Asrock :( help

[Rob Walsh]

So my Girlfriends little sister has this PC ( ASRock a88m-itx/ac ) and I've been reading about it. 

 

Apparently it was designed to be ran on windows 8 for some reason. It reminds me of a laptop bios anyway. Windows 10 is installed on her PC, running my 7 year old ( or older ) 770. Its been running great for the last year or so but after I installed a second monitor for her it seems to be stuck in a windows repair loop. 

 

What is happening is when I restart the PC it goes through bios loading screen and straight into a "preparing windows repair" screen. It sits there for a few seconds and then the screen starts flashing from a blue to neutral grey. Every so often displaying the ASRock logo and flashing the preparing windows repair text. 

 

It seems to me like the computer is shutting on and off repeatedly. I'm trying to find a boot in safe mode option through bios but.. you guessed it. Cant find it. There is next to nothing on the internet regarding this motherboard let alone the bios they chose for it. 

 

I have everything unplugged except for power to psu, keyboard, mouse and one monitor. The side of the case is off so that I can hear when it beeps upon boot. 

 

I'd like to fix this for her asap so any quick help from bored people over the weekend would be fantastic! I have the option of finding an old USB and installing a windows repair thing to it. Forget what it's called. But I haven't gone that route yet because I feel like at least one person may know something I dont. Btw all the other threads on this topic are ever so slightly different than mine and none of the options they have helped or done anything to get me going in the right direction. Thanks!

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

So, that board does have Windows 10 drivers, not an issue there. 

 

What are the rest of the specifications of the system?

[Rob Walsh]

2 minutes ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

So, that board does have Windows 10 drivers, not an issue there. 

 

What are the rest of the specifications of the system?

Amd Fx 6300 8gb ram 1600mhz gtx 770 some crummy HDD I didnt get the name of. I think it may be Seagate. 1tb?? Not sure.  * The psu is a bronze evga 600. *

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

4 minutes ago, Rob Walsh said:

Amd Fx 6300 8gb ram 1600mhz gtx 770 some crummy HDD I didnt get the name of. I think it may be Seagate. 1tb?? Not sure.  * The psu is a bronze evga 600. *

So, some basics:

 

• What is the 2nd monitor connected to?
• Have you made sure the BIOS is up-to-date?
• Have you tried resetting the BIOS on the board by removing the CMOS?

For reference, it was "designed for Windows 8" because that's an old board of which, Windows 8 was the current OS when it was released. Here's the manual, it wasn't hard to locate: https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/A88M-ITXac/index.asp#Manual. There won't be anything on the BIOS really, those could take up enough stuff for their own manual sometimes. 

One thing I should point out is that according to the CPU list (https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/A88M-ITXac/index.asp#CPU) the FX 6300 isn't actually listed. The A4-6300 is, however.

[Rob Walsh]

1 minute ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

So, some basics:

 

• What is the 2nd monitor connected to?
• Have you made sure the BIOS is up-to-date?
• Have you tried resetting the BIOS on the board by removing the CMOS?

For reference, it was "designed for Windows 8" because that's an old board of which, Windows 8 was the current OS when it was released. Here's the manual, it wasn't hard to locate: https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/A88M-ITXac/index.asp#Manual. There won't be anything on the BIOS really, those could take up enough stuff for their own manual sometimes. 

One thing I should point out is that according to the CPU list (https://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/A88M-ITXac/index.asp#CPU) the FX 6300 isn't actually listed. The A4-6300 is, however.

That's the one. A4. I'm not on the PC right now I'm in the other room. It's been a few years since I assembled it. Primary monitor is dvi and secondary is HDMI. Neither of which are dvi to HDMI or otherwise. I haven't and I guarantee she hadn't checked for a bios update. I thought about removing the cmos trick but like I said I wanted to see if there may have been a "oh I dealt with that it was easy just do ( insert whatever ) ". Obviously it isnt that simple. 

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

1 minute ago, Rob Walsh said:

That's the one. A4. I'm not on the PC right now I'm in the other room. It's been a few years since I assembled it. Primary monitor is dvi and secondary is HDMI. Neither of which are dvi to HDMI or otherwise. I haven't and I guarantee she hadn't checked for a bios update. I thought about removing the cmos trick but like I said I wanted to see if there may have been a "oh I dealt with that it was easy just do ( insert whatever ) ". Obviously it isnt that simple. 

I'll be frank, I've not touched AMD since high school and that was about a decade ago so.... I', having to go through standard t-shoot questions. There's nothing wrong with resetting the CMOS unless you were running an overclock or something in which case, just put the settings back.

[Rob Walsh]

18 minutes ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

I'll be frank, I've not touched AMD since high school and that was about a decade ago so.... I', having to go through standard t-shoot questions. There's nothing wrong with resetting the CMOS unless you were running an overclock or something in which case, just put the settings back.

McKay thanks. So you know as much or less than me

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

6 hours ago, Rob Walsh said:

McKay thanks. So you know as much or less than me

Well, only in terms os specific to AMD. I've been doing this stuff for a very long time. Seriously, I suggest just removing CMOS to reset the BIOS and see first if that helps. If it doesn't, just kinda let Windows do its thing and see if it continually loops. If it still does, it may be time to pull what data off the drive that you can with an external enclosure, and then reinstall. Or, even boot into the advanced startup options if you can (F8 by default I believe) and tell it to Reset > Keep files to do an in-place reinstall with all the files left alone.

[Rob Walsh]

10 hours ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

Well, only in terms os specific to AMD. I've been doing this stuff for a very long time. Seriously, I suggest just removing CMOS to reset the BIOS and see first if that helps. If it doesn't, just kinda let Windows do its thing and see if it continually loops. If it still does, it may be time to pull what data off the drive that you can with an external enclosure, and then reinstall. Or, even boot into the advanced startup options if you can (F8 by default I believe) and tell it to Reset > Keep files to do an in-place reinstall with all the files left alone.

Yeah, I'll try it! However lets keep in mind that it could possibly be all of the hardware simultaneously taking a sh*t. its pretty old hardware and at this point she is due for a small upgrade anyway. 

[Rob Walsh]

13 hours ago, SlayerOfHellWyrm said:

Well, only in terms os specific to AMD. I've been doing this stuff for a very long time. Seriously, I suggest just removing CMOS to reset the BIOS and see first if that helps. If it doesn't, just kinda let Windows do its thing and see if it continually loops. If it still does, it may be time to pull what data off the drive that you can with an external enclosure, and then reinstall. Or, even boot into the advanced startup options if you can (F8 by default I believe) and tell it to Reset > Keep files to do an in-place reinstall with all the files left alone.

it has a "built in" NVMe. though it isn't integrated. they just list it as such, I was wondering if that may need to be cleaned. Upon visual inspection the whole pc is very dusty. I'm wondering if some hardware had been "toasted" so-to-speak. As dust can hold a static charge. IF so, I'd say we need to reinstall windows onto the HDD.