No indication to watch, no mouse or keyboard activity.
No indication to watch, no mouse or keyboard activity.
Hello everyone,
I've been using a solid machine for the past four years, and it has been functioning well until now.
Here are the details:
-Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz
-RAM: 8.0 GB
-Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 7870 OC 2GB
-PSU: Corsair TX 650
-Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional Edition (build 9600), 64-bit
Recently, the system has been struggling to start properly. All indicators light up, the fans are running (except for one fan inside the case, which I suspect didn’t spin at all), but neither the monitor nor the mouse or keyboard are responding. Both my PC and monitor are connected via an external power supply unit.
I've tried several solutions:
- Changing the battery in the UPS (needed anyway, but thought it might help)
- Switching the power cables for the PC and monitor
- Replacing the DVI cable linking the monitor to the PC
- Placing the PC and monitor power cords into a standard socket instead of the UPS
- Disconnecting everything except the monitor, mouse, and keyboard, then restarting
- Cleaning dust from inside the machine
- Updating Windows and drivers
- Formatting the PC
- Reinstalling or flashing the BIOS and resetting it to defaults
None of these worked.
Additionally, about a week before writing this, the PC would boot using the method described above, and the monitor would show a message like “Overclocking failed. Press F1 to enter setup, F2 to reset to default values and enter setup.” I pressed F2, saved the default settings (only adjusted the RAM frequency to 1600 MHz, which matches its actual setting), and restarted.
During troubleshooting, I kept the RAM’s default frequency at 1300 MHz for testing purposes, so changing it back was also done for that reason.
Forced shutdowns via the power button and reboots didn’t help either. What seems to be effective (and how I manage to boot) is turning off the PSU, unplugging and re-plugging the power cable, or switching off the UPS and then reconnecting it.
Is it a dead PSU? A failing motherboard? Or something else? I’m not an expert, but I’m not sure how long this machine has been running. It’s surprising that it stopped so suddenly.
Thank you all in advance for your support.
You've made a solid start so far. My next move would be to try different memory options and observe any changes. PSU or motherboard could also be factors, but testing memory seems the simplest first. I swapped the two memory sticks and ended up in endless loops (reboots). After resetting them back, the PC started up normally and the monitor displayed: "Overclocking has failed. Press F1 to enter setup, F2 to reset to default values and enter setup." This reminded me of a week ago, so I saved the default settings and restarted again (this time I kept the RAM frequency at 1300mhz instead of changing it). Before going to bed, I powered off the system, disconnected the PSU, removed the power cable, and left it in that state until morning. The next day, however, the PC failed to boot, and the method I used didn't work until I fully rebooted the UPS. It seems the issue might not be related to memory.