“Kernel panic - not syncing: Timeout synchronizing machine check over CPUs” Every time I boot from a live USB

Question

I have been stuck on this for months. I built a new PC, and every time I try to run Linux off a live USB drive, I get this after picking "Try Ubuntu" in the grub menu.

Sorry for cutting some of the ends off, but it was the only way to get a readable image.

The error reads:

No Caching mode page found
Assuming drive cache: write through
exception Emask 0x52 SAct 0x0 SErr 0xffffffff action 0xe frozen
SError: { RecovData RecovComm UnrecovData Persist Proto HostInt phyint CommWake 10B8B dispar BadCRC Handshk LinkSeq TrStans UnrecFIS DevExch}
failed command: IDENTIFY PACKET DEVICE
cmd a1/00:01:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 tag 2 pio 512 in
res 40/00:00:00:00:00:/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x56 (ATA bus error)
status: { DRDY }
Kernel panic -not syncing: Timeout synchronizing machine check over CPUs
Shutting down cpus with NMI
Kernel Offset: 0x1000000 from 0xffffffff81000000 (relocation range: ....
drm_kernel_helper: panic occurred, switching back to text console
Rebooting in 30 seconds..

I have tried everything. Switching distros, using disks and verifying the bootable USB (It works fine on other PCs).

The motherboard is a MSI Z97 MPOWER and the CPU is an i7 4790K.

Answer 1

Have you tried using different programs to make the Live USB? When I make a Live USB with the Startup Disk Creator application, I usually get this error (which is odd, since it's the default application). But when I make a Live USB with Unetbootin, it almost always works great.

EDIT

I just looked up your motherboard. The BIOS has had a bunch of updates over the past few months, which might suggest that there's been some bugs with it. You could try flashing a newer BIOS: http://us.msi.com/support/mb/Z97_MPOWER_MAX_AC.html#down-bios

EDIT2

Resetting the BIOS by clearing the CMOS RAM has helped me before; maybe it will help you too. Here's an image showing how to do this that I grabbed from the manual of your motherboard:

If that image is hard to read, it's on page 45 (or section 1-31) of the full manual here: http://dl.msi.com/download_files/mnu_exe/E7888v1.0.zip

I'm sure you already know this, but make sure you do this with the computer off and unplugged.

Answer 2

I managed to fix the problem by unplugging all drives and devices from the pc. The problematic device turned out to be the dvd drive. Without it everything works fine :D