Had to get a new PC

[id0ntknow]

I have now built a test rig to test out the ram that geek squad was saying is bad. I'm using memtest86, and so far it is passing all of the ram that I've tested with it. I was getting similar bsod errors with this rig, as I am reusing the sdds that I had in my pc before, but am wondering if it would be worth doing a reinstall of windows? I have found my install usb now, so that shouldn't be an issue anymore. I have noticed that the bsods only seem to happen when I am booted into windows, but not when I go into the Bios. I don't know if this info helps or not, but I wanted to give as much detail as possible. The cpu seems to be running around 35-40 C at idle in the test rig. It is only using the cpu cooler, since the case I borrowed from dad has no real room for my 120mm fans anywhere (really old case). Unlike geek squad, I remembered to remove the film from the cold plate on the cooler before installing it, so that should be helping a little bit.

[Firefly 35]

Maybe try installing Linux on it and see if that fixes anything. 

[tuffy]

If you're changing motherboards, you'll need to reinstall Windows anyway. Microsoft loads drivers for the motherboard without checking for compatibility first. A new motherboard will most likely need different drivers. You can get around that with "sysprep" sometimes, but not always. A fresh install will also clear out any bad blood that might have crept in over time such as drivers from old games that might conflict with drivers from new games.

[diaperguy85]

My 12+ year old acer gaming laptop finally gave up the ghost just after Thanksgiving. I've done some ram upgrades, and a SSD, and it's held up pretty well against playing newer games. But whatever happened, it's no longer turning on. However, since the only things I've been doing on it for the last couple of years have been basically email, websites and some vids, I just got a refurbished dell laptop for $200. Eventually I'll get a sweet new rig built up or completely gut and rebuild my old one, but for right now, the little dell should do just fine 🙂 

[id0ntknow]

I've been getting more bsod screens with the test rig. I was talking to a friend, and he said it sounds like it could be a dying ssd. I tried to do a fresh install of windows 11, and it was blue screening during that too to the point that while trying Automatic Repairs it just froze up entirely. This is making me not want to put my actual rig together yet, at least not until I can figure out what is causing all this headache, and hopefully how to avoid it with the main rig. I have some pretty expensive components ready to go, but am hesitant to get it started right now. Error codes were more of the usual that I've been seeing. PFN LIST CORRUPT is the main one though.

[zzyzx]

21 minutes ago, id0ntknow said:

I've been getting more bsod screens with the test rig. I was talking to a friend, and he said it sounds like it could be a dying ssd. I tried to do a fresh install of windows 11, and it was blue screening during that too to the point that while trying Automatic Repairs it just froze up entirely. This is making me not want to put my actual rig together yet, at least not until I can figure out what is causing all this headache, and hopefully how to avoid it with the main rig. I have some pretty expensive components ready to go, but am hesitant to get it started right now. Error codes were more of the usual that I've been seeing. PFN LIST CORRUPT is the main one though.

@id0ntknow:

• How old is the SSD you are using? 
• Are you able to bring up SMART information for the drive?
• (How many writes have been made to the SSD drive?)

I have had solid state media fail on me.  Initially you start seeing hangs and errors as "sectors" can be written, or possibly read.  In these cases, eventually, the media will become unusable.  So if you have any files you want to save that are on the drive, I'd start by getting a new drive (maybe another SSD), use it with your windows install disk.  After the system is up, hook up the old drive as a second drive and copy stuff off it that you want to retain.

Best wishes.

[id0ntknow]

12 hours ago, zzyzx said:

@id0ntknow:

• How old is the SSD you are using? 
• Are you able to bring up SMART information for the drive?
• (How many writes have been made to the SSD drive?)

I have had solid state media fail on me.  Initially you start seeing hangs and errors as "sectors" can be written, or possibly read.  In these cases, eventually, the media will become unusable.  So if you have any files you want to save that are on the drive, I'd start by getting a new drive (maybe another SSD), use it with your windows install disk.  After the system is up, hook up the old drive as a second drive and copy stuff off it that you want to retain.

Best wishes.

The SSD is about 8 months old, or at least that's how long I've had it. At the moment I can't do anything with the pc. When I turn it on, it tries to continue the windows install, but always blue screens by the time it gets to downloading updates. Then it goes back to the start, and goes no further the next time. There is nothing on the drive I can't live without, so that isn't as issue, but it would be nice to have this figured out before I go to build my main pc. Thanks again to everyone for their assistance with this problem.

[zzyzx]

24 minutes ago, id0ntknow said:

The SSD is about 8 months old, or at least that's how long I've had it. At the moment I can't do anything with the pc. When I turn it on, it tries to continue the windows install, but always blue screens by the time it gets to downloading updates. Then it goes back to the start, and goes no further the next time. There is nothing on the drive I can't live without, so that isn't as issue, but it would be nice to have this figured out before I go to build my main pc. Thanks again to everyone for their assistance with this problem.

@id0ntknow: At about 8 months, if it wasn't used when you got it, I wouldn't expect the SSD to be the issue.... Best wishes on figuring out where the problem is.

[tuffy]

6 hours ago, id0ntknow said:

The SSD is about 8 months old, or at least that's how long I've had it. At the moment I can't do anything with the pc. When I turn it on, it tries to continue the windows install, but always blue screens by the time it gets to downloading updates. Then it goes back to the start, and goes no further the next time. There is nothing on the drive I can't live without, so that isn't as issue, but it would be nice to have this figured out before I go to build my main pc. Thanks again to everyone for their assistance with this problem.

To determine if the SSD is the culprit, you need to initialize the drive,  move it to a known working computer and start the Windows install over from scratch. If you get the BSOD from there, you've found your culprit. Alternatively, you could get a new disk (I'd suggest a spinny disk instead of SSD) and try to install w11 to that.

That's why I keep spare parts around and glare at my wife every time she asks "do we really need to keep that junk?"

[Pelusban]

There are very crappy SSDs with the Phison PS3111 controller chip. These drives can be dead after a few months. When the system starts to report the drive as "SATAFIRM S11" instead of its previous name, the game is over.

 

[id0ntknow]

I borrowed a hhd from dad, but when I went to install to it I got an error saing "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks." It also said "Bootmgr is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" when I had the drive set to be first in the boot order in bios. I'm thinking of buying a cheap hdd and trying again, just to eliminate the variable of my ssd. 

[zzyzx]

6 minutes ago, id0ntknow said:

I borrowed a hhd from dad, but when I went to install to it I got an error saing "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks." It also said "Bootmgr is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" when I had the drive set to be first in the boot order in bios. I'm thinking of buying a cheap hdd and trying again, just to eliminate the variable of my ssd. 

@id0ntknow: If you had permission to wipe out the drive, you could have reset the disk contents.  However a "regular" Windows based user might not know how.  You got bit by old vs new boot methods   If the drive had been wiped out prior to the (next) install attempt, it probably would have worked.  For me, under Linux, wiping out such a drive (from root terminal window) is easy....  But you have to make sure you know WHICH drive you are wiping out, or you very easily get in trouble (wiping out a drive you didn't intend to).

Best wishes.

[id0ntknow]

I got my copy of windows 11 to install to an hdd that dad let me borrow, and within 5 minutes at the most from getting to the desktop it's been bsods like crazy again. I haven't even done anything on the pc with this drive, and every stick of ram that I've tested with memtest86 has passed. I still have one stick left to test, but I can't see it failing if all the others have passed. Any advice before I chuck this thing out in the snow? It's very annoying. Could my store bough copy of windows be bad possibly? 

[Pelusban]

What was the Stop code on the blue screen? Also, if you are using always the same sata connector on the motherboard, maybe you can try to use a different one, and also a different sata cable.

[id0ntknow]

On 1/6/2025 at 9:32 AM, Pelusban said:

What was the Stop code on the blue screen? Also, if you are using always the same sata connector on the motherboard, maybe you can try to use a different one, and also a different sata cable.

I have tried different sata cables and ports to no avail. My dad even let me try an ssd with 8.1 loaded onto it, and was no helpl A coworker suggested maybe a failing cpu, which I hadn't really given much thought. I pulled my cpu out of my old pc, which is an AMD FX 9590, but I don't know if this would fit into an AM4 socket or not. The test rig is running a Gigabyte B550M K mobo, the ram that I was using before, and the Ryzen 7 5800X that was in the pc before as well. Stop codes have been things like:

PFN LIST CORRUPT
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
something about spaceport.sys
something about partmgr.sys
bxois.sys

PFN LIST CORRUPT is the one I have been seeing most often, but it does seem like the codes change quite often too, which is making this very troublesome to try to pin down.

[Pelusban]

14 hours ago, id0ntknow said:

I pulled my cpu out of my old pc, which is an AMD FX 9590, but I don't know if this would fit into an AM4 socket or not.

Unfortunately that's an AM3+ CPU so it's not compatible with AM4 (even the socket is different).

What about the PSU? It also often goes wrong. Perhaps it still works but lost some power. Since the most power consuming part is the GPU, maybe you can also test the system without GPU for a while. It seems the MSI B450 you mentioned has motherboard video output too (I see HDMI + DVI on the googled pictures).

[dlsafrica]

I had to get a new phone.  Samsung Galaxy 5. Absolutely love it

[id0ntknow]

17 hours ago, Pelusban said:

Unfortunately that's an AM3+ CPU so it's not compatible with AM4 (even the socket is different).

What about the PSU? It also often goes wrong. Perhaps it still works but lost some power. Since the most power consuming part is the GPU, maybe you can also test the system without GPU for a while. It seems the MSI B450 you mentioned has motherboard video output too (I see HDMI + DVI on the googled pictures).

The MSI B450 mobo isn't in this test rig that I'm running at the moment, and it is using a different psu as well as gpu too. The test rig is running a Gigabyte B550M K mobo, a Gigabyte Nvidia Geforce GT710 gpu, a Thermaltake Toughpower GX2 600W psu. It is still using the same ram from before (Corsair DDR4 or Crucial DDR4), and the same cpu and cooler (Ryzen 7 5800X and a Thermalright Peerless Assissin 120mm air cooler). All of the parts in the test rig other than cpu, ram, and cooler are brand new pieces. I have also tested out 2 different disks, one of them being hdd and the other being an ssd. The hdd I had gotten Windows11 to install to, and the ssd had Windows8.1 on it already. Neither showed any improvement of the blue screen problem. I have all of my components to build my main pc again, but I was wanting to try and figure this issue out first. If desired I can post all the new components in another post later. Getting tired.

[Pelusban]

I understand your frustration about the problem. So it's not the hard disk, not the motherboard, not the PSU, not the GPU, and you tested the RAM too. So most likely it's something with the CPU. I wonder if there are CPU stress test programs to check all the possible failures. This CPU has 8 cores and probably only one of them does something wrong. Maybe it can be solved if you adjust the frequencies and voltages for the memory and the CPU in the BIOS menu. Fortunately I never had a problem like this before. The CPU was always the most reliable part in the system, although usually I don't change the recommended nominal values.

[id0ntknow]

I think there are stress test programs for the cpu, but I can't get the pc to run long enough to do anything. I had tried to do a fresh install of windows11 to my C drive to see if that would do anything, but it never got all the way through the install without crashing. Now it is acting like there sin't an OS on the disk at all. I'm not convinced that this isn't geek squad's fault to some extent now. When they first built the pc back in april of 24 they never removed the film from the cpu cooler when putting it on. I never realized this until I went to swap it into the case I'm using for the test rig. I have removed the film, but I wonder if the damage is already done.

[id0ntknow]

I have gotten a new cpu for my test build, an AMD Ryzen 5 5500. I have it installed now, and it appears to be the fix for getting this thing running again. It has been running great so far since putting it in, and it is also running a lot quieter as well. I'm kinda glad to have gone through this hassle (sort of), since it is teaching me some things about troubleshooting. Now I just need to put the actual pc together and I'll be able to play games and stuff again too.