Need assistance figuring out why the PC won't start—possible dead or damaged MOBO or CPU issue.
Need assistance figuring out why the PC won't start—possible dead or damaged MOBO or CPU issue.
Hello world! After weeks of scouring the web and forums I have come to call upon your help. I have found posts that are similar to my PC's symptoms but none seem to fit exactly. This is my first post so here goes nothing. I'll try to summarize as briefly as possible: PC specs: CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 GPU: Palit GeForce GTX 1650 Super 4GB MOBO: MSI B450 Mortar Max Mobo RAM: G.SKill Ripjaws DDR4 3200 2x8GB SSD: Crucial BX500 (240GB) HDD: Western Digital Blue 7200rpm 1TB PSU: Super Flower Bronze King 450W 80+ Bronze Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper H410R Windows 10 64 bit Brief history: Built October 2020. After a few months I played around with some overclocking after I got a decent cooler. Base frequency is 3.4 GHZ. Overclocked it to 3.9 GHZ initially but was unstable, so tuned it down to 3.8 GHZ and used in that configuration for more than 18 months without issues even under heavy load. Temps under load were in the range of 63-68 degrees Celcius. Occasional (once every month or 2 months) BSOD under load or with lots of programs open. No other issues noticed prior. Used for Forza, Minecraft, Rocket League and video editing/rendering in DaVinci Resolve. I don't have access to another PC to test individual components to see if they are working. Problems started: I went overseas for 2 months and when I got back, the PC struggled to start up. After pressing the power button a few times, it did come on. Occasionally it didn't want to boot up. Initially I chalked it down to power button not making good contact(reused an old pc case). Sometimes when it was on it would randomly crash multiple times per day, which didn't happen before. There was an intense lightning storm a few days prior to my return. Don't know if that played a part. One time the VGA debug light on the MOBO came up. Managed to fix that. But afterwards, I still had the same crashing issues and struggles in booting up. I went into the BIOS to reset defaults on the CPU to see if that helped, but after that, it refused to boot up. Thought the power button had given up, so tried to jump start directly on the MOBO, to no avail. No lights, nothing. Googled and thought I might have messed up the BIOS. I set about resetting the BIOS. But it didn't want to work. Tried different USBS, formatting, etc,. Finally, on one occasion, I managed to get the BIOS flash LED to turn on, but it flashed a few times and then stopped solid. Tried again, same result. Kept trying and eventually it didn't even come on anymore. Also tried taking out the CMOS battery between tries. No go. Also to add that I tried all kind of combinations of peripherals plugged in and out (screen, 2 screens, mouse, keyboard). I had checked all cable connections several times, tested the PSU with a paper clip and it turned on no problem. Was starting to suspect a bricked MOBO. Out of desperation I started taking off components to see if the GPU, RAM or SSD or HDD was causing issues. Still no lights when trying to power on the PC. Tried taking out CMOS battery and waiting 5-30 minutes each time too. No result. Eventually after a few more hours scouring YouTube I took out the CPU as well. That WORKED! I was able to successfully flash the BIOS only when the CPU, GPU, RAM and all other components were taken off the MOBO. The snag is when I tried putting everything back on, it didn't boot, or even try to power up. No lights, nothing. Took everything off again and tried to switch on MOBO. Switches on. All the lights come on. But whenever the CPU is back on, it doesn't do anything. On several following occasions, I flashed the BIOS again successfully(with no components connected, just the 24-pin power cable connected) to see if that helped. It did not. I also tried booting it with the CPU, 1 RAM stick and GPU plugged in(no integrated graphics on CPU), this was with and without the SSD and HDD connected. This morning I did some more testing of the PSU just to cover all my bases. The voltages were as follows with only pin 14 seeming to be outside of tolerances: I am really stumped. I have tried pretty much everything I could think of and that I could find in previous posts and on YouTube. Could any of you people please kindly have a read and see if there is something I might have missed? Would love another pair of eyes on the problem. Sorry if this is not the right part of the forum. I'll gladly repost in the correct one if someone could kindly point me in the direction. From what I have observed I suspect the CPU may have given out. But I would love to be sure before investing in a new one. I unfortunately don't have another PC I can test individual components on so that sucks. What do you guys think? Dead CPU? Bricked MOBO? GPU problem? Or PSU? Thanks in advance for the time to read this and reply. Cheers
Je ne suis pas sûr d'avoir bien compris tes logs de dépannage, peut-être ton anglais n'est pas clair ? Je ne sais pas. (Tu es français, c'est normal.)
Essaie de démarrer, mais uniquement avec le PSU/MB/CPU/refroidisseur d'origine/1 stick de RAM ? Aucune autre chose.
L'idée est de réduire au maximum les variables. Oui, tout connecté aux USB, disques, refroidisseurs, ventilateurs et boîtier compte aussi comme des variables. Retire tout, place le boîtier sur une boîte isolante (pas de boîtier normal). Ça te donne un banc de test où tu peux manipuler facilement tout.
Dans ce cas, c'est fastidieux de déboguer. L'objectif est juste de vérifier si le système démarre correctement en se basant uniquement sur l'indicateur LED du BIOS.
L'objectif est simplement de parvenir au démarrage en BIOS : c'est tout. Aucune autre chose. Commence par la plus basse, pas besoin d'écran.
Si ça fonctionne, essaie plusieurs fois pour confirmer que ce n'est pas juste une coïncidence. Si le résultat est positif, remonte lentement les composants, un par un. Quelques démarrages supplémentaires pour s'assurer que tout fonctionne bien.
Hi! Thanks for the update. I didn’t realize the repair was done on the motherboard outside the case on an insulating surface. It doesn’t power up at all—not even to the BIOS. When the CPU is in its socket, it won’t respond. I removed the CPU, turned it on, and everything lit up. I also tried booting using just the PSU, motherboard, CPU, one RAM stick, and no cooler. Still nothing. This seems like a really odd issue that’s been frustrating me.