I recently bought a PC and was away from it for about two months. After I returned, my games—including Minecraft—started crashing. I tried changing the RAM, reinstalling drivers, running virus scans, checking system health, and monitoring temperatures. I was advised to factory reset Windows, but the reset was accidentally canceled once and then attempted again. After the second attempt, the PC showed the motherboard logo with a spinning circle, followed by a black screen where only the mouse cursor is visible. The RGB lighting still works, and Win+Shift+B did not restore the display. It has been on this screen for around 30–40 minutes. I also tried starting the reset from Safe Mode, but the same thing happened. The system has a Ryzen 7 5700X, RTX 5060, 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 1 TB SSD. Should I keep waiting, or is there another way to recover it?
2 Answers
After 30–40 minutes, I wouldn’t keep waiting indefinitely. Since the cursor is visible, Windows has loaded partially, but the desktop shell or graphics driver may not be starting. Perform one controlled restart. If it returns to the same screen, enter Windows Recovery, try Startup Repair or Safe Mode, and then reinstall the graphics driver or complete the reset from recovery media. Because the reset was interrupted previously, the Windows installation may also be corrupted.
The original game crashes may not have been caused by Windows. A factory reset can repair corrupted system files, but it won’t fix failing hardware. If the reset does not resolve the problem, test the RAM with MemTest86, check the SSD’s health, monitor CPU and GPU temperatures, and confirm that the GPU and power cables are firmly connected. Testing with one RAM stick at a time can also help identify a bad module.
The first reset was accidentally canceled, so I started another one from Safe Mode. It still showed the motherboard logo and then ended up at the black screen with the cursor.