OS boot crash loop

[Ivelin Penchev]

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]

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]

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

[oqueck]

Just for the record, I finally received the CPU, set it up and it's all working like a charm.

As Penchev said:

On 2/27/2021 at 3:43 PM, Ivelin Penchev said:

seems like the CPU is the culprit

Cheers!