Reviving a Relic PC

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

Greetings, 
Specs
P8h61-M lx2 Mobo
8 gb ddr 3 Ram
Core i-5 2400 Cpu
Radeon 4gb GPU
We tried installing windows onto a new sata ssd and it went through without any problems , while downloading steam the pc stopped the display output and now it wont even load into windows upon restarting. Tried a working hdd to install windows and the same thing happened again, installed a fresh copy from the MS media creation tool and it shut down shortly after installation completes and we begin installing some software. Any help is appreciated.

[jaslion]

Take out the gpu.

 

Whats the make and model of psu?

 

How do the temps look like? Monitor em closely highly likely it would be extremely overheating

 

 

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

12 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Take out the gpu.

 

Whats the make and model of psu?

 

How do the temps look like? Monitor em closely highly likely it would be extremely overheating

 

 

Im not sure about the make of the psu,this pc belongs to my friend. But even after installing a fresh copy of windows, it refuses to boot into it once it shutsdown like that, we have installed windows like 5 times now, and anytime we download anything after the installation is complete it stops giving display out and shuts down and will only go into bios or respond to a installation media usb. Forcing us to re -install windows again

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

21 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Take out the gpu.

 

Whats the make and model of psu?

 

How do the temps look like? Monitor em closely highly likely it would be extremely overheating

 

 

Can a thermal issue cause windows not to start if the computer shuts itself down due to overheating?

[Kilrah]

No.

Can try to run memtest86 to see if you have RAM problems.

[jaslion]

25 minutes ago, ErrorsAllTheWay said:

Can a thermal issue cause windows not to start if the computer shuts itself down due to overheating?

If it shuts down during portant driver stuff yes actually. Unlikely for sure but at this point id really just check as a way to rule it out.

 

May also be a memory issue.

[MadAnt250]

What and how many drives are in the system?

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

11 minutes ago, jaslion said:

If it shuts down during portant driver stuff yes actually. Unlikely for sure but at this point id really just check as a way to rule it out.

 

May also be a memory issue.

It shuts down when its left idle installing steam after the windows installation has been completed and does not boot into windows until I perform a clean install all over again.

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

7 minutes ago, MadAnt250 said:

What and how many drives are in the system?

We have tried with only a ssd in the system as well as only a 500gb wd hdd. Both times the result was the same, it shut down while installing steam and needs a complete re install 

[Dutch_Master]

That system is most likely not capable of running both Win-OS and Steam. Install Linux Bazzite and go from there.

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

19 minutes ago, Dutch_Master said:

That system is most likely not capable of running both Win-OS and Steam. Install Linux Bazzite and go from there.

The problem is not only with steam, leave it idle for some time and it just crashes and refuses to load into windows again. Will try linux next, ty

[aisle9]

"Relic"? An OG Pentium 4 with the pins on its butt is a relic...maybe. An H61M motherboard is a perfectly usable office PC. Ouch.

 

A few ideas:

• Experiment with your RAM. Number of sticks, which slots the sticks are in, see if you can rule that out. Alternatively, just put MemTest86+ on a USB drive, boot to it and let it run overnight
• Update your board's BIOS to the last version available
• Check all your connections from the PSU
• Try different SATA ports.
• Remove everything you can, including the GPU, so you're getting a clean shot at the problem. If it works in a stripped-down state, you can start adding things back in to find the problem.

 

 

17 minutes ago, Dutch_Master said:

That system is most likely not capable of running both Win-OS and Steam. Install Linux Bazzite and go from there.

Oh sure it is. I've pushed Core 2 Duos harder than that.

[MadAnt250]

1 hour ago, ErrorsAllTheWay said:

We have tried with only a ssd in the system as well as only a 500gb wd hdd. Both times the result was the same, it shut down while installing steam and needs a complete re install 

It could be multiple things going on. Can you boot up in safe mode?

[Euchre]

I can think of 3 things that would cause a system-wide crash like that, but the data corruption rendering your system unbootable makes it seem like only one seems likely.

 

1. You're hitting a load that is enough to cause thermal issues, because a failure of cooling somewhere. Your CPU cooling solution isn't working as it should, for example if air cooled the CPU block isn't seated all the way across the die, or a water cooling loop has an air lock in it. A crash subsequent to that isn't incredibly likely to lead to a system wrecking data corruption, though.
2. You're creating a power demand that's exposing a failed power supply issue, like a weak capacitor. Here again though, the level of data corruption you're describing shouldn't really happen that easily from that alone.
3. You're hitting a memory address that's failed, and this is causing a data corruption. This seems most likely. Running MemTest86 would expose that pretty easily.

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

32 minutes ago, MadAnt250 said:

It could be multiple things going on. Can you boot up in safe mode?

Sadly no, once it shuts itself down after installing windows it just does not boot into it again until i perform a complete re-install.

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

1 hour ago, aisle9 said:

"Relic"? An OG Pentium 4 with the pins on its butt is a relic...maybe. An H61M motherboard is a perfectly usable office PC. Ouch.

 

A few ideas:

• Experiment with your RAM. Number of sticks, which slots the sticks are in, see if you can rule that out. Alternatively, just put MemTest86+ on a USB drive, boot to it and let it run overnight
• Update your board's BIOS to the last version available
• Check all your connections from the PSU
• Try different SATA ports.
• Remove everything you can, including the GPU, so you're getting a clean shot at the problem. If it works in a stripped-down state, you can start adding things back in to find the problem.

 

 

Oh sure it is. I've pushed Core 2 Duos harder than that.

Sorry about the relic part, haha . This pc ran dota 2 with discord in the background just fine at medium settings. Will surely test out the memory later today. Thanks

[ErrorsAllTheWay]

1 hour ago, Euchre said:

I can think of 3 things that would cause a system-wide crash like that, but the data corruption rendering your system unbootable makes it seem like only one seems likely.

 

1. You're hitting a load that is enough to cause thermal issues, because a failure of cooling somewhere. Your CPU cooling solution isn't working as it should, for example if air cooled the CPU block isn't seated all the way across the die, or a water cooling loop has an air lock in it. A crash subsequent to that isn't incredibly likely to lead to a system wrecking data corruption, though.
2. You're creating a power demand that's exposing a failed power supply issue, like a weak capacitor. Here again though, the level of data corruption you're describing shouldn't really happen that easily from that alone.
3. You're hitting a memory address that's failed, and this is causing a data corruption. This seems most likely. Running MemTest86 would expose that pretty easily.

That is what i have been trying to grasp, first i thought maybe its a bad ssd, will check memory and get back to you , thanks