20 years building PCs and this has me STUMPED (3700x/aorus b450/Radeon 6600)

UEX · 9 Sep 2021 at 10:47

Excuse the TLDR but i need to get across the wierdness of this in medium to long form.

So i build PCs. All kinds of PCs although mostly office/work machines less Gaming rigs although i GENERALLY know what im doing even though im not deep in the weeds on hardware any more.

hardware
AMD 3700x
16gb DDR4 (single stick 3600mhz)
240Gb crucial SATA SSD
Aorus b450 elite v1 mobo
Sapphire AMD 6600 gpu
corsair 650Gold PSU
Windows 21h1

So i get this client, young lad, comes to me with a really stupid story.

"ive built a gaming PC and i cant load any programs, windows wont update i think its corrupted, its all brand new"

So im thinking, ok lad youve just not got the experience to sort this and youve spent so long in a forum rabbit hole googling error codes youre miles off base, this will just be a clean install and setup and youll be off to the races.....

So thats what i do, clean install windows, new hard drive, i rewire a few bits inside, he had his SATA SSD on the ASATA controller not the native one but hardly a big issue.

First thing i notice. Windows update wont update, same error he reported (0x80240004), google turns up very little. THIS IS A CLEAN INSTALL, on a blank fresh out of the box drive.

I shrug, maybe this is unrelated its on 21h1 after all. So i load steam, login with my dummy acc, install splitgate (the user complained that he couldnt play this, or any game, but i thought stay with what he had experienced) steam downloads it fine. Click to play and it hangs installing the direct X components. Leave it an hour. Still hung. Close steam. Load steam, try to play game, Direct X errors pop up everywhere. Go online to get the direct X installer, run it, it hangs.

I reinstall windows on a new drive again. I get the same update issue and code. install drivers. I try to open device manager, i get a big red UAC prompt telling me device manager access is restricted by administrator (WTF???) so i go and turn OFF UAC completely. Open device manager and check drivers. all there. Try steam again, download splitgate again. this time components for direct X do load and game starts. Crashes to desktop after intro video. Download Apex. Doesnt start.

for reference i was able to run furmark for 24hours maxing CPU and GPU the whole time, all temps etc are normal. Bios is on latest ver. Can anyone even suggest something on this? Im basically going with replace the mobo because i cant see how that could NOT fix it. But as a loooong time veteran if ICT this has me fully headscratch mode!!!

plz send help

Pulseammo · 9 Sep 2021 at 11:12

Any logs being added to event viewer?

decto · 9 Sep 2021 at 11:14

I once had an issue with Windows update, it was on a new build.
Failed constantly no clear error, just wouldn't update.

Turns out the date was miles off so wouldn't validate with the update server.
Fixed the date and all good.

UEX · 9 Sep 2021 at 11:36

Pulseammo said:
Any logs being added to event viewer?

Ill have a scan in a bit, given that ive built systems based on Aorus b450 elite myself along with a good 50 odd am4 based machines and not seen this im trying to avoid going down the event viewer rabbit hole and chasing my tail, you are right tho i should look

decto said:
I once had an issue with Windows update, it was on a new build.
Failed constantly no clear error, just wouldn't update.

Turns out the date was miles off so wouldn't validate with the update server.
Fixed the date and all good.

Yeah it had occurred to me but its correct

im4gine3 · 9 Sep 2021 at 12:35

even if the date shows as correct in the system tray/bios did you manually try and update the ntp servers to sync the time too? if not try that.

Also with new build, rare it happens but helps narrow the possibility, the windows update service enabled (i have seen some stuck at auto delay but turned off or even disabled)? if so, what happens if you open up gpedit and manually enable configure auto updates

Donnie Fisher · 9 Sep 2021 at 21:48

This article talks about stopping the update service, clearing temp files and restarting the update process . . .

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...e-to-the/062d1798-7f16-444b-899f-595ff5488055

Pulseammo · 9 Sep 2021 at 22:30

UEX said:
Ill have a scan in a bit, given that ive built systems based on Aorus b450 elite myself along with a good 50 odd am4 based machines and not seen this im trying to avoid going down the event viewer rabbit hole and chasing my tail, you are right tho i should look

If it's a hardware error it might be throwing a lot of errors and you'll pick that up fast enough.

Have you un-socketed the CPU to make sure the kid hasn't mashed the pins and then dumped it in the socket? Are all the parts brand new or are any second hand?

HangTime · 10 Sep 2021 at 01:15

Try a different stick of RAM.

bloodiedathame · 10 Sep 2021 at 02:23

Try an older Windows installer?

Scougar · 10 Sep 2021 at 04:16

Update the BIOS on motherboard. It can cause windows updates to fail for some crazy reason.

UEX · 10 Sep 2021 at 20:07

ok so update guys

Replaced Mobo with a gigabyte gaming X - issue still occurs
Replaced GPU - issue still occurs
Ran full memtest - no faults (appreciate this may not be enough)

Its slowly coming to CPU at this rate. Damn wierd.

Event log is full of memory errors but swapping ram hasnt helped. Gonna try a reinstall with known good ram in as a last check but if it aint board and ram its gotta be cpu - ill tell you this, if it is, imo its about the rarest fail going!

UEX · 10 Sep 2021 at 20:14

Also, heres interesting, in some 2D apps im getting graphical corruption, browsers for example, even without display driver installed it goes fairly quick, looks like dots i mean anyone whos had a dying GPU will be familiar, but i stress IVE CHANGED GPU. Mad

Pulseammo · 10 Sep 2021 at 21:47

Dying memory controller, seems like. I've had one on an intel CPU before and it passed memtest all day long. Certain OSs wouldn't boot at all, others booted fine. Sometimes it'd not get past POST sometimes it would. One interesting thing that made my case more stable was enabling XMP using higher than stock speeds, but to make it more odd setting up the same settings manually (voltage, timings, frequency), didn't make that system stable. Eventually it completely died and the system wouldn't boot and a new CPU sorted it.

Edit: Have you tried the ram as a single stick in each of the channels individually? Didn't help in my case, but that could narrow something down.

gpuerrilla · 10 Sep 2021 at 22:02

Cant say I have seen that behaviour before! Best of luck and do report back when you nail the culprit.

UEX · 10 Sep 2021 at 22:21

Well guys.....it was the CPU (credit to @Pulseammo I've just seen that he nailed it)

Changed CPU, reinstalled AGAIN (7th time) for an identical 3700x and updates worked immediately. Games work, all issues gone.

bad 3700x new from amazon he says

There is so so little out there about this so ill pen here what to watch for and maybe google can turn this up one day for someone

Symptoms

Windows updates on a clean install fail immediately Error code 0x80240004 sometimes 0x8024003f

games will not load

windows components wont install (randomly, like direct x)

Benchmarkers will install as will drivers with no apparent stability issues (anecdotally furmark cpu stress test put cpu up at 70% may be unrelated?)

graphical corruption seen randomly in 2D apps regardless of GPU or GPU drivers (display hooked up to GPU)

memtest comes back all clear

Windows wont activate or gives errors suggesting hardware has changed

oobe errors pop up either during setup or during boot

Error logs show lots of ESENT 474 errors relating to database corruption.

IF YOU ARE SEEING THIS ON A CLEAN INSTALL TRY A CPU SWAP ASAP.

gpuerrilla · 10 Sep 2021 at 22:30

Ace, never knew that (windows errors, games issues - but memtest etc pass no bother). Shows how robust CPUs are, hope I never get a bad one!

Were any pins bent (as someone above mentioned)?

Quartz · 10 Sep 2021 at 22:49

UEX said:
Well guys.....it was the CPU

Thanks for sharing.

Donnie Fisher · 10 Sep 2021 at 22:51

It reads a little like its related to when the CPU is having to identify itself in some way that its having a flaky. For example, windows update would need to ID hardware, games would likely ID hardware as part of anti-cheat, direct X probably queries hardware ID intensely too etc etc.
Furmark maybe doesn't query in as much detail.

UEX · 10 Sep 2021 at 23:16

Donnie Fisher said:
It reads a little like its related to when the CPU is having to identify itself in some way that its having a flaky. For example, windows update would need to ID hardware, games would likely ID hardware as part of anti-cheat, direct X probably queries hardware ID intensely too etc etc.
Furmark maybe doesn't query in as much detail.

yep, also looking back i had some instances of oobe failure during windows setup, again pointing to CPU ooooo actually ive seen another thing just now ill add to results

Windows wouldnt activate, i assumed the kid hadnt bought a key, but its now activated on all same hardware but new cpu

interesting stuff!

UEX · 10 Sep 2021 at 23:23

Th0nt said:
Ace, never knew that (windows errors, games issues - but memtest etc pass no bother). Shows how robust CPUs are, hope I never get a bad one!

Were any pins bent (as someone above mentioned)?

no m8 no damage to CPU and as i swapped mobo i know the install was solid as i do build a lot of pcs compared to most, several a week