How to install drivers using Windows Recovery "Load Drivers" option.

Emnel · 28 Mar 2015

Done it all, sadly no change to speak of.

Boozad · 28 Mar 2015

Have a read through this. And can you describe in detail exactly what you did from installing the new BIOS up to the point of the PC not booting.

Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

Emnel · 28 Mar 2015

1. My windows loaded after I installed that bunch of motherboard drivers/utilities and Asus Suite.
2. Several prompts requesting promison to launch an application appeared. I assumed that's related to those driver installations and ok'ed all of them.
3.Opened that Asus Suite and got annoyed by the fact installed all those drivers manually from their own archives first not knowing about the program.
4. To be sure that I updated everything I ran the update of all the drivers once again through the Suite. Without a restart.
5. Downloaded a proper BIOS file from Asus site and used "Upgrade BIOS from file" feature in Suite.
6. Used change icon option there for no reason and then pressed Flash.
7. Said "yes" to the restart question.
8. After the restart BIOS required me to enter it, so I did. Everything looked fine besides high and jumpy CPU temperature due to not replaced thermal paste. I accepted changes.
9. Startup stopped at BIOS once again due to temperature warning. I turned it of for a sec, then turned back on.
10. First startup restart at Windows animation occurred, but next startup was once again interrupted by temperature warning at BIOS level.
11. I turned it off, bought a new paste, fixed temperature problem.
12. Startup restarts like the first one from point 10 continue.

As detailed as I could :) Big thanks for taking the time, btw. Much appreciated.

Boozad · 28 Mar 2015

What's giving the high temperature warning? Are you sure you applied thermal paste correctly and have you checked the CPU temperatures in the BIOS? Is the fan running on the CPU cooler?

Emnel · 28 Mar 2015

I watched CPU temp in BIOS few times for several minutes after implementing the paste and it was steady 30-33C. Before I applied paste it was jumping to 80+C at times. Fan is running.

I'm going through all the things in that last link.
No luck so far.

Emnel · 28 Mar 2015

I just realized I wasn't 100% correct. I actually can run Startup Repair mode even without disc/use. After 1 failed startup computer asks me if i want to do it again or to the repair bit. It loads just fine, unlike Safe Mode.

Not sure if that's relevant.

Boozad · 28 Mar 2015

Run Startup Repair three times in a row, see if that works.

Emnel · 28 Mar 2015

I've done that 6 times in a row with only reboots inbetween, on top of probably 20 in a meantime. No effect. They just spit "Bad driver" feedback.

I've also tried anything from that last link that doesn't require PartitionMagic or clean install.

Neither bootrec.exec options nor that nt60 sys command had any effect.

I guess I'll call it a night and catch up on family duties before wife kills me. If you have any other ideas, please let me know. Ill try them first thing tomorrow, and if that won't help I guess I have to do a fresh install and hope that issue isn't in BIOS or hardware afterall.

Once again thanks for your time and effort!

EDIT:
I ended up reinstalling the system.

Boozad · 29 Mar 2015

Emnel said:

II ended up reinstalling the system.

I had a feeling it would end up that way, did you perform a clean install?

My advice would be to only use ASUS AI Suite as minimally as possible, I don't know what it did to your system there. If you need to update drivers ask here first and we'll guide you through it, don't use AI Suite for it.
Can I ask why you needed to flash your BIOS?

Emnel · 29 Mar 2015

Yes, I did perform a clean install and was trying to follow guides from here as much as possible (cleaned and aligned my SSD before installing a system etc.).

It turns out I remembered wrong and Asus AI Suite doesn't update drivers themselves. it only installs few semi-useless utilities (GPU Boost, Probe II, and 3-4 others0 and "Update" option within it is for updating BIOS only.

I learned that when I installed it as a 2nd thing right after Ethernet Driver :) I just left it be for science and installed drivers from the same downloaded archives I used yesterday, but making a restart after every single one. It looked fine, but I later found that installation of one of those produced some Startup errors in Windows Logs. Similar to the ones I've seen there yesterday. I'll look into those drivers more closely.

Once that was kinda working (Prime95 showed that I was wrong about cooling situation being resolved) I went ahead and plugged&installed my video card. That landed me straight at BSOD forum :)

This time I can use forums via Safe Mode tho. MASSIVE quality of life upgrade compared to writing all day using my derelict Samsung Galaxy S Advance yesterday

Can I ask why you needed to flash your BIOS?

I probably didn't need to do that, but I wasn't aware of all the dangers associated. I had GPu(CPU?) related issue described in the link above and I I simply overdid it while updating my drivers and whatnot. I guess those temperature BIOS alerts are a new feature in a version I installed. Never seen them before and I don't think that my temp was at 80C right after every possible restart.