PC Needs daily Windows installation

[EdZeg]

Hey guys, I'm trying to help with my cousin's computer and I'm stumped...

it's a ~6/7 year old Asus gaming prebuilt PC. (i7-4770K)

 

About two weeks ago his computer would just refuse to boot, even Safe Mode would only work after many attempts. Tried repair installations, tried fresh installation, nothing.

Figured the SSD (a 120GB SanDisk) had run its course so he went out and got a new Crucial MX500 and installed windows on it and everything was great again... for a few days.

 

Then one night he had some Windows Updates to do, so he let it do the updates when he was getting off for the night.

It stalled and never recovered, was not able to boot back in.

 

Fresh windows install again.

Worked fine, installed drivers, played some Warzone (thankfully games were installed on a separate HDD that seems unaffected) and then got off for the night.

 

Next day, won't boot into Windows.

Ran Memtest just to be safe (he recently upgraded his RAM about a month ago) and it all passed.

 

Another format and fresh install, all good.

Next day, again, won't boot, even after having disable Windows Update.

 

 

Anyone have an idea of what the issue could be?

 

I previously was thinking maybe it was the MoBo (old VRMs degrading?), but he's not having stability issues (crashing/freezing) when Windows or Games (CS:GO, CoD:Warzone) are running... the issue only presents on a fresh boot up after being turned off overnight.

 

Could the PSU cause something like this?

I have asked him to check if the SSD and the HDD are on different power cables. My current theory is that his HDD is likely ona  Molex poer connection but his SSD's are on a SATA Power connection and that rail is faulty. Might try a Molex-to-SATA (and hopefully not lose all his data) adapter temporarily to test.

 

Does this theory sound reasonable?

[Electronics Wizardy]

check the drives, could be a bad boot drive.

[EdZeg]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

check the drives, could be a bad boot drive.

I'll see if he can go exchange the new SSD, it was a new MX500 though, and we did check it with Crystal, but I guess there's the chance of a dud... but then there's the fact that this happened on his old SSD as well... and that one tested fine also.

 

Any other theories?

[Kilrah]

Probably mobo or CPU faulty.

[skNDstry]

Damaged Bios? Donno. Try swapping the CMOS for a new one. Don't believe my signature this time around.

[EdZeg]

3 hours ago, skNDstry said:

Damaged Bios? Donno. Try swapping the CMOS for a new one. Don't believe my signature this time around.

Yeah, cousin will be dropping it off over at my place tonight after he swings by Canada Computers to exchange the SSD just in case.

I've got a bunch of CR2032's laying around so I'll give the CMOS Battery a swap to be sure.