Just got home. Wake computer up. Screens are checkerboard pattern with green and white streaks. Hard rebooted PC. Won’t go past bios.
So, i’m pretty sure my M.2 with Win10 on it just died. For 2 weeks now, it’s been having… problems. I’ve had random hang ups. Ive had what appears to be memory leaks where RAM will fill to 92% for no reason and the OS and/or programs will hang. OS has been kinda slow in general.
I thought it was a driver problem due to a recent Win update. As it won’t boot, I don’t think there’s much testing I can do. What do you think? Did a dead chip just force me to go Linux and try to start gaming on it full time? I had plans to. But I wasn’t going to this soon. (I’m not in a position this week to buy a new M.2 AND a replacement Win10 copy. So if I have to get a new chip, i’m installing Linux so I can use the computer at all. And I might as well try to make games work while I wait for another paycheck)
I’d say its something other than your m.2 SSD, as even if that is totally dead you should still get a boot error.
I’d be putting money on RAM or GPU/CPU problems.
Pull the m.2 out (or even don’t and just try to boot from a USB stick via UEFI/BIOS boot menu), see if you still can/can’t post and run some hardware diagnostics or see if a linux installer works from USB boot.
If you still have issues, it isn’t your m.2 drive.
Issue is that I can’t find the M.2 in the BIOS either. I removed it to test if any drive names disappear they didn’t. Also, I am missing a drive in BIOS. I should have 7. I have 6.
I also tested taking out RAM sticks first to see if any were dying and if it would edit: FAIL TO boot with any of them. It didn’t.
Edit: I don’t have a Linux OS thumb drive with me. That’s a test I can’t do tonight
Could be something more sinister, or rather, a broken m.2 AND some more serious issues.
Either way, isolate the m.2 and test with other media to boot from
Just a case of testing components individually as you can.
Remove as much as you can, attempt to boot, then add devices one by one until it fails again.
Or… if it fails with a minimal configuration (e.g., CPU, 1 stick ram, known good USB boot media), you know its either the CPU or motherboard. Or the single ram stick which you can then swap out to confirm…
If your CPU does not have integrated graphics it may be tricky… may need to find a spare/alternative video card if that’s the case.
After what I’ve tested, i’m almost certain it’s the M.2. I’ll have more confirmation once I do a usb boot test tomorrow with roomy’s laptop to get the OS.
That being said… it looks like I just received an excuse to go work 10+ hours for a week straight while I wait on shipping. I had a HDD that needed to be replaced soon too, mostly as a precaution because it’s just old. I never upgraded from 16 to 32GBs of RAM. Computer needs cleaned anyway. Looks like I need to take advantage of the fact that I set my own hours and just lost my only source of entertainment at home.
Well, linux, here we go again. Are you gonna play my games this time?
At work we lost a SSD. No warning or indicators. Just suddenly we’re were getting a bios loop. Sounds just like your system. Our bk/up system was flawed and we missed an essential folder so we had to get the drive read by a recovery company for $600. Sucked!
