Has your computer completely stopped working?
Has your computer completely stopped working?
I really appreciate you all and the help you've provided so far. This old machine has been with me for nine years now—still running, but not as reliable as I'd like. I turned it on this morning and used it for just ten minutes. After that, I put it into hibernation and went about my day. When I got home, the screen didn’t appear. There were no blackouts, though a brownout couldn't be ruled out.
The specs are pretty standard: an i7 4790K, Asus Z97-E MOBO, Noctua NH-D15 fan, 32GB Gskill Ripjaws DDR3 RAM, MSI 970 power supply, an EVGA W3 450W PSU (much newer than the original), a Samsung Evo SATA SSD, and a WD Blue SSD (only a few months old). My 6TB HDD is also there. The SSD started acting up a while back, but I replaced it with the new WD model for the boot drive.
At first, I had some strange problems—no output from the GPU or MOBO ports. Once I unplugged the monitor, it worked. After updating the GPU drivers and other tweaks, things seemed fine. But now I'm stuck with no output at all. It doesn’t respond to power button, HDMI, or MOBO HDMI. The PC is behaving oddly too—pressing the power button doesn’t shut it down unless you do a specific hold. Resetting it doesn’t help immediately, but after 10-15 seconds it reboots without any display.
I can’t see anything on any screen, no matter the monitor or port I use. I’ve tried disconnecting everything, turning off the PSU for a bit, using MOBO ports instead of GPU, and even removing the CPU cooler. I cleaned everything, reapplied thermal paste, and left it running between steps. I even removed just one RAM stick at a time, cleaned the CPU and cooler, but nothing changed.
It sounds like it’s still functional, just not showing anything. I’m wondering if it’s dead or if I need to replace the MOBO, CPU, and RAM. It hasn’t been used hard in years, but I’ve played games like Borderlands 2 and Skyrim. Maybe it’s just time for a full rebuild?
I think PSU might have acted unexpectedly. The EVGA PSUs outside the Supernova line weren’t particularly good. If you're open to testing another brand, that would be the best advice. Regardless, getting a new PC would likely require a better PSU, so purchasing one now could be wise.
PSU is only about three years old at most. My original unit failed completely, so I rushed to Best Buy and got a replacement quickly. Do you think EVGA would just stop working like that suddenly? And would it even start and run without issues? I’m really curious because I assumed a PSU would fail or not work properly.
Yeah, there doesn't seem to be any proper reviews for that model and the previous cheaper attempts of EVGA weren't exactly shining. Questionable PSUs can just murder themselves out of nowhere. Like if something in the power line happens, it can shoot itself dead because of unfunctional protections. I'd hope if it's the PSU, it didn't damage or take other parts together with it. When I blew up a Seasonic Focus Gold by stupidity, it seemed to have left some parts damaged. Like that PC wouldn't then perform as reliably, sometimes wouldn't boot. Of course, your mileage would vary.