My son took his own hard-earned money and bought components to build a gaming computer while he was home from college this summer, but it's not working and he is beyond frustrated. He has zero background in Windows or in computers in general (used a Mac all through high school/college), so I give him credit for trying. I'd like to help him, but it's beyond me at the moment too.
His components are as follows:
MSI PRO Z790-P WiFi DDR4 Motherboard
3.6GHz Intel 12th gen Core I7-12700k Processor
(2) G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-32000 RAM
AMD Radeon RX6600 2X 8G RFB Video Card
Crucial 2TB B P310 Gen4 NVMe SSD
WD Mainstream Blue 4TB HDD
Thermaltake Smart 600W 80+ ATX PS
A case, various fancy lights and fans
He built his pc and we used Windows MCT to create a USB to install Windows 11 Education, whatever version was current in July. (He had to wait until the fall semester began to activate the installation, which as far as I know he took care of.) The computer was working for its intended purpose over the summer, but he ran into problems when he went back to school and I don't believe it worked the entire semester.
He's back home with it now, and as I said very frustrated over his inability to figure out why it won't load up games on the Xbox app. I know he has spent countless hours watching videos and checking all his connections on the motherboard, not sure what else he has tried. I'm trying to help him and so far this is what I know:
1) The OS is painfully slow, takes five minutes or more to boot up. Called MS support and got a tech who connected and took control and checked out various stuff over the course of an hour then went into system recovery and started PC reset with keeping all personal files. He wished us well and sent an email with the support number. We waited it out and 1.5 hours later the reset "failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during MIGRATE_DATA operation" (error code 0x8007042B - 0x2000D)
2) Ran Belarc Advisor and the report it spits out doesn't give me any clues, all the components listed above show as active (the report is apparently too large to upload here) ... but it does indicate the OS is installed on the HDD not the SSD. That's not ideal for gaming, so planned to fix that while doing a clean install following the excellent tutorial available on this site. Used MCT to create a new USB and tried to install from that after unplugging the HDD. That goes absolutely nowhere, nothing boots, screen is black, system is hung. As I type this, I realize we didn't try installing from the USB with the HDD plugged in. Not sure if that makes a difference.
3) The personal files are completely unnecessary since he only wants to use it for Xbox, so we tried to reset completely clean from system recovery. That appears to finish, but nothing is changed and we've tried that several times. The Belarc report says the OS is version 25H2 build 26200.7462 which seems to be up to the minute.
4) Tried using DEL key to get into UEFI during reboot, but nothing happens, screen is black, system is hung. Realized I've never seen an MSI logo pop us as the system boots, just a bunch of black until the Windows spinning dots show up. Tried using advanced startup from system recovery, and that is slightly better, seems like something wants to happen with slight flashes across screen, but still nothing happening... moving and clicking mouse does nothing, but system finally booted into Windows after we pressed enter key.
If you've read this far, I thank you sincerely. My son wants to take the whole thing back to Micro Center where he bought the components and let them figure it out, but I hate to admit defeat. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to try next?
His components are as follows:
MSI PRO Z790-P WiFi DDR4 Motherboard
3.6GHz Intel 12th gen Core I7-12700k Processor
(2) G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-32000 RAM
AMD Radeon RX6600 2X 8G RFB Video Card
Crucial 2TB B P310 Gen4 NVMe SSD
WD Mainstream Blue 4TB HDD
Thermaltake Smart 600W 80+ ATX PS
A case, various fancy lights and fans
He built his pc and we used Windows MCT to create a USB to install Windows 11 Education, whatever version was current in July. (He had to wait until the fall semester began to activate the installation, which as far as I know he took care of.) The computer was working for its intended purpose over the summer, but he ran into problems when he went back to school and I don't believe it worked the entire semester.
He's back home with it now, and as I said very frustrated over his inability to figure out why it won't load up games on the Xbox app. I know he has spent countless hours watching videos and checking all his connections on the motherboard, not sure what else he has tried. I'm trying to help him and so far this is what I know:
1) The OS is painfully slow, takes five minutes or more to boot up. Called MS support and got a tech who connected and took control and checked out various stuff over the course of an hour then went into system recovery and started PC reset with keeping all personal files. He wished us well and sent an email with the support number. We waited it out and 1.5 hours later the reset "failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during MIGRATE_DATA operation" (error code 0x8007042B - 0x2000D)
2) Ran Belarc Advisor and the report it spits out doesn't give me any clues, all the components listed above show as active (the report is apparently too large to upload here) ... but it does indicate the OS is installed on the HDD not the SSD. That's not ideal for gaming, so planned to fix that while doing a clean install following the excellent tutorial available on this site. Used MCT to create a new USB and tried to install from that after unplugging the HDD. That goes absolutely nowhere, nothing boots, screen is black, system is hung. As I type this, I realize we didn't try installing from the USB with the HDD plugged in. Not sure if that makes a difference.
3) The personal files are completely unnecessary since he only wants to use it for Xbox, so we tried to reset completely clean from system recovery. That appears to finish, but nothing is changed and we've tried that several times. The Belarc report says the OS is version 25H2 build 26200.7462 which seems to be up to the minute.
4) Tried using DEL key to get into UEFI during reboot, but nothing happens, screen is black, system is hung. Realized I've never seen an MSI logo pop us as the system boots, just a bunch of black until the Windows spinning dots show up. Tried using advanced startup from system recovery, and that is slightly better, seems like something wants to happen with slight flashes across screen, but still nothing happening... moving and clicking mouse does nothing, but system finally booted into Windows after we pressed enter key.
If you've read this far, I thank you sincerely. My son wants to take the whole thing back to Micro Center where he bought the components and let them figure it out, but I hate to admit defeat. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to try next?
- Windows Build/Version
- 25H2 build 26200.7462
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 11
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Self Built
- CPU
- AMD Ryzen 5 5600 G
- Motherboard
- Asus STRIX B550-F
- Memory
- 16 GB Corsair 2x8 D4 3200
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Dell 1905 Flat Panel, ca 2005
- Screen Resolution
- 1280 x 1024
- Hard Drives
- 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 SSD
1TB Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD
- PSU
- Seasonic Focus Plus 650W
- Case
- Fractal Meshify-C
- Cooling
- two case fans
- Keyboard
- Logitech, wired
- Mouse
- Logitech, wired
- Internet Speed
- AT&T fiber Gig speed
- Browser
- Edge, until I get back to Chrome
