PC Power Cycle Problem: Lights and fans remain on, freezing until power supply is flipped
PC Power Cycle Problem: Lights and fans remain on, freezing until power supply is flipped
I’m not necessarily looking for an upgrade right now, but I’m facing some challenges that make it feel like a change is needed. My system runs smoothly under heavy loads; it behaves normally until shutdown attempts. The main issues arise during shutdowns. LEDs remain lit even though I confirmed the ERP settings in BIOS, and all fans spin at full speed. Only when I manually turn off the PSU does it stop, but this doesn’t happen every time—it happens more often than a simple crash. When it does shut down properly, the lights turn off and fans cease, just as expected.
During startup, I’m forced to enter Windows immediately at the login screen. If I delay, the PC will shut down after a few minutes with the same symptoms: lights on, fans maxing out, fixable only by switching the PSU on/off. After logging in, I can secure the system with WIN + L, and everything functions until another shutdown occurs, which then restarts the process. Occasionally, when booting, I don’t get into Windows and the machine freezes—lights stay on, fans run at full speed. This can happen a few times, requiring me to flip the PSU switch again until it works.
There’s also a scenario where I enter Windows but the system freezes completely, leading to all LEDs staying bright and fans spinning continuously. This might occur occasionally, prompting me to try flipping the PSU switch repeatedly until it resolves the issue.
I’ve explored everything online: reinstalling Windows, updating drivers, adjusting BIOS settings, changing power options, testing different PSUs, updating firmware, and more. Even replacing components hasn’t solved the problem. I’m still hoping you have a better solution. My current specs include an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, a boxed ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII, G.Skill Trident Z Neo, and several SSDs and HDDs. I’m using MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, WD Black SN770 2TB, and a Samsung 960 Pro 1TB. Corsair LL120 RGB fans are installed. If you need more details, just let me know.
This situation seems outside my usual area of expertise but it might be useful. Recently a friend experienced PC problems. When trying to boot, fans ran at maximum speed but nothing occurred. Even in Windows, the system would freeze or refuse to shut down. I removed the RAM sticks and left only one. It turned out that one stick was damaged—sometimes it worked, other times it wouldn’t power up or shut down properly. This could be helpful. Consider booting with just a single RAM stick, one SSD, CPU fans, and GPU. If the issue disappears, it might point to a motherboard problem. Assuming your SSD, RAM, GPU, and PSU are fine, the problem likely lies with the motherboard itself. Not sure what else to check.