System stuck at spinning wheel after Windows update - bad overclock?

[davidm71]

Hi,

I have this Asus Z270 Apex board that I coffee lake modded. It runs a 9700K cpu. Been running ok for almost a year then all of a sudden I think because of a windows update I could no longer get into the desktop anymore. So I reinstalled Windows from usb stick and was fine for a few weeks then all of a sudden after a definite Windows update same thing happened! Only thing was I had my memory overclocked from 3200mhz to 3600mhz. Not sure if that was why or perhaps getting data corruption from the mod, bad overclock, or virus or something. Anyone with expert knowledge of Windows and this particular symptom please advise.

Thanks

 

[GotNoRice]

It doesn't sound like a CPU overclocking issue to me. You would be more likely to have your system freeze and/or BSOD if it was an overclocking issue. To be 100% clear, when I say "system freeze" I mean completely unresponsive, can't even move the mouse, nothing on screen moving, etc. If the "wheel" is still "spinning", then your system is not completely frozen yet.

Have you tried Ctrl+Alt+Del and trying to bring up Task Manager while your problems are occurring to see if there is a particular program that seems to be having a problem?

If you think that your CPU is the problem, then test your CPU. Start with something "tame" like Cinebench R20. Potentially move to more aggressive testing such as Prime95.
If you think that your RAM might be the problem, then test the RAM. Run something like Memtest86+ overnight.

You seem to have identified a correlation between your problems and a windows update. Finding out which update caused the problem would be helpful. But even if you can't necessarily identify the exact update, it would be helpful to know if this problem is associated with a particular version of Windows 10. If you do another Windows install, keep close eye on what "version" it says you are running, both before and after the problematic update. To find out what version you are running hit the Windows Key + R, and type in "WINVER" (without the quotes) and click OK. It might say "Version 1909" for example, which is the current version of Windows 10 at the moment. If your problems occur at the same time a feature update occurs (new "feature update" = new version number), then that would be very helpful to know also.

In many cases, issues that are created as a result of "Windows Updates" or even a larger "feature update" are not actually caused directly by the update itself, but rather, changes that cause an incompatibility with an older driver that you are using. It looks like you probably have not updated the system specs in your signature, so I'm going to assume that it is outdated; nonetheless, I will use it for the sake of a few examples:

You show that you are using an X-Fi Titanium. I'm not sure if you still use that in your current system, but it's still a great card. I still use one. When the 1903 feature update was released, it broke compatibility with many older audio drivers, including almost every X-Fi card. Thankfully Creative released new drivers for all of their X-Fi cards, and there are no issues when using the latest driver. If you were using a pre-1903 Windows 10 build and updated (via a "feature update") to a post-1903 build while keeping the same audio drivers, then not only will your sound not work until you update the drivers, but you will get other unpredictable behavior as programs attempt to interact with the malfunctioning soundcard.

You show that you are using 6970 Triple-Crossfire. I'm guessing you have probably updated that already, but if not, it's worth noting that the last driver AMD released for the 6970 was in July of 2015. With no new drivers, every feature update will basically be a gamble in terms of compatibility, with your odds of avoiding problems getting lower over time.

 

[Sniper|3d-R|]

Been running ok for almost a year then all of a sudden I think because of a windows update I could no longer get into the desktop anymore. So I reinstalled Windows from usb stick and was fine for a few weeks then all of a sudden after a definite Windows update same thing happened!

The version of windows and build version would help.

Have you tried to RDP into your system from another? (is it even enabled?)

Have you tried without an OC? Are you in a RAID/IDE/AHCI mode?

 

[davidm71]

Thanks guys for your quick replies. Sorry for also not updating my signature in so long. Have quite a few builds fwiw. Anyhow just to update the story. Yesterday I tried to reinstall Windows once again for a fresh start as I thought the drive was probably corrupted but as it turns out I accidentally installed Windows to the wrong drive which gave me opportunity to at least try to repair the system. So I used and booted from my Windows usb installer (May 2020 insider build) to do a 'repair my computer' from usb routine. This did its thing and rebooted after which I see on screen 'Windows removing failed update' and lo and behold I was back into my desktop!

At this point I go to disable Windows Update and notice KB4549951 2020-4 Cumulative update 1909 is downloading and KB4550945 optional cumulative 1909 update is up at bat. So after pausing update I restart system and I guess one update got processed which kind of scared me considering I paused them but it rebooted fine. Anyhow not sure what was cause of problem. Never really overclocked the CPU considering running Coffelake on Kabylake had a few issues with voltage regulation in that you have to manually set the voltages and loadline values. Anyhow next time I'm home I'll run some memtest hcl tests. Would spend more time with it but no longer living at home thanks to coronavirus. Long story.

Thanks

Anyhow here are the specs:

Asus Z270 Apex IX - 9700K - DSanke bios mod - Not overclocked
MSI 2080 GTX Trio video card
2x16gb Dual Rank Gskill TridentZ 3200mhz ram (had it at 3600mhz)
Killer Networking AX1650 Wifi card
WD SN750 512gb nvme boot drive
SATA Motherboard Raid with two Intel Sata disks
Soft-Raid running two Intel 750 NVME drives.
Mechanical hard drive for backups (one I accidentally installed windows to - Sooo slow!).