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Fresh windows install, Inserting gfx card cause freeze at login
Hi Everyone,
I have been having a myriad of problems trying to fix my computer and it has now been a solid 16-18hours of reading/clicking/waiting. I am now at a point where my PC will run without my graphics card inserted, but when it is inserted, it will not run in normal mode, but will run in safe mode.
I will try to describe my problem as best I can from when the problem first started, and how I have gotten to the point I am at right now.
My current hardware setup that was working perfectly is as follows:
Windows 7 Home Premium
i5 4690k
Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H Motherboard
8GB Ram Kingston
Gigabyte GTX970 G1 Graphics
x2 120GB SATA RAID 0
X1 500GB HDD
It started with me trying to install some custom windows desktop themes. This required meddling with the system files, and although I made backups of the original files, one thing led to another and I found myself not being able to log back into windows.
I then tried to get into system restore to revert back. When trying to get into BIOS or boot from disc, my screen displayed nothing during POST and only displayed the windows login when it appeared. Thinking that this might be a result of the fast boot option I cleared the CMOS. I later realised that the BIOS and disc boot must have been working but it was always displaying on another monitor that was off. When I finally got to the system restore, there were no saved restore points. I later remembered that I was running RAID and the CMOS clear reset my SATA to AHCI. I reset this back to RAID in BIOS and saw that some how one of my RAID harddrives were not running in RAID anymore with the other. Thinking all was lost, I reset both hard drives into RAID 0 again and did a fresh install of windows.
With a fresh install of windows I encountered numerous problems with the windows updating process. some updates straight up failed and the ones that successfully installed pre-reboot caused my PC to freeze after rebooting during the windows configuring phase (so it ended up failing anyway). This happened numerous times and I did numerous troubleshooting and windows reinstallations. During this time I also figured out that my graphics card was causing my windows 7 to crash during the splash screen so I took it out while I fixed everything else up.
I ended up having to install over 200updates in small batches. If a batch caused a freeze upon reboot, I did a system restore from safe mode then skipped to another batch of updates to install. With the help of System Update Readiness Tool, Windows Update Troubleshooter, latest Windows Update Agent, "sfc /scannow", I have finally gotten to a point where the there is only 1 critical update to install which causes a freeze during the reboot windows configuration. This is the intel Graphics Adapter WDDM 1.1,1.2,1.3 update.
I left that last update alone and tried to deal with my graphics card. I have tried the following:
- Installed the nvidia drivers in safemode
- uninstalled and reinstalled it
- disabled the the integrated graphics driver
- set the BIOS pci-e setting to gen3
- upgrade my BIOS from F8 to F9
- reseated the graphics card firmly with the latch clicking
- replugged the power cables to the card with the latch clicking
No matter what I do, in normal mode and my graphics card inserted, my PC will freeze at either the windows splash screen, or straight up freeze at the windows login. At one point I thought it was fixed because I saw the windows login blinking cursor. I managed to type in the first two letters of my password and sure enough, it froze. With the graphics card inserted, I am able to get into safe mode without problems.
I have scoured the internet for a solution, tried everything suggested in forums, I have spent hours on end encountering problems and now I've finally no idea what to do. Sorry for the long post but I have been running into various problems that may or may not be related to each other so I am trying to create a detailed account of what happened. I hope someone can help!