Boot Loop On Aging Desktop

Hey everyone,

I've got a weird one probably due to my computer being an odd mix of old and new. The specs are as follows:
Motherboard: Gigabyte Ultra Durable 3 X58A-UD3R
RAM: 3 x 4 gb Kingston 1333mhz
CPU: i7-950 at stock speeds, hyperthreading enabled
Hard drives: 500gb SSD (OS installed on) and two 1 TB hard drives for storage
GPU: Nvidia 1060 6gb

Every now and then when i reboot it or have to restart it due to it crashing (I believe it's a graphical crash, I'm going to try windows key + alt + shift + b next time it happens) the computer will boot loop. It'll go through showing the boot screen then the typical doss rubbish and will die around the time it says "checking dram". The number of times it goes through this loop seems to vary, sometimes it's fine, sometimes it makes it on the 5th boot.

I'm scratching my head as to what would be causing it to fail to boot but then successfully boot. I'll be honest I'm probably going to upgrade the cpu, mobo and ram soon but it would be nice to keep this thing alive a bit longer.

kind regards,

Andrew

 

I would look in event viewer and see any critical, and other errors- All systems , on W10 ght click start, left click event viewer on W10- Click start right click computer, click event viewer (as far as I can remember)
Then either follow a link to Microsoft on the error, or, come back here with the problems shown

 

Cheers for the response. Well there seem to be quite a bit going on but nothing that makes too much sense to me.

 

Event ID 41 -- If you click on the error, another little box will come up with more information, and that may help to diagnose the problem -disconnect any usb hard drives and try to see if it disappears

The only experience I have with error 41,is a power deficiency...I would see if your power supply is OK- If possible you could replace it .but perhaps if you look at this link from Microsoft
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/troubleshoot-event-id-41-restart
Scroll down that page,and check it out.

 

Mid-Summer Northern hemisphere, pretty high chance of overheating (heat sink blocked with fluff/dust) causing a reboot.

 

Yes, several to consider, so worth a cleanup.

 

Actually it's mid winter southern hemisphere! I'm in Western Australia and it is chilly (well by australian standards... 5 degrees celcius over night). Even so I was planning on taking the VRAM heatsinks off, cleaning them up and putting them back on with fresh thermal paste at some point. Currently there's an extra fan aimed right at them. I would have thought if it was a heat issue it wouldn't go through a boot loop when starting from cool?

I will investigate the event id 41 further! Cheers for setting me in the right direction, your guidance is greatly appreciated!

 

data!

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 7/07/2020 6:27:13 PM
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (70368744177664),(2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: Andrew-PC
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331c3b3a-2005-44c2-ac5e-77220c37d6b4}" />
<EventID>41</EventID>
<Version>6</Version>
<Level>1</Level>
<Task>63</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000400000000002</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2020-07-07T10:27:13.022621700Z" />
<EventRecordID>10424</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Andrew-PC</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="SleepInProgress">6</Data>
<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">132385909341860264</Data>
<Data Name="BootAppStatus">3221226017</Data>
<Data Name="Checkpoint">16</Data>
<Data Name="ConnectedStandbyInProgress">false</Data>
<Data Name="SystemSleepTransitionsToOn">1</Data>
<Data Name="CsEntryScenarioInstanceId">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckInfoFromEFI">false</Data>
<Data Name="CheckpointStatus">0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

go to
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...00000002/c8174075-37fd-4e9b-b9ff-4d4db099bbcb
and follow it through to eliminate anything you can, and you my then save lot of time
All the best
Come back if you get stuck

 

Indications are that Sleep/power transitions could be implicated.

I think that most of those tests linked above are irrelevant to this specific issue, data/drive damage is possible (not checked all the suggestions).

 

I had quite the boot loop to get the old beast started tonight... Might try a new PSU but after that i'll be quite tempted to upgrade my CPU/mobo/ram.

slightly different data

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 10/07/2020 8:41:27 PM
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (70368744177664),(2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: Andrew-PC
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331c3b3a-2005-44c2-ac5e-77220c37d6b4}" />
<EventID>41</EventID>
<Version>6</Version>
<Level>1</Level>
<Task>63</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000400000000002</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2020-07-10T12:41:27.589689600Z" />
<EventRecordID>10542</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Andrew-PC</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="SleepInProgress">0</Data>
<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">0</Data>
<Data Name="BootAppStatus">0</Data>
<Data Name="Checkpoint">0</Data>
<Data Name="ConnectedStandbyInProgress">false</Data>
<Data Name="SystemSleepTransitionsToOn">0</Data>
<Data Name="CsEntryScenarioInstanceId">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckInfoFromEFI">false</Data>
<Data Name="CheckpointStatus">0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

All Data Name codes are zeroes this time, nothing useful recorded, suspect a power supply/connection (internal or PC-side).

 

Thanks Satrow. I'll borrow a PSU from my IT admin at work and see if that sorts it out. Thanks again guys!

 

Worth a try, as I suggested in post #3, if you can borrow one -Tracking through as Satrow has, and that link in post#9

 

I think I solved the boot loop. I noticed in task manager only 8 gb of the 12 gb of ram was showing up so i assumed something was wrong there. I also decided to just do some maintenance. Took it apart and put it back together again. Took off heat sinks, cleaned them and applied new thermal paste. Anyhow struggled to get it to boot again but finally got it to post. Now it's booting fine every time and is recognizing the full 12gb of ram.

The only issue I seem to have remaining at the moment is the stock intel cpu fan is a bit twitchy but I've got a spare fan aimed at it and it didn't get over 70'C under a full load.

 

Good work!

Good thing those older Intel heat sinks have a copper core, the new ones don't so can't pull the heat away quite as fast. 70C's about as high as I can put up with before I start getting twitchy!

 

Doing well-
CPU Fan is most important- As it's an old pc, always worth removing, renew cpu thermal paste and replace- check cpu fan is really clean, as it is not always visible without removing.

 

I do like the nice hefty feel of the old intel heat sinks. I look at the new ones and some of them are so thin and light not to mention as you said the lack of the copper core.

Yep the CPU fan is my main concern. I've jerry rigged a noctua industrial 3000 rpm fan so it's aimed at it. I'll be keeping an eye on those temps. I've removed and cleaned the cpu heat sink so many times over the years but this time I also did the northbridge heat sink and the south bridge heat sink.

Thanks again for all your help gents!