Crosshair Dark Hero AMD build Windows 11 keeps crashing during installation.

dxtrem3fx · Sep 6, 2024

I'm trying to do a fresh installation of windows 11 pro from a Windows 11 purchased thumb drive. Im installing it on a brand new Gen4 Samsung M2 SSD. My first attempt I got all the way to checking for new drivers and it locked up. No mouse movement nothing locked up. So I hit reset on the MB. Everytime I reset it locks up faster and faster. Needless to say I've never made it to the windows desktop. If I don't hit the reset button I will eventually get a BSOD that says DPC Watchdog Violation. I have no way that I know to update drivers before the installation. I've been building PCs since 1999 and this is probably my 15th pc. I'm so frustrated and don't know what to do. Bios is the latest version as well.

bobkn · Sep 6, 2024

You don't supply much in the way of hardware detail.

Is your motherboard a Crosshair VIII Dark Hero, for example? That's an X570 board, and I presume that 11 should install on it normally, without requiring any additional drivers. (I installed 11 on Tuf X570-Plus Gaming without any difficulties.)

If you've been building PCs for that long, I won't insult you by offering a bunch of random troubleshooting suggestions.

Good luck.

BamaInArk · Sep 6, 2024

So many things that could be issues here. For starters where/whom did you purchase the Win11 Thumb drive? Win11 can be freely downloaded and put on a thumb drive yourself. There is nothing to buy.

As asked which AMD version(s).

dacrone · Sep 6, 2024

Boot into safe mode to track down the issue. Keep hard resetting it at the POST screen until it launches recovery

bobkn · Sep 6, 2024

dacrone said:
Boot into safe mode to track down the issue. Keep hard resetting it at the POST screen until it launches recovery

If the OP has no operating system installed yet, this won't help much.

dacrone · Sep 6, 2024

If it was checking for driver updates then the OS is there…

It’s pretty good odds that it’s gpu driver related btw

bobkn · Sep 7, 2024

dacrone said:
If it was checking for driver updates then the OS is there…

It’s pretty good odds that it’s gpu driver related btw

I guess I'm unsure what the OP means by "fresh install".

If there's a driver issue, doing a clean install should avoids that. It might install the "Microsoft basic" drivers, for starters.

I presume not having necessary drivers won't lead to a "DPC Watchdog Violation". (I admit I've never seen that.)

dxtrem3fx · Sep 7, 2024

The thumb drive was purchased from NewEgg and comes with a license key. A fresh install means a New installation of Windows 11 on a brand-new Samsung 990 pro Gen4 M.2 SSD. My MB is an ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero. The CPU is an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. RAM is Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB (4x8GB) memory Kit. The CPU cooler is a Corsair ICUE H150i Capellix liquid CPU cooler. The PSU is a Corsair HX Series 1200 Watt 80 Plus Platinum certified fully modular PSU. GPU is from my girlfriend's PC, which I built, and it's only an Nvidia 780 GTX. I put my RTX 2060 on her PC while battling this issue. This PC was up and running for two years with no issues and my Corsair MP600 Pro 2 TB took a crap. So, I'm trying to install Windows 11 on the new SSD mentioned above. I only have the CPU, GPU, GPU cooler, RAM, and Fans connected besides the Keyboard and mouse. The keyboard is a Corsair K100, and the mouse is a Logitech G502. And I cannot get past the windows installation looking for drivers before it locks up. I think it's an MB issue and wondered if it's fTPM keeping it from booting up. I have cleared all of the security keys in the bios, and I have disabled the fast boot as well. I do not overclock; the bios are on default settings with the latest bios flash 4805.

dxtrem3fx · Sep 7, 2024

BamaInArk said:
So many things that could be issues here. For starters where/whom did you purchase the Win11 Thumb drive? Win11 can be freely downloaded and put on a thumb drive yourself. There is nothing to buy.

As asked which AMD version(s).

You have to pay for a license key, don't you, unless you are running it without a key.

OldNavy · Sep 7, 2024

As an exercise, download a fresh copy of Win 11, make a bootable usb (using a different stick) with rufus and try that.

bobkn · Sep 7, 2024

dxtrem3fx said:
The thumb drive was purchased from NewEgg and comes with a license key. A fresh install means a New installation of Windows 11 on a brand-new Samsung 990 pro Gen4 M.2 SSD. My MB is an ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero. The CPU is an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. RAM is Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB (4x8GB) memory Kit. The CPU cooler is a Corsair ICUE H150i Capellix liquid CPU cooler. The PSU is a Corsair HX Series 1200 Watt 80 Plus Platinum certified fully modular PSU. GPU is from my girlfriend's PC, which I built, and it's only an Nvidia 780 GTX. I put my RTX 2060 on her PC while battling this issue. This PC was up and running for two years with no issues and my Corsair MP600 Pro 2 TB took a crap. So, I'm trying to install Windows 11 on the new SSD mentioned above. I only have the CPU, GPU, GPU cooler, RAM, and Fans connected besides the Keyboard and mouse. The keyboard is a Corsair K100, and the mouse is a Logitech G502. And I cannot get past the windows installation looking for drivers before it locks up. I think it's an MB issue and wondered if it's fTPM keeping it from booting up. I have cleared all of the security keys in the bios, and I have disabled the fast boot as well. I do not overclock; the bios are on default settings with the latest bios flash 4805.

Thanks for the update.

The GTX 780 is a pretty old card (2013 release), but I'm pretty sure that it should be OK.

I believe from your post that the PC was running OK before the M.2 drive failed. You then swapped in a new M.2 drive, and the old graphics card.

Is that correct?

The most common driver issue that I know of is when the motherboard's BIOS is set to RAID mode. "DPC Watchdog Violation" is unfamiliar, though.

It has been quite a while since I did a clean install of an OS on it, but I don't recall needing anything special for my Asus Tuf X570 Gaming. The Crosshair VIII Hero is a much fancier board, so I suppose that may have some extra built-ins.

I think the suggestion to create a new USB install drive is reasonable. You could complete the install using a generic license key.

Generic Product Keys to Install or Upgrade Windows 11 Editions

This tutorial will provide you with a list of RTM (retail) and KMS generic keys (default keys) for all editions of Windows 10 and Windows 11. Generic keys (aka: "default keys") for Windows 10/11 from Microsoft will allow you to install or upgrade to a specific Windows 10/11 edition you want...

www.elevenforum.com

I believe that if you had activated the PC before online under Windows 10 or 11, the digital license should apply to the new installation.

BamaInArk · Sep 7, 2024

dxtrem3fx said:
You have to pay for a license key, don't you, unless you are running it without a key.

Well yes but you can always purchase that separately...at a much lower price. No problem since you purchased already however. And yes Win11 will run without a license key installed with a few limitations. As mentioned it might help to download a new ISO directly from Microsoft and recreate a bootable USB stick....just in case.

It's hard to tell what the issue might be arising from to complete the installation and then freeze up looking for updates. Without looking it up I feel that GTX 780 might not be UEFI compliant and might cause problems if installing in UEFI mode. There are issues with UEFI support on older GPUs.
Something else to consider is right after Win11 is installed successfully the very next step is to install the latest AMD Chipsets driver from AMD itself, not the motherboard vendor.

Also you might remove 2 of the memory sticks and just go with 2 to see what happens. Some systems, for whatever reason, seem to have issue when using RAM in all 4 banks. You can still use dual rank.

Also as mentioned if this system was running either Win10 or Win11 before it should have a digital license with Microsoft. If so no need for an updated license key.

dxtrem3fx · Sep 7, 2024

Thanks for the help. I will install my RTX 2060 and see if that helps. But I was already having the same issue with the 2060 installed.

bobkn · Sep 7, 2024

dxtrem3fx said:
Thanks for the help. I will install my RTX 2060 and see if that helps. But I was already having the same issue with the 2060 installed.

That would have been useful information.

If you had the issue with the hardware unchanged except for the new M.2 drive, I don't know what to guess.

I'd still try to make a new installation medium. Just for luck.

dxtrem3fx · Sep 8, 2024

bobkn said:
That would have been useful information.

If you had the issue with the hardware unchanged except for the new M.2 drive, I don't know what to guess.

I'd still try to make a new installation medium. Just for luck.

I already did that with two different Thumb drives, which led me to purchase a W11 thumb drive with a license key—the RTX 2060 didn't work. I just bought a new MB from Amazon. If it works, I know it's the MB, as I suspect. If it doesn't work, I can send the MB back to Amazon for a refund. And continue my TS efforts.

bobkn · Sep 8, 2024

dxtrem3fx said:
I already did that with two different Thumb drives, which led me to purchase a W11 thumb drive with a license key—the RTX 2060 didn't work. I just bought a new MB from Amazon. If it works, I know it's the MB, as I suspect. If it doesn't work, I can send the MB back to Amazon for a refund. And continue my TS efforts.

I wonder whether your belief that the old M.2 drive failed was correct?

Maybe you could just plug it into your new MB and go.

I had my first MB failure late last year. USB controller. Fortunately, it was within the return period, so I didn't have to deal with its warranty. (I just swapped the M.2 boot drive onto the new MB. No USB problems. That was the final confirmation.)

dxtrem3fx · Sep 8, 2024

bobkn said:
I wonder whether your belief that the old M.2 drive failed was correct?

Maybe you could just plug it into your new MB and go.

I had my first MB failure late last year. USB controller. Fortunately, it was within the return period, so I didn't have to deal with its warranty. (I just swapped the M.2 boot drive onto the new MB. No USB problems. That was the final confirmation.)

Yeah, I've plugged it into both M2 slots on the existing MB and a M2 reader and there's nothing there it is dead.

bobkn · Sep 8, 2024

dxtrem3fx said:
Yeah, I've plugged it into both M2 slots on the existing MB and a M2 reader and there's nothing there it is dead.

If you already posted that, I apologize. If not, it might have been helpful to do so.

Crosshair Dark Hero AMD build Windows 11 keeps crashing during installation.

New member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

New member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Well-known member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

New member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

New member

My Computer

Well-known member

My Computers

Similar threads