Windows 7 64bitwill not start - BSOD on windows 7 logo

Hello MajorGeeks! When I turn on my PC I will get the BSOD when the windows 7 logo (Black background) starts it's animation. I see 2 dots (Red & Green) and then it freezes for a few seconds and then BSOD.

I'll explain what I was doing when this happened - My CPU has been running hot so I opened my PC up and took off the heatsink & applied more of that gel stuff (Forgot the name..) that did cool down the CPU. Well before I did that I installed a program called SpeedFan (www.almico.com/speedfan.php) to try and adjust my CPU fan speed. After this I started to get BSOD.

I've tried numerous things to resolve this. I ran the start up repair (From windows repair CD) and that finds no issues. I've tried a system restore to a previous date and still no dice. I then searched these threads and tried a few things in CMD. I tried chkdsk c: /r and that took over an hour and found no issues.

I've also tried what's posted here http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=263384&highlight=Windows+7+won't+start&page=2

I'll also note I am not able to boot into safemode either. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Oh, and my PC is custom built. I5 processor, gigbyte motherboard, 8 gigs of Ram (2 4GB slots), 500GB HD. Windows 7 64bit. If you need to know anything else let me know.

I also tried what's in this video with no luck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZi5-4sGj0g

Thanks,
Z

 

My thought is that the CPU isn't seated properly or is failing due to the excessive heat you said had developed.

When you re-applied the thermal paste, did you clean both the top of the CPU and the bottom of the heat sink with 90% isopropyl alcohol first before applying more thermal paste to the top of the CPU according to the instructions supplied with the thermal paste?

 

I didn't, the old stuff just wiped off. I'll try to re-seat the cpu when I get home. I did check the CPU temp in the bios after I did this and it was around 40c.

Thanks,
Z

 

zeroku...

mdonah is pretty uncannily on the mark about things like this, so I would definitely reseat the processor as you said you plan to do...

Not to say so, but if you run out of options to check, maybe Speedfan is having a conflict with one of your drivers. I have Speedfan on a couple of PCs, and I have noticed it's a little bit buggy. I don't use it to regulate fan speeds, just to monitor temps, but I think I could see how SF might account for the BSOD. If you haven't yet, you might try removing Speedfan :-o...

 

Reseated processer and nothing. I took the HD out and connected it to another machine and still won't boot. I don't think this is a hardware issue. I deleted speed fan but it may have left some changes behind. I can see all the files via CMD & browse folders messing with system recovering options.

 

The log for startup repair it detects one problem -

Root cause found:
----------------------
No OS files found on disk.

Repair action: Partition table repair
Result: Failed. Error code = 0x490
Time taken = 5975 ms
---------------------------

I was running start up repair from a disc yesterday when it said I had no error. Today I ran it off the HD itself and it detected this one.

 

zeroku...

You might try taking a look here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...repair-error-0x490-hard-shutdown-problem.html

mdonah or some else can probably help you out with repairing the MBR. Never been through that process before. Might help to know if you can still get into Safe Mode...

 

Thank you AtlBo for pointing me in the right direction. I cannot get into safe mode (Indicated in opening post). I have not gone through this process either.. I'll look into it more but if anyone else can offer guidance for bootrec.exe that would be awesome

 

The bootrec process didn't work. However after looking into this more I did notice when loading in Safemode (Still would crash) the last thing to load was aswRvrt. I looked into this and it appears this issue is caused by Avast and actually has a number of threads open on the avast website for this exact same issue. I'm going to boot up in Linux (USB with this installed) and see if I can uninstall Avast tonight.

Just thought I'd give an update for anyone else who's running into this..


Thanks,
Z

 

Thanks for the update. Unfortunately, you can't uninstall a Windows app from within Linux. Where the installer places files, folders and registry keys is "unknown" to Linux.

 

You could pull it off from a DOS prompt, but such an endeavor would involve a rather advanced skill set.

You may be better off doing a non destructive recovery, and allow Windows to place your data (*which SHOULD be backed up) into a folder called "Windows.old". Unfortunately, this would involve reinstalling all your apps...