Computer Restarts Every 2 Minutes After Fresh Install of Windows 10

I have been working on a problem with my computer for 2 days. (Technically, it's my son's computer.) He was playing a game on Friday night when suddenly the computer shut down and then restarted. After shutting down and restarting twice, he can get into Safe Mode. He was unable to do anything in Safe Mode. Can't restore or anything else in any option in safe mode.

So...after a full day of trying everything we could think of, we opted to try for a fresh install of Windows. That turned out to be a full-day ordeal. We finally managed to create a bootable flash drive with a Windows ISO. Then we finally got the computer to boot from it. This took pretty much most of another day.

We finally managed to install Windows 10, but then it would restart every two minutes. The resolution settings are crazy, too. They are magnifying everything by 125%. We changed them, but then we got a message that Windows was searching for a display driver. Set the resolution back, and the computer restarted again.

We then changed the BIOS back to starting first with the HD instead of the flash drive. Computer restarted. And then we were right back to the same loop: two attempts to restart and then the safe mode screen.

Now, it has occurred to me that we installed Windows in the wrong place. We had an option of choosing one of three partitions, one of which was labeled "System," but that looked like a pretty small partition and it said "reserved," so we opted to install it in the one partition that was not reserved. It is, of course, the main partition of the drive.

Should we have installed Windows into that "System" partition? I supposed we could go back and do that, but what do we do about the Windows we just installed in the main partition? Or is there a work around for this? Can we tell BIOS to change the boot order to boot from the new Windows?

Of course, that doesn't seem like it would solve the problem of the constant restarting. Would two versions of the same Windows on a hard drive create this kind of instability? Even if they are in different partitions? And if the problem is with a display driver, why didn't Windows find the right one when it installed, and how can I get the right one if Windows keeps restarting?

My head hurts already. And my poor kid is away at college, where this it midterm week. He is also a senior and has some major projects to complete, one of which he has to pass or he doesn't get his degree (music). We were doing this all long-distance, which wasn't easy, as I had to keep looking things up.

I sincerly hope someone can help me.

Oh...we did chkdsk and scannow and found not hard drive problems. Chkdsk found some errors in the $I30 index. We did a chkdsk/repair thing, and I think it fixed some things. I don't remember. But the computer did the same looping thing. That's why we decided to just reinstall Windows.

Please help!

Is there any data on the computer you want to keep? If there is, we'll have to show you how to back it up. But this is what I would recommend for installing Windows 10 if there is no data you want to keep.

1. Disconnect all sources of internet from the computer. Unplug any network cables. Do not connect to any wifi when Windows setup asks to connect.

2. Boot the computer from Windows 10 installation USB flash drive or DVD. When the first screen comes up press shift + F10. In the command window that opens run the following commands. This will erase the entire hard drive!

diskpart
select disk 0
clean
exit
exit

If asked for a product key and you don't have one, click the link for "I don't have a product key" and then select the same version of Windows 10 that was on the computer before.

3. Select the custom install option when asked for Upgrade or Custom Install.

4. Hightlight the unallocated space on the disk and click next.

5. Let Windows 10 install finish. Do not connect to the internet yet! Skip selecting a network to connect to.

6. Skip through the screens asking for an email address and password until you can't skip adding a user any longer. This should be the screen to create a local account on the computer. Enter a username and a password (if desired).

7. Let the computer start up and get to a stable condition. Now connect to the internet by either plugging in the ethernet cable or connecting to WiFi. The problem sounds like a video driver problem. This is where, if it is going to return, it will return.

8. After connecting to the internet, from the start icon, go to settings, updates and security, and check for updates with fingers and toes crossed.

9. Since he logged in with a local account, if he needs a Microsoft account he can go to settings, accounts, and convert the local account to a Microsoft account login.

Thank you so much for your reply. I'm not quite sure I follow step 2. We should run ALL of these commands?

disk
part
select disk 0
clean
exit
exit

Doesn't the first one ask to partition the drive? Or does it eliminate all the partitions? Is that what that means? Run the diskpart command, which eliminates the partitions, which is why there is only disk 0 to select from? Then clean does what? just erases what's on the disk? Or does it reformat? If we're asked to reformat, do we format in FAT32 or NTSF? (We discovered that the flash drive had to be formatted in FAT32 in order for it to work as a boot drive.)

Then in Step 4, we are to choose unallocated space, but if the disk is no longer partitioned and has been wiped clean, wouldn't all the space be unallocated? I've attached a photo of the screen we got when we first went to reinstall Windows. We selected drive partition 2. Windows did install and started up, but as I said, then the computer kept restarting every 2 minutes.

We have no problem erasing the entire disk. My kid did get all his files saved to his external hard drive, so that's all good. And he can easily install any programs he needs. He also does have the product key. So that's all good.

If it is a video driver problem, can that be fixed?

Today is one of our busy days - both of us have full days, so we can't get to this until tonight. But I do want to get all the steps clarified and know what to do about the video driver if that turns out to be the problem. We've had two full - and I do mean full - days of this, not going to bed until the wee hours of the morning. I'd like to avoid a 3rd night like that and get all the potential issues ironed out before we begin -- and have contingency plans.

Obviously, if everything works, we don't need to do anything more. BUT if we get to the last step and find the problem has returned, then what?

One last question, could he skip the updates entirely as maybe they are causing the problem? The kid will be home Saturday for spring break, so we could deal with updates then. We just need to get the computer working so the kid can get his work done.

kaityf said:

Thank you so much for your reply. I'm not quite sure I follow step 2. We should run ALL of these commands?

diskpart
select disk 0
clean
exit
exit

Doesn't the first one ask to partition the drive? Or does it eliminate all the partitions? Is that what that means? Run the diskpart command, which eliminates the partitions, which is why there is only disk 0 to select from? Then clean does what? just erases what's on the disk? Or does it reformat? If we're asked to reformat, do we format in FAT32 or NTSF? (We discovered that the flash drive had to be formatted in FAT32 in order for it to work as a boot drive.)

diskpart - gets you into the command line disk management program.

select disk 0 - specifies that you want the commands entered next to be performed on the first disk in the system which is 90% of the time going to be the HDD that you want to install Windows to.

clean - wipes all the previous partition information off the disk - essentially erasing it completely.

exit - exit the diskpart program back to the command prompt

exit - exit the command prompt

You will not be asked to create any partitions or format anything.

kaityf said:

Then in Step 4, we are to choose unallocated space, but if the disk is no longer partitioned and has been wiped clean, wouldn't all the space be unallocated?

That is correct. When you click next Windows 10 setup will automatically create and format the partitions that it wants to before installing the OS to the main partition that it will create automatically.

kaityf said:

If it is a video driver problem, can that be fixed?

Yes. First, I would try just letting Windows do everything once connected to the internet. If that doesn't work, go back all the way to step 1 and reinstall Windows 10 again. This time before connecting to the internet disable driver updates:

Driver Updates in Windows Update - Enable or Disable in Windows 10

Then connect to the internet.
Then in order to get the video card/processor working correctly you will need to manually download and install the driver for that video card/processor from the manufacturer's website and install it. Also you will need to look in device manager for any "unkown devices" or devices with yellow exclamation points, right click on them, update driver, and initiate a manual check for drivers.

kaityf said:

Today is one of our busy days - both of us have full days, so we can't get to this until tonight. But I do want to get all the steps clarified and know what to do about the video driver if that turns out to be the problem. We've had two full - and I do mean full - days of this, not going to bed until the wee hours of the morning. I'd like to avoid a 3rd night like that and get all the potential issues ironed out before we begin -- and have contingency plans.

Been there, done that many times, over 30 years experience with Windows here including beta (insider) testing Windows from Windows 95 on up.

kaityf said:

Obviously, if everything works, we don't need to do anything more. BUT if we get to the last step and find the problem has returned, then what?

One last question, could he skip the updates entirely as maybe they are causing the problem? The kid will be home Saturday for spring break, so we could deal with updates then. We just need to get the computer working so the kid can get his work done.

See the above link to the tutorial on how to turn off driver updates. A lot of times, though, just letting Windows start over from scratch will fix the problem - if the problem was caused by a previous version of the driver interfering with the updated driver (could be from old registry entries, old "support" files like DLLs and config files).

Thank you SO much! Hopefully, this will solve the problem. My kid should be able to follow all these steps. I suggested these posts be printed out for easy reference before the whole process begins. Your instructions are very clear and your answers to my questions clarified some of my confusion. I thought it might help to disable those automatic updates. I hate those things. Sometimes they can really mess stuff up! I'm wondering if one of those sneaky updates caused the problem to begin with. Whatever.... as long as we can get the computer running, I'll be happy.

Crossing my fingers that this all works! I won't know until later this evening.

I think we are making progress. The kid followed all the steps. The computer was fine for 20 minutes - no restarts. So the next step was to connect to the internet and install updates. When the updates were done - computer began to restart again. So it would seem that there is a problem with one of the updates. I'm betting it's one of those sneaky ones that installs without letting you know, not a major update.

Anyway, we are now going to try going through the whole process again, this time disabling the auto updates before connecting to the internet to see how that works.

We are definitely making progress. The computer has been on for at least an hour - while we've been trying to figure out how to disable the auto install of drivers. None of the options in those instructions show up on the computer. We aren't familiar with reg edit, but it looks like we'd have to download something, which obviously we can't do. We managed to get to Local Group Editor, but the options in the pictures aren't there. That is, there is no option to not include driver updates.

install windows Install graphics card(if needed) install all other software

Okay....we just went backwards. The computer was stable for hours while we tried to figure out how to disable auto install of drivers. We found one method because none of the methods in the tutorial, other than reg edit were available on the computer. We went to the control panel to devices and printers, where we can opt to answer "no" to the question "Do you want to automatically download manufacturers' apps and custom icons available for you devices?"

Then we connected to the internet, started downloading programs, and boom! computer restarted again.

Fortunately, I told the kid to create a restore point before connecting to the internet.

I've attached a pic that shows what was installed. No drivers. So we went back to the restore point. Connected to the internet but didn't install anything. The second pic shows what was added. Just something to do with Visual C++. How could that be causing the problem? But nothing else has been downloaded.

Computer has been running for quite a while since the last restore - without an internet connection. Looks like it might be that C++. I never heard of that before.

We also checked the display driver info. I attached a picture of what we found there.
Sorry for the crappy resolution, but the kid is taking pictures of the screen on his cell phone and then sending them to me via FB Messenger.

Since this is an emergency situation....

What OS did the computer come with? Is there a Windows 7 or 8 product key available and go back to Windows 7 or 8? You can get Windows 7 and 8 ISO files from here:
Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool

Another option would be to join the insider program and see if an insider build would have the same problem. You do need to sign up for the insider program with a Microsoft account, but once you do you can download a build 15025 build:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...?wa=wsignin1.0

Another option is to leave Steam and the games off of it for now. The Visual C++ files are usually installed when a program or game is installed that requires it.

BTW, exactly what make and model computer are we talking about; and if it is an off-the-shelf computer, has there been any hardware upgrades added to it? Has it been overclocked? If so try resetting the BIOS/UEFI settings to default.

Also, here's a troubleshooting hint:
When your computer reboots itself over and over again | PCWorld