You can try entering Device Manager - Access During Windows 7 Installation to find out if any drivers are in error (!) to disable allowing installation to complete to desktop where you can update them.
I would try another keyboard.
What are the other BIOS settings for CSM, Legacy BIOS, Secure Boot, and Boot Priority. Are you booting installer as a UEFI device?
FreeNAS stayed booted and running fine for over 24 hours. Shut it down only to replace the PSU.
Replaced the PSU with a Corsair 650W, same problem (autologout/autoshutdown within 30 seconds after first login after preparing initial desktop). This is also with new keyboard and BIOS reset to defaults.
With the "Boot Mode Selection" set to either UEFI-only or Legacy-only, I also get the same result. But the default "Boot Mode Selection" is "UEFI and Legacy" in which case I don't know which mode it auto-selects.
I've tried disabling XHCI in the BIOS, same result.
CSM options aren't available when choosing "Other OS". See attached.
EDIT: I have the Corsair SSD as the #1 boot priority, DVD drive is #2. During first boot, I use F12 to override the boot and select the DVD (so then during the reboot near the middle of the install, it will boot to the Corsair SSD and complete the install)
Here is a video of the very end of the installation, followed by the initial login and then the shutdown problem I've been trying to resolve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wxh-gz_BTo
Or if rather search it, title "Win 7 Boot Problem (auto shutdown after install)" at youTube.
Are you booting the installer as UEFI DVD drive? Storage boot Option Control may need to be set to UEFI to see it. You want to make every effort to install to UEFI first to enjoy the newest features of your BIOS. Only if it won't install no matter what would I install to Legacy, and this has not been necessary for over a year of dealing with a dozen of these a day.
The missing PCI (or SM Bus) drivers may not allow a video card to function. However this is so rare I don't recall ever seeing it before, although a solution might be to slipstream the video and chipset drivers into the Win7 DVD using 7Lite.
Well, my OEM Win7 DVD from a few years ago, maybe 2011-ish? If that matters.
I never paid much attention to UEFI. My understanding is (among a few other things) it's just an extra partition on the boot media? So correct, the OEM DVD has no 78mb partition for the EFI System. And if I set the "Boot Mode Selection" to UEFI only, the DVD won't boot. I see the Win-UEFI notes here:
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with
But I'm confused on how a non-UEFI boot image would know to create the 3 partitions (re: step 8 in the link just mentioned; when I do "New" and "Apply" I just get a single partition, not 3).
Also, during the first reboot during the install, I found I can press F8. Safe Mode isn't permitted on the first reboot during the install (it detects this and forces a reboot), but I noticed there is an option like "disable restart on failure" down lower on the F8 menu. During my last install attempt (the one in the video linked above), I chose that option -- but it still rebooted. So whatever "failure" that covers didn't happen.
UEFI is interesting, but I'm not seeing how it would induce shutdown after the initial-install. Plus again, with two different motherboards and verified good RAM? (USB booted memtest). I think next I'll just try a different LGA1150 chip.
I asked if you booted the Win7 DVD as a UEFI device. If you have UEFI and Legacy enabled for boot then it should be listed as both UEFI DVD and plain DVD drive in the boot menu. Try it now.
You'll need to delete all partitions to clear the formatting on the disk so it will reformat GPT for UEFI install.
Yep, tried the Win7 DVD as and as not UEFI. The only time I saw the UEFI boot option was back with the USB thumb drive, which wouldn't boot when I actually selected the UEFI option.
I replaced the CPU with another G3440. And it still has the same problem.
So I broke down and installed Win 8.1. Good grief, the thing installs and runs fine, it's been running for over 24 hours now. And ironically, when first installed, it had 81 updates to do (8.1, 81 updates...)
I don't get it. Tried two different PSUs, two different LGA1150 processors, two sets of RAM (verified good with memtest+ ran overnight), three different hard drives, two different video cards, two different keyboards. I even took all the case connectors off, and used my own known-working power button to boot the motherboard (to be sure no pins on the case connectors were slightly shorted).
For the Win8.1 install, I did set the BIOS to UEFI-only all over, and CSM Always.
I've sent an e-mail to Gigabyte to see if they have any suggestions, but remember this same exact problem was with an ASUS board also.
Only thing I didn't mention in all this was the LG DVD used to install is actually a Bluray player (still LG). Shouldn't make any difference for that.
That Windows 8 will install but Win7 won't points to the installation media or BIOS settings.
Flash stick must have special formatting to boot as UEFI which is explained in Troubleshoot Windows 7 Installation Failures - Windows 7 Help Forums Step 4. Use only Option One of UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows. If you received a UEFI Boot option for the stick then there should also be one for the DVD when it is in drive. Try another DVD or another drive to test.
Those steps in Troubleshoot tutorial solve every installation failure if none are skipped. Since you missed that one, how many others were skipped? The information you posted earlier about UEFI is completely incorrect, so what other false assumptions were made that caused skipped steps? The fixes in cases like this are always in the skipped step.
Try installing Win7 first setting in BIOS Other OS and then Windows 8. What are the choices for CSM setting then?
I'll lean towards the DVD media going south. Reason being: during the last install attempt, I got a BSOD related to BAD_POOL_HEADER (first and only time ever getting that, this was during the unpacking of the install files when it got near 100%). That was with the original G3440. And maybe the 20+ installs themselves have wore out this DVD by now. UEFI aside, if an old-DVD and all Legacy mode settings in the BIOS finishes the install -- sure it doesn't get all the modern features, but it's still a valid install that shouldn't auto-shutdown. Both my i7 workstations are UEFI boards (ASUS B85M-E/CSM and Z77A-G45) and never had a Win7-related problem.
But I get your point: do it by the book, so there is no speculation. I had forgotten it was a Bluray player, I do have an old DVD RW SATA drive to try that out instead. Except looks like I better re-burn an install ISO.
Except, I've packed this current machine up with the 6x4TB drive. It's only intended as a triple backup to my two workstations and i5-based 18TB HTPC, since I got tired of QNAP and Buffalo NAS's scattered around that tend to flash a drive as red about every 6 months. Maybe it's heat in their small cases or dust. The 18TB has its own internal backup, then I just use SyncBackPro to copy deltas nightly over to G3440-based machine (instead of a few NAs's, now it's just a big Win8-as-a-file-server). Shame to not even have a monitor for such a pretty OS, it's hidden and I remote to it. FreeNAS would have been fine, except it's just been more peace of mind for me to have 1;1 partitions as backups instead of using XFS or ZFS.
Since this new boards supports it, maybe in awhile I'll try ordering one of those mSATA drive to try that out, and give the Win7 another go on that (with the alternative DVD and a new ISO). But I don't want to redo the Win8 install on the SSD if another try on Win7 didn't work out.
Always unplug all other drives during any OS install.
We should probably see a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image
as in more than half the times these are requested even when there are not other problems the configuration is incorrect or potentially problematic.
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