Please help, I'm about to give up

[xbrnurshpsx]

First, thank you for giving my situation a chance.

A quick summary. This is my 3rd build. It's mini itx because of limited desk space. This is possibly my 6th motherboard (I lost track after an rma sent me back 2 boards). 

Anywho this is my situation:
Bought a used Asus Maximus VIII impact, and this is where my problems started. 

I had a working system with 2 ssd, 1 hdd (OS on smallest 256gb ssd). 

Set up the mb and plugged in the OS ssd by itself. Boot up and load optimized defaults. Restart and I get into a boot loop of preparing automatic repair. 

I go through a couple troubleshooting steps with Asus and eventually return the board and buy a new one. Same mb (impact viii). 

Same story. So I figured maybe it's the ssd. Get a spare ssd that hasn't been opened. Load it up and plug in the windows 10 usb you can buy from best buy. Mb won't accept the OS. Everytime I select win 64 bit it loads files then restarts and I'm back to the same screen. Call asus, troubleshoot and rma this board. 

Meanwhile I decide to buy the Asus Pro gaming Z170I. I figured it was just that board. Get the new pro board and it's the same problem. Won't accept the OS and just restarts. RMA this board. 

This is now the present: I received the new pro gaming board and the impact viii. I load up the mb and both give me the same problems.

I have the great idea to try loading the OS while the brand new ssd is hooked up to my old matx board in my old system. Works like a charm with the win 10 usb from BB. Great!!

Hook up the new ssd to the pro gaming, and now I'm back to preparing automatic repair. On both boards. 

I'm starting to think it's something on my end instead of the Asus boards being bad. I just can't explain why it works perfectly on the old matx board, but doesn't on the new mitx boards. 

Also, all the ram and other components have been triple checked for compatibility. 

Please help, any suggestions?

Also, sorry for posting this on my phone. I'll edit it when I get to my laptop.

[ProdigyzMined]

Sounds like your image of Windows might be broken. Have you tried loading any other operating systems like Ubuntu onto either SSD? where did you get your version of Windows? What version is it? Also check to see if the boards are using AHCI or IDE, and switch it. maybe that will help? Let me know!

 

EDIT: re-read it and understand it's Windows 10. my bad

Edited February 18, 2017 by ProdigyzMined
Correction

[PCGuy_5960]

-Deleted-

[xbrnurshpsx]

23 hours ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

-snip-

All I have hooked up right now is 1 stick of RAM in the first slot (pro gaming board), cpu, CPU fan, power supply, keyboard and mouse. What do you suggest removing?

23 hours ago, ProdigyzMined said:

Sounds like your image of Windows might be broken. Have you tried loading any other operating systems like Ubuntu onto either SSD? where did you get your version of Windows? What version is it? Also check to see if the boards are using AHCI or IDE, and switch it. maybe that will help? Let me know!

 

EDIT: re-read it and understand it's Windows 10. my bad

I will try loading Ubuntu on a usb. But first I'll check for ahci or ide

[PCGuy_5960]

1 minute ago, xbrnurshpsx said:

All I have hooked up right now is 1 stick of RAM in the first slot (pro gaming board), cpu, CPU fan, power supply, keyboard and mouse. What do you suggest removing?

Nothing, I misread the OP, sry.

[komar]

1 minute ago, xbrnurshpsx said:

I will try loading Ubuntu on a usb. But first I'll check for ahci or ide

i think you can still download windows 10 ISO just have to activate it later

[xbrnurshpsx]

2 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

Nothing, I misread the OP, sry.

That's okay! Thanks for trying to help!

[xbrnurshpsx]

16 minutes ago, ProdigyzMined said:

Sounds like your image of Windows might be broken. Have you tried loading any other operating systems like Ubuntu onto either SSD? where did you get your version of Windows? What version is it? Also check to see if the boards are using AHCI or IDE, and switch it. maybe that will help? Let me know!

 

EDIT: re-read it and understand it's Windows 10. my bad

Okay so I checked and I only have two options. AHCI or RAID, and i'm not running raid and have never had this drive in a raid config. 

Also this doesn't explain why I can boot on my old system using this ssd just fine..

[ProdigyzMined]

1 minute ago, xbrnurshpsx said:

Okay so I checked and I only have two options. AHCI or RAID, and i'm not running raid and have never had this drive in a raid config. 

Also this doesn't explain why I can boot on my old system using this ssd just fine..

It could potentially explain, perhaps your older system is using IDE. How old is that other board?

 

Either way, this seems like an issue is between the Motherboard and the Operating System... Have you loaded defaults in the BIOS? Maybe one of the other drives has an old version of windows on it, and it's trying to boot onto that. Check boot order?

[xbrnurshpsx]

3 minutes ago, ProdigyzMined said:

It could potentially explain, perhaps your older system is using IDE. How old is that other board?

 

Either way, this seems like an issue is between the Motherboard and the Operating System... Have you loaded defaults in the BIOS?

Check boot order?

this is the old board

 

Quote

Maybe one of the other drives has an old version of windows on it, and it's trying to boot onto that.

I'm sorry I don't really understand this. I loaded Win 10 on a brand new ssd using my old motherboard. So there shouldn't be anything else on the new ssd other than the OS and some drivers, right? 

 

Checking ubuntu right now

[xbrnurshpsx]

25 minutes ago, ProdigyzMined said:

It could potentially explain, perhaps your older system is using IDE. How old is that other board?

 

Either way, this seems like an issue is between the Motherboard and the Operating System... Have you loaded defaults in the BIOS? Maybe one of the other drives has an old version of windows on it, and it's trying to boot onto that. Check boot order?

When I boot into Ubuntu I get 4 options:

Try Ubuntu without installing

Install Ubuntu

OEM install (for manufacturers)

Check disk for defects

 

Try Ubuntu without installing restarts the mb and puts me right back at the selection screen

[ProdigyzMined]

1 hour ago, xbrnurshpsx said:

When I boot into Ubuntu I get 4 options:

Try Ubuntu without installing

Install Ubuntu

OEM install (for manufacturers)

Check disk for defects

 

Try Ubuntu without installing restarts the mb and puts me right back at the selection screen

Install it over your Windows installation, assuming you have the option of re-installing windows later.

 

Speaking of... have you tried re-installing Windows on the SSD? if it's an install you were using with your old motherboard that could be why it's being so pissy now.

[Glibber4]

Okay, first of all im very sorry if my answer is useless to you as you already tried it and maybe even mentioned it here. Im super tired as its in the middle of the night where im at. From reading what happend and what you tried i can tell you what i would do if i was you:

I'd walk up to my new system and unplug and remove every drive from there. Then go to the other rig you mentioned and unplug every drive from there. Then i'd take the drive i wanna install windows on, so in your case, for now, the new untouched SSD and install it in the older rig. Then I'd Plug in the Windows USBstick into the Old system and pretend to install windows on there, but stop at the point where you select the drive to install windows on. There should by only 1 drive by now and then you just delete it, or whatever thats called, so dont format the partition but delete it, so it says XXXGB of unformatted storage. Shut down the Computer and remove the New SSD from it. Then id go to my new rig start it up without any drive in it and reset the BIOS. Save that and shut it down again. Now id reinstall the New, now completely empty, SSD into your new rig. Then id Plug in the Windows USB drive at the back of it into a USB2.0 port. (So no Front Case ports)
If that does not change the situation AT ALL (every minor difference could be an indication of whats going on) I'd take an entirely different USB stick (at least 4GB in size) and walk up to my old rig (By now it would have been smart to reinstall the drive(s) you unplugged before to their previous state, so your old rig works completely normal again) Then id do exactly this. Then just try again to install windows with your new windows USB drive plugged into the back (2.0 Port) in your old rig. 
If nothing has changed by now I'd come here again so we can find a solution. What bugs me is that you seemingly replaced/checked every part of your rig, which, for me, makes it impossible to imagine that we don't get that fixed  

Cheers

[xbrnurshpsx]

20 hours ago, Glibber4 said:

Okay, first of all im very sorry if my answer is useless to you as you already tried it and maybe even mentioned it here. Im super tired as its in the middle of the night where im at. From reading what happend and what you tried i can tell you what i would do if i was you:

I'd walk up to my new system and unplug and remove every drive from there. Then go to the other rig you mentioned and unplug every drive from there. Then i'd take the drive i wanna install windows on, so in your case, for now, the new untouched SSD and install it in the older rig. Then I'd Plug in the Windows USBstick into the Old system and pretend to install windows on there, but stop at the point where you select the drive to install windows on. There should by only 1 drive by now and then you just delete it, or whatever thats called, so dont format the partition but delete it, so it says XXXGB of unformatted storage. Shut down the Computer and remove the New SSD from it. Then id go to my new rig start it up without any drive in it and reset the BIOS. Save that and shut it down again. Now id reinstall the New, now completely empty, SSD into your new rig. Then id Plug in the Windows USB drive at the back of it into a USB2.0 port. (So no Front Case ports)
If that does not change the situation AT ALL (every minor difference could be an indication of whats going on) I'd take an entirely different USB stick (at least 4GB in size) and walk up to my old rig (By now it would have been smart to reinstall the drive(s) you unplugged before to their previous state, so your old rig works completely normal again) Then id do exactly this. Then just try again to install windows with your new windows USB drive plugged into the back (2.0 Port) in your old rig. 
If nothing has changed by now I'd come here again so we can find a solution. What bugs me is that you seemingly replaced/checked every part of your rig, which, for me, makes it impossible to imagine that we don't get that fixed  

Cheers

I get this screen when booting from the usb stick from best buy. 

 

Selecting 64 or 32 bit restarts the computer and brings me back to the same screen. 

21 hours ago, ProdigyzMined said:

Install it over your Windows installation, assuming you have the option of re-installing windows later.

 

Speaking of... have you tried re-installing Windows on the SSD? if it's an install you were using with your old motherboard that could be why it's being so pissy now.

When I boot from the usb (the one from best buy) I get this screen. 

 

If I select 32 or 64 bit the computer restarts and brings me back to the same screen

[Glibber4]

7 minutes ago, xbrnurshpsx said:

When I boot from the usb (the one from best buy) I get this screen. 

 

If I select 32 or 64 bit the computer restarts and brings me back to the same screen

Ok on what rig? Did you even try what i suggested in that order? Did that happen while just clearing the ssd on your old rig or on your new one after doing this?

[xbrnurshpsx]

7 minutes ago, Glibber4 said:

Ok on what rig? Did you even try what i suggested in that order? Did that happen while just clearing the ssd on your old rig or on your new one after doing this?

Erased the ssd on the old rig using the method you suggested. Plugged usb stick and new drive into new motherboard and this is the screen I get. 

 

I have not followed the instructions on the video you provided. 

 

Edit: which I'm assuming is load windows 8 if successful, just upgrade to win 10?

[Glibber4]

2 hours ago, xbrnurshpsx said:

Erased the ssd on the old rig using the method you suggested. Plugged usb stick and new drive into new motherboard and this is the screen I get. 

 

I have not followed the instructions on the video you provided. 

 

Edit: which I'm assuming is load windows 8 if successful, just upgrade to win 10?

Okay so my point was, if your best buy stick does not work after all these steps try using your own usb stick, following the instructions in the video i linked. 

2 hours ago, xbrnurshpsx said:

Edit: which I'm assuming is load windows 8 if successful, just upgrade to win 10?

No. I meant you do everything as shown in the video except the part where linus types windows 8. You want to be typing windows 10, as you do not own a copy of windows 8 but a copy of windows 10. You will find the same page as shown in the video, only difference is you're going to select windows 10

 

Cheers

 

Btw i was dead serious about the remove all other drives first. That may actually be crucial.

[xbrnurshpsx]

30 minutes ago, Glibber4 said:

Btw i was dead serious about the remove all other drives first. That may actually be crucial.

Reset cmos while the 24 pin mb power was still plugged in (power supply unplugged from wall). 

 

Now i can't get an image to show up. My stupidity knows no bounds

[Glibber4]

13 minutes ago, xbrnurshpsx said:

Reset cmos while the 24 pin mb power was still plugged in (power supply unplugged from wall). 

 

Now i can't get an image to show up. My stupidity knows no bounds

Please don't take this as an insult but you really have to express yourself more clearly. Tell me exactly what you did, why you did it and what happend/not worked then.

Besides that, as far as i know there is no correlation between Flushing your CMOS and flushing your CMOS while the 24pin is still in. In some cases i had to flush the cmos while the system was running to solve the problem.

[xbrnurshpsx]

50 minutes ago, Glibber4 said:

Please don't take this as an insult but you really have to express yourself more clearly. Tell me exactly what you did, why you did it and what happend/not worked then.

Besides that, as far as i know there is no correlation between Flushing your CMOS and flushing your CMOS while the 24pin is still in. In some cases i had to flush the cmos while the system was running to solve the problem.

Sorry for being vague, thank you for being patient. This is my first post about these kinds of things on any forum. 

 

That being said here are the steps I have taken:

I created the bootable usb stick like you said using the steps in that video. Although I used rufus to burn the iso file to the usb stick because the link linus uses wasn't working for me. 

I placed that usb stick in the motherboard and only that usb stick (no other drives, 1 ram, cpu & fan)

It takes me to the screen I have shown you and I click 64 bit. 

The motherboard restarts and i'm back at that screen

I have also tried clicking F8 and choosing safe mode, this also reboots my mb and takes me back to the same screen. 

 

If you need any other details just ask! Again, thank you. 

[Glibber4]

Alright, you've gotta hang on a second. Im sorry i was very busy working since yesterday. I'll answer you in a few hours

[Ringthane]

This may be a long shot, but have you gone into the BIOS and checked for a UEFI setting?  I was trying to reinstall Windows 7 on a Toshiba laptop last week and had the same thing happen.  I changed the UEFI in the BIOS to whatever the other option was and everything worked fine.  I'm not sure what the UEFI setting actually does, but it didn't seem to hurt anything once it was off.

 

I only mention it because it was the same thing you're seeing - load Windows and it goes right back to the selection screen/auto repair screen.

[xbrnurshpsx]

On 2/20/2017 at 9:43 AM, Ringthane said:

This may be a long shot, but have you gone into the BIOS and checked for a UEFI setting?  I was trying to reinstall Windows 7 on a Toshiba laptop last week and had the same thing happen.  I changed the UEFI in the BIOS to whatever the other option was and everything worked fine.  I'm not sure what the UEFI setting actually does, but it didn't seem to hurt anything once it was off.

 

I only mention it because it was the same thing you're seeing - load Windows and it goes right back to the selection screen/auto repair screen.

I tried this, but it didn't change the outcome. Thank you for the suggestion though!

[xbrnurshpsx]

On 2/20/2017 at 9:35 AM, Glibber4 said:

Alright, you've gotta hang on a second. Im sorry i was very busy working since yesterday. I'll answer you in a few hours

So I bought two other motherboards to try out. MSI z170i gaming pro ac and the z170m mortar. Same issues. The motherboard tries a little harder to fix the issue, but doing every step in this thread I still can't get into windows. That narrows the culprit down to likely being the CPU or the RAM

I honestly think i'm going to give up on upgrading my system and maybe just upgrade the GPU and Case. 

[xbrnurshpsx]

Final update! The two MSI mb I bought produced the same results. So I bought a new cpu and ram. Now everything works, on all the boards.