OS boot crash loop

Ivelin Penchev · February 26, 2021

Hi all, I need some help debugging my potato basket which stopped working earlier today.

How it happened:

Started a game of DOTA2, not the most intensive game whatsoever, PC crashed (black screen, instant reboot, no BSOD or any other software error) and rebooted.

What kept happening after that:

PC boots, I can get into the bios, I can load the grub bootloader, however selecting either windows or linux causes a crash again.
Selecting windows shows the windows logo for a second then PC reboots (it doesn't fully go off, fans keep spinning, rgb is on, etc), selecting linux restarts after less than a second - same outcome for both.
So normally I thought my nvme drive has gone, I tried booting from a win10 usb stick (and later on a universal boot cd) to, sadly, the same effect

I think this points to either PSU or motherboard, though I don't know how to test them. To expand a bit, I lean more towards the mobo purely because I doubt the PSU would have an issue while booting a OS - I would expect it to struggle during gaming if anything.

Things I’ve tried so far:

Resit ram
Try each ram stick individually
Resit CPU
Resit GPU
Remove NVME drives
Update BIOS to the latest version
Unplug all peripherals including front usb hub
Try booting ultimate boot CD to no avail

I can’t remove the GPU because the CPU doesn’t have integrated graphics.

Specs

Aorus x570 ultra
Ryzen 5950x (stock)
RTX3090 FE (undervolted)
corsair vengeance rgb pro 4x16gb
wd black 850n 500gb (boot drive)
wd black 850n 2tb (data drive)
corsair hx1000i (~5 year old, other parts were bought in dec)
OS
- Windows 10
- Manjaro xfce

Please give me any ideas, I’m going mad!

Thanks!

edit: add additional things I’ve tried, more specs details

oqueck · February 27, 2021

I'm having the exact same issue here.

In my case, only had Windows on an SSD and a couple of secondary drives plugged in when this started happening.

Specs:

* Moboard: MSI Z370 sli plus

* Proc: I5 8600k + corsair liquid cooler

* Ram: Hyperx (predator) DDR4 8gb

Tried all the same points mentioned by @Ivelin Penchev, RAM is Ok & all peripherials are working.

I even tried resetting CMOS & also ran a Mem test from linux GRUB and worked ok.

I basically unplugged everything leaving only the Psuply, Moboard, CPU & 1 RAM stick.

Booting from Windows & Manjaro sticks/hard drives gave the same result.

After booting from a Ubuntu stick and playing around with Moboard params such as UEFI (secure boot) I got a "Kernel Panic", where the machine just halted straight away (no rebooting). I think it might have something to do with previous Manjaro installation, but I'm no expert so I'm kind of lost at this point .

Another interesting fact, the Mobo's CPU debug light turns on right before rebooting.

I have to find out how it used to behave before the issue came up. I can't remember if it's always turned on during OS startup.

I'll have another CPU next week, so I'll also try swapping it.

Ivelin Penchev · February 27, 2021

Hi all and thanks @oqueck for the reply!

An update on my part if anyone finds this via google in the future - I got a new motherboard delivered today and tested it - same results as before. At least I know my old mobo is fine.

I realised (after some horrible frankenstein-ing, see pic, I can test my mobo + cpu on my old rig (custom loop prevents me from just getting the GPU). I fitted the mobo + cpu and used the old PSU, GPU and ram for testing. Same result as before, pc restarts after a sec into booting any OS or drive. Knowing the mobo isn’t the issue, seems like the CPU is the culprit.

Ill report once I get my hands on a new one.

Thanks,

Ivo