So, my trusty 7-year-old PC seems to have finally given up on me. It crashed while I was on vacation and now I can't get it to boot. I've been seeing a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) with the critical_service_failed error. I've tried everything to get it running again, including accessing the recovery partition and booting in safe mode, but nothing works. I even created a bootable USB, which I've confirmed works on another computer, but it still won't boot from it – it just black screens and bootloops. My setup has an old Ryzen 1600 processor, with 16GB of RAM that I overclocked slightly, and a GTX 1060. The motherboard is GA-AB350.
I suspect it's a hardware issue at this point, but I'm unsure where to start troubleshooting. I've ordered a replacement since I can't wait for repairs, but I would still like to fix this old machine. Any advice on what could be preventing it from booting from the USB, even when it allows access to the recovery partition? Should I just remove the drives and send it to a repair shop?
2 Answers
It sounds like a tough situation! First, you might want to check for any dump files related to the BSOD if you can boot into Windows at all. Those files can really help pinpoint the issue if they exist. You usually find them in C:WindowsMinidump. If you don't have file sharing set up, try using catbox.moe or mediafire for uploads. It wouldn't hurt to get more data on what's going wrong!
Have you checked if the BIOS is corrupted? Sometimes a simple reset can do wonders. Try going into the BIOS and setting everything back to factory defaults. If it doesn't work, consider testing your RAM by booting with just one stick in the correct slot. You might find your issue lies there!
I did reset the BIOS settings to defaults and tried both RAM sticks in different configurations, but no luck. It just won't respond when I try to boot from the USB. It’s frustrating! I guess I’ll have to explore other hardware issues.