep that in mind for sure. I’ve got a ton of old SATA cables lying around.

 

[GHG]

Take it to a PC Shop. I have been using PCs for over 20 years now and I used to be heavy into troubleshooting up until a decade ago, but nowadays i don't have time for that headache so i let someone else do it. And it can be a headache, that machine will act in mysterious ways up until you solve the problem by elimination; It can literally be anything, and it can drive you insane figuring it out. I know it's driven me insane, for example. Yes, it is satisfying wen you solve the issue, but it is not good wen you're wasting two days and still don't quite know what is happening.

The frustrating side of PC Gaming you're describing isn't something that's exclusive to it alone; Mass assembled electronics can be faulty, and sometimes you're drawing the shorter stick. That's life.



The hassle is a result of the OP having the choice to solve the problem himself - which is not an option with a home console in most cases. The OP can avoid 100% of his hassle if he takes it to a PC Shop. If the products are still under guarantee, then he can also replace them.

If the OP wants to try and solve this for himself and learn about his system then let him.

Taking it to a PC shop should be the last port of call in such a scenario.

If he wanted to take it to a PC shop instead of trying to solve it himself he would have already.

Also some PC shops will try and screw you over.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

What I could do is order a replacement motherboard from Amazon and then just ship back the defective one and get refunded. Assuming of course the motherboard is indeed defective.
Same with the SSDs.

 

[Shmunter]

Ideally you need access to spare parts to exchange one by one to narrow it down. Been there done that.

 

[longdi]

Will Amazon refund your 1 year old motherboard?

I still think its the corsair ram. A lot on Reddit and places having compatibility with ram and ryzen

 

[rofif]

PC gaming is way easier and simpler than it used to be but it can still be a very very expensive headache

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Take it to a PC Shop. I have been using PCs for over 20 years now and I used to be heavy into troubleshooting up until a decade ago, but nowadays i don't have time for that headache so i let someone else do it. And it can be a headache, that machine will act in mysterious ways up until you solve the problem by elimination; It can literally be anything, and it can drive you insane figuring it out. I know it's driven me insane, for example. Yes, it is satisfying wen you solve the issue, but it is not good wen you're wasting two days and still don't quite know what is happening.

The frustrating side of PC Gaming you're describing isn't something that's exclusive to it alone; Mass assembled electronics can be faulty, and sometimes you're drawing the shorter stick. That's life.



The hassle is a result of the OP having the choice to solve the problem himself - which is not an option with a home console in most cases. The OP can avoid 100% of his hassle if he takes it to a PC Shop. If the products are still under guarantee, then he can also replace them.

There is no force in heaven or hell that will ever get me to take it to a PC shop. They charge out the ass and are seldom honest.

I’d rather RMA every single piece than trust a PC shop.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Problems like these arise from time to time even if you're experienced with PC hardware. There's nothing you can do about it. Of course there's always a way to properly troubleshoot a faulty machine, but it can be a giant pain in the ass, especially if you don't have spare parts laying around somewhere to test things.

The posts before mine have already laid out what to do very well. I can't really add anything valuable to that, but I dropped by to say the following:

Issues like the ones described by the OP were the reason I was determined to quit PC gaming and switch to consoles only not long ago. However, the introductions of both the XSX and PS5 were so underwhelming and frankly, insulting to someone who's used to the openness of the PC platform, that I'm currently discarding that idea.

It's much more expensive, it breaks sometimes, and many things aren't as comfortable as on the consoles. But you aren't locked into an ecosystem. You don't have to put up with the performance devs give you on a certain platform. You don't pay ridiculous prices for software because there's a monopoly on its distribution.

I've had trouble with both the 1000 and 3000 series of CPUs by AMD in recent past. Also, AsRock boards are garbage. I also don't like the AM4 socket (too flimsy). My next build is definitely going to be an Intel one again, I don't care about a few cores less or a few Euros more. Intel has just been far more reliable for me, as well as Asus boards.

That being said, my friends who only use pre-builds rarely complain about problems. Which makes me wonder if I should maybe try one myself, for the first time in my life after like 25 years of building PCS. Saves you at least a bit of the headaches. I used to enjoy building my own PCs a lot, but after having done that dozens of times I no longer do. Also, having a job, family and kids doesn't exactly give you the time to really dive into this shit as you sometimes have to in order to get things working properly.

I hope you get this fixed, OP. I think I wouldn't recommend to you switching to consoles, you'll regret it. But I know the feeling. A couple months ago I wanted to throw my PC out the window because my mainboard was giving me all sorts of issues. I'll be replacing that system soon with an Intel build, and expecting that to be a lot more stable.

Also, Windows 10 sucks. The last couple of updates were a mess. I hope Valve doesn't stop developing SteamOS, because I really want a real alternative to this piece of crap OS.

 

[TriSuit666]

Weird software errors, iMHO are usually

1. Bad motherboard
2. Bad RAM

Check your motherboard for any leaking capacitors for starters.
Probably easier to swap RAM so I would start with that.

What this person says.

My personal thinking is cacky RAM, I've had something similar with an old i5 board, and it turned out a stick had gone rogue.

 

[888]

Which motherboard manufacturer did you go with?

Because I can tell you if it's MSI do NOT install dragon center. Forget about controlling your RGB through the motherboard and use the controller that came with your fans instead (if it came with one).

Dragon center is notorious for fucking around with Ryzen CPU power plans and bios settings. Do not install anything from the MSI website, a lot of it comes with crap you don't need.

You're best off just installing the chipset drivers and Ryzen Master from the AMD website and calling it a day.

Im usually an Asus Maximus guy over the last 5 or so years but I went with the Gigabyte Aorus Ultra this time. Turns out there is a shit ton of people with the some Kingston NVME having the same issues. Granted after I got it to R20 of the bios I never installed RGB Fusion or Asus Aura again. It doesn’t seem to mind Corsair Icue.

I believe I did do what you’re suggesting. I remember installing a straight AMD chipset package after about the 3rd install of windows. At one point it even broke the virtual disk service and was reading some of my drives as raid drives in EV. I was just about ready to smash it with a hammer but it felt my rage and has behaved since.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Will Amazon refund your 1 year old motherboard?

I still think its the corsair ram. A lot on Reddit and places having compatibility with ram and ryzen

If the motherboard turned out to be the culprit, I could order a brand new one from Amazon and then return the old one as defective as though it were the one I just ordered. It’s in an ethical grey area, but the defective one would end up back at ASUS either way. It’s a helluva lot more convenient than sending my motherboard to ASUS and waiting god knows how many weeks.

 

[GHG]

Im usually an Asus Maximus guy over the last 5 or so years but I went with the Gigabyte Aorus Ultra this time. Turns out there is a shit ton of people with the some Kingston NVME having the same issues. Granted after I got it to R20 of the bios I never installed RGB Fusion or Asus Aura again. It doesn’t seem to mind Corsair Icue.

I believe I did do what you’re suggesting. I remember installing a straight AMD chipset package after about the 3rd install of windows. At one point it even broke the virtual disk service and was reading some of my drives as raid drives in EV. I was just about ready to smash it with a hammer but it felt my rage and has behaved since.

Lol I feel your pain, went through the same thing with MSI's software. After about the 2nd day of all sorts of fuckery I asked myself why I'm going through all this trouble just to try and control some fucking disco lights using software instead of enjoying my new system.

Wiped the drive clean, fresh install of windows and haven't touched MSI's software. It's been all good since.

Corsair iCue seems to be the best of a bad bunch when it comes to RGB software. It sounds like it works most of the time and it doesn't fuck around with system settings. Their RGB stuff is bloody expensive though :/

I don't know why the motherboard manufacturers can't get it right and insist on us installing all sorts of bloatware just to use the argb headers on out motherboards.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Which motherboard manufacturer did you go with?

Because I can tell you if it's MSI do NOT install dragon center. Forget about controlling your RGB through the motherboard and use the controller that came with your fans instead (if it came with one).

Dragon center is notorious for fucking around with Ryzen CPU power plans and bios settings. Do not install anything from the MSI website, a lot of it comes with crap you don't need.

You're best off just installing the chipset drivers and Ryzen Master from the AMD website and calling it a day.

I have the ASUS ROG STRIX X570-F and on my most recent install I went with AMD and nvidia.

 

[888]

Lol I feel your pain, went through the same thing with MSI's software. After about the 2nd day of all sorts of fuckery I asked myself why I'm going through all this trouble just to try and control some fucking disco lights using software instead of enjoying my new system.

Wiped the drive clean, fresh install of windows and haven't touched MSI's software. It's been all good since.

Corsair iCue seems to be the best of a bad bunch when it comes to RGB software. It sounds like it works most of the time and it doesn't fuck around with system settings. Their RGB stuff is bloody expensive though :/

I don't know why the motherboard manufacturers can't get it right and insist on us installing all sorts of bloatware just to use the argb headers on out motherboards.

Yeah RGB is like the Smarthome software wars. Too many people want to be the “IT” software. This AMD rig is just for my TV so lights or not didn’t bother me. I have Corsair RGB ram but you can’t turn it off without icue. On my main rig I have a Corsair h150i, Ram, 6x LL fans that all run off icue and my default now is off lately. The motherboard and gpu lighting is subtle enough that I don’t care. Those LL fans are blinding in a full glass case sitting up on the desk.

But yeah, tired of all the rgb software anymore. Icue is stable enough and only had one issues with RE1 if I recall where it wouldn’t launch with icue running but that was about it.

 

[GHG]

I have the ASUS ROG STRIX X570-F and on my most recent install I went with AMD and nvidia.

Sorry that post was specifically in response to Damage Inc.

This post should be more helpful for you since it looks like the issue has been narrowed down to the 4.0 drive:

The frustrating side of PC gaming and I want to be done with it.

Man that is so weird. I’ve never heard of not being able to get into the bios like that. I don’t know if you mentioned it already but maybe Asus might have a bios update to support certain m.2 drives or something. Well good luck and I’d be curious if you find a resolution. Btw, I also have a...

www.neogaf.com

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Sorry that post was specifically in response to Damage Inc.

This post should be more helpful for you since it looks like the issue has been narrowed down to the 4.0 drive:

The frustrating side of PC gaming and I want to be done with it.

Man that is so weird. I’ve never heard of not being able to get into the bios like that. I don’t know if you mentioned it already but maybe Asus might have a bios update to support certain m.2 drives or something. Well good luck and I’d be curious if you find a resolution. Btw, I also have a...

www.neogaf.com

The 4.0 drive is fine as long as it is in slot 2. The 2 TB 3.0 appears the be the culprit.
Like I said, I’ve got my old Samsung 960 250 GB in slot 1 and the 4.0 in slot 2. I’m going with this configuration for a few days and if it’s stable. I briefly had the 2TB with the Samsung and the hangs returned although not as severe as before.

 

[420bits]

There is no force in heaven or hell that will ever get me to take it to a PC shop. They charge out the ass and are seldom honest.

I’d rather RMA every single piece than trust a PC shop.

Wise choice, odds are you know a lot more than the one who is trying to fix your PC.
The only time it would be a good move to bring a PC to a shop is if you bought the entire PC from the same shop and it was prebuilt with some "special warranty".
At the place I used to work we sold parts or prebuilt system, the prebuilt ones were pretty much "replace and / or upgrade stuff til it works". If you bought parts you were shit out of luck.


Edit: You seem to have removed some drives and that's probably a smart choice, thats where i would start. Remove all drives that isnt needed and run that until i feel safe and then start adding one at the time and do new tests.

 

[GHG]

The 4.0 drive is fine as long as it is in slot 2. The 2 TB 3.0 appears the be the culprit.
Like I said, I’ve got my old Samsung 960 250 GB in slot 1 and the 4.0 in slot 2. I’m going with this configuration for a few days and if it’s stable. I briefly had the 2TB with the Samsung and the hangs returned although not as severe as before.

The 4.0 drive should in theory work in either slot. In slot 1 it uses bandwidth provided by the CPU and in slot 2 it uses bandwidth provided by the chipset.

When it's in slot 1 make sure the m.2 slot is set as 4.0 in the bios, it might have been set as 3.0 if you had previously put a 3.0 drive in that slot.

With the 2tb drive has it ever previously had a Windows install on it? If so that can sometimes cause conflicts if the boot partition is still hanging around on the drive. Next time you have it hooked up check the drive has just a single partition in disk manager.

If it's not been used as a boot drive before then I'd guess it's a bad power connection to the drive or a bad sata cable.

Last resort, back up your data from that drive wipe the drive clean using disk manager and assign a new letter for the drive.

Worst case scenario - the drive is on its way out. Try getting a USB enclosure for it and trying it on a different system to see if it shows up and causes the same issues.

 

[M1chl]

I had the same problem, on same configuration basically. Random restarts, missing NvME SSD, bluescreen and then it was badly attached cable on PSU to the motherboard, because that ATX 24pin is too stiff and must have been moved when I was doing cable management...so yeah, check that.

Also EVGA PSU, they don't have the best cables.

Could be overheating on vrms on the motherboard. Some motherboards are utter shit designed.

X570-E is not one of them.

 

[captainraincoat]

Sounds motherboard related
Have you checked to make sure all components are in the slots fully...i had an issue a few years back where the gpu clip was not all the way in and it lost connection sometimes causing bsod

 

[Estocolmo]

Specs:
Asus ROG Strix-E X570
AMD 3900X
Corsair 4 x 8GB 3200 Corsair memory sticks
EVGA Geforce 2080 Ti.
Sabrent M2 SSD 4.0 512 GB
Sabrent M2 SSD 2TB - where I keep most of my games.
Two additional 4TB HDDs.
PSU EVGA
Corsair All-in-one cooler.

I am pretty upset right now, because today I may be finally broken on dealing with PC.
It has become an unresponsive piece of crap and I don't know where to begin as far as diagnosis. There is very little to indicate what is causing the problem. I have been building an using PCs since the late 90s and this is the first time where I am seriously questioning whether it is worth it. PCs and gaming on a PC are wonderful experiences when they work right, but when you are having issues and you can't pinpoint the cause, it just becomes a fucking nightmare.


All of these parts are at least a year old aside from the Sabrent SSD 4.0 which is about 9 months old.

It started a couple of weeks ago with occasional bluescreens (NDU.sys was the primary guilty party) the causes seemed to happen when I was browsing the internet. I tried to find a fix, but searching (NDU.sys) gives you nothing but very generic suggestions and nothing really worked and most are advertisements to download software. There was no repeatable pattern, it just happened randomly with the common factor being the internet browsing. It never happened while gaming, only when browsing the internet. Other issues, are there are times when Windows wouldn't completely load. Many of the startup apps wouldn't complete and sometimes I would have to restart several times to get it to properly load. Most of these have been few and far between, but today I finally decided that I had had enough and decided to wipe my computer clean and do a fresh install. I performed a secure erase and used a brand new Windows install USB. Much to my surprise, not only did it not fix the issues, in many ways things are worse. Mainly because the bluescreen showed up again and now PV randomly hangs and I can't close or start apps. I end up hitting the reset button and from there it takes a couple of minutes to load Windows. There doesn't seem to be a discernible pattern.

Possible culprits that I am open to:
A bad motherboard ethernet port.
A possibly incorrect motherboard setting.
RAM not being compatible - doesn't seem likely since it was fine until a few weeks ago.
My 2TB SSD might be going bad, after the reinstall it was having issues being accessed. I did a secure erase on this and tried to install Origin, but when it started downloading a game, it lead to the system hanging. Not freezing or bluescreening. I will test this more and see if I can repeat the results. I would mention that when I got my 4.0 512 SSD back in November I was using the top M2 drive for my OS SSD and the 2TB was in the bottom M2 drive. However, when I tried to put the new 4.0 SSD in the top M2 drive, it wouldn't work and I ended up having to put it in the bottom M2 and moved the 2TB to the top. Maybe it had something to do with being near the video card.

Alright GAF, please help. I can't figure out anything. I'd like to try and narrow it down.

If I had to make an educated guess, it would be that Windows 10 version 2004 is complete shit and it's just not fully tweaked the way MS expected or hoped.

In 2009 I took the decision to permanently leave PC and got a MacBook instead.

I do all my gaming on Xbox One and Nintendo 3DS, the rest I do on the MacBook.

Only thing I miss is playing Age of Empires, other than that being PC free is one of the best decisions I've ever made.

 

[Self_Destructive]

-Update BIOS to the latest if you haven't already
-reseat RAM
-Check all PSU cables

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

I went through a similar situation recently. Games started freezing out of the blue. I spent hours troubleshooting it but nothing made a difference. The problem is it could be anything. And when you look for assistance it's always the same shit, update drivers, etc. Well duh. Finally I'd had enough and took it to a shop. They told me that the CPU was overheating and my AIO was the culprit. I had ran stress tests and couldn't replicate the problem. I replaced the AIO and all was good for a month. Then it started happening again. This shit is unbelievably frustrating / stressful and I'd had enough, so I finally said fuck it, disassembled the machine and advertised the parts (1080ti, I7 8700, 32gb RAM, etc, etc).

I now have a much healthier bank balance, even after replacing the PC with a One X and laptop. 30fps is a hell of a jolt to the system, though. I can't stress enough how I miss the framerates. And I've 280 games on Steam I can't play. Maybe somewhere down the line. I think I'd go pre build, though, even though it costs more. Any problems, just send the whole thing back.

While I miss the fps, I don't miss the headaches at all. I feel your pain, OP. Sorry I can't help.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Only thing I miss is playing Age of Empires, other than that being PC free is one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Dude you can't do that to me, I've just made up my mind building a new PC

I'd be interested in more details from you regarding the changes. Is there something you miss besides AOE from the PC space? Are there some things you dislike about consoles? Would you say everyone should do this, or is there a list of prerequisites one has to match in order to enjoy what you're doing?

 

[raduque]

You may have a bad cable or SSD

The only time im frustrated you see a windows update. How great was that last one where it planted EDGE as your browser and you CANT uninstall it without going into powershell. MS is a fcking waste.

You shut your mouth about ChrEdge. It's the best browser. Chrome without all the Google bullshit.

 

[anothertech]

This sounds like:

RAM
or
PSU
or
Cooler failing

Do a check on each, ram is easy. PSU not too bad. Need to install temp check if you can.

Had to replace water cooled system recently for similar symptoms. Was pretty easy.

 

[Soodanim]

Dude you can't do that to me, I've just made up my mind building a new PC

I'd be interested in more details from you regarding the changes. Is there something you miss besides AOE from the PC space? Are there some things you dislike about consoles? Would you say everyone should do this, or is there a list of prerequisites one has to match in order to enjoy what you're doing?

It's important to remember that this isn't a common problem, parts usually either work or don't.
PC has so many advantages, but the variation in parts naturally comes with the potential of any of those parts being a problem (for better or worse).

The main issue is OP not knowing which the 50 things it could be, which is why there's so many "Start from scratch" approaches suggested. That's obviously a hassle, but at the same time if you sent off a console for repairs it could easily take 2+ weeks. In that time you could have identified and replaced the bad part.

PC is more cost & effort for more reward. Across the board.

 

[jigglet]

Yup this is by far the worst part about PC gaming. It can be a real pain in the ass.

 

[Tschumi]

dust in yer fan?

*sole* thing i've ever fixed which had a clear effect on performance~

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

If the OP wants to try and solve this for himself and learn about his system then let him.

Taking it to a PC shop should be the last port of call in such a scenario.

If he wanted to take it to a PC shop instead of trying to solve it himself he would have already.

Also some PC shops will try and screw you over.

And at the end of the day, you're paying someone to perform pretty much the same troubleshooting you've tried at home first. Still no guarantee it will be successfully fixed, as in my case.

 

[hyperbertha]

PC GAMING EXPECTATION:

PC GAMING REALITY:

 

[GHG]

Dude you can't do that to me, I've just made up my mind building a new PC

I'd be interested in more details from you regarding the changes. Is there something you miss besides AOE from the PC space? Are there some things you dislike about consoles? Would you say everyone should do this, or is there a list of prerequisites one has to match in order to enjoy what you're doing?

There are far more benefits to PC gaming than just AoE... But you probably already knew that if you already decided.

Also he said the last time he had a gaming PC was 2009... A lot has changed since then.

 

[KiNeMz]

Triple check these things. There are some specifics with that Mobo and m2.

 

[xpresstuning]

There is no force in heaven or hell that will ever get me to take it to a PC shop. They charge out the ass and are seldom honest.

I’d rather RMA every single piece than trust a PC shop.

If they're all shady individuals in your vicinity/region, it's an unfortunate situation. Good luck, i hope you've narrowed it down.

If the OP wants to try and solve this for himself and learn about his system then let him.

Taking it to a PC shop should be the last port of call in such a scenario.

If he wanted to take it to a PC shop instead of trying to solve it himself he would have already.

Also some PC shops will try and screw you over.

Having a bunch of different opinions from a wide pool of individuals with different experiences is a natural occurrence on a healthy social platform. No one is forcing him, or telling him to do anything as if there is one absolute right way. That is silly.

Yes, humans can be malevolent creatures and if the individual in question is leaning towards that then there will a probability that he will deceive you. That is not news, that is something to keep into account wen dealing with strangers, and prepare.

 

[GreenAlien]

Do you use a multiple socket? It doesn't sound likely in your case.. but I have had weird problems (*) due to one before so eliminating it as a potential source of trouble doesn't hurt..

(*) Had to start the PC twice, because the first time it would get stuck while loading the bios everytime + occasional random bluescreen once a day. I tried a few things and determined the motherboard as the likely culprit, but it still worked most of the time so I just lived with it.
One day I changed the location of my setup and used a different multiple socket. No problems since..