Hardware issue detected, motherboard or processor malfunction.
Hardware issue detected, motherboard or processor malfunction.
Hey there! I’ve always been a Mac enthusiast, yet I’d casually browse Linus’s YouTube channel when no one was around. One day, a friend gifted me an old PC, which I transformed into a budget gaming setup. It was an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T paired with a Radeon 6850 graphics card. Last weekend, I invested around €130 for a motherboard, CPU, cooler, and RAM (details below). The build was seamless—everything functioned perfectly! I was thrilled with the deal. But then things went wrong... First, I encountered BSODs when the system powered on. My initial guess was the GPU might be failing after years of use. I removed the card and relied on the built-in graphics, but still couldn’t get a display working from the motherboard.
I checked the Intel control panel and updated the drivers via Device Manager, but nothing changed. Then I tried reverting to an older driver version—suddenly the BSOD returned, followed by silence. The motherboard stopped responding entirely. I stripped down the system completely: power supply, motherboard, CPU, one RAM stick, speaker, and power switch. Still nothing. No beeps, no screen, just empty space. Even swapping RAM didn’t help. Voltage checks on the PSU came back normal.
I rebuilt the AMD graphics card inside the old PC, and it worked flawlessly once more. I’m stuck here... Though I secretly hope someone might have a solution. If this isn’t a lucky find, I need to figure out whether the CPU or motherboard is the culprit. That way, I could search online for another good deal and try again. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer!
Here are the key specs:
- Motherboard: GA-H97-HD3 (rev. 1.0)
- CPU: Intel Core i5 4690K
- CPU cooler: Thermalright Macho rev B
- RAM: Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600 (2x 8 GB)
- Disk: Sandisk SSD 250 GB
- PSU: Cooler Master 700W Silent Pro