I'm working on an old PC that's having trouble starting.
I'm working on an old PC that's having trouble starting.
I recently attempted to repair an old PC I acquired and installed Windows 10 on it. It functioned properly at first, so I left it for a few weeks. Recently, when trying to restart, it became stuck and began auto-repairing. This issue occurred multiple times, but Windows would not start again. The initial boot was successful, and I played games for two hours without any issues. The problem arose when I selected the "restart pc" option.
Since I couldn't identify the cause, I performed a complete reinstall of Windows 10. I estimated it booted perfectly, played a game for an hour, then restarted and it failed again, initiating repair mode.
I’m unsure about the motherboard or hardware configuration. My system has a Ryzen 5-3600 CPU, an Intel 1070 Ti GPU, and two 8GB RAM sticks. What might be causing this situation where a fresh Windows install works on the first boot but fails when using the "restart pc" feature?
EDIT: It appears I discovered something unusual. The GPU has multiple connections—1 HDMI, 3 DisplayPorts, and 1 DVI. I was using HDMI and DVI, but after unplugging the DVI, the PC started normally and restarted correctly. I tested the same screen with a DisplayPort cable, and it still worked well. I also used a third screen first, testing both DVI and DisplayPort connections. The results were consistent.
It seems the GPU might have a faulty connector (DVI), which could be responsible for all these issues. While some people reported problems with PC restarts, I haven’t encountered any references about a bad GPU connector being the main issue.