The PC fails to power on unpredictably, displaying various issues.
The PC fails to power on unpredictably, displaying various issues.
I own a system from early 2015 that functioned flawlessly until recently. Then unexpected issues began appearing, resembling the gradual failure of organs near the end of life. Main signs:
1. Restarts upon power-up. The power indicator would illuminate and fans would spin, followed by a brief shutdown before the PC could boot. This pattern could loop several times before starting normally. Initially, the system might ignore the power button entirely—possibly indicating a failing PSU.
2. CPU indicator remained active during startup. This typically follows the first issue and sometimes resolves after a restart, though it may require cutting power to the PSU or waiting several minutes. It might be a temporary fix or just a placebo effect.
3. The primary M.2 SSD stopped being recognized by the BIOS, often after the first symptom. Restarting occasionally helped, but sometimes it didn’t and I had to wait or try again multiple times. Other storage devices remained unaffected.
4. Two out of four memory modules failed to appear in the BIOS. I own 8GB modules—two Corsair Vengeance and two G.Skill Sniper, added in 2017. Despite their different brands and frequencies, they worked together flawlessly for nearly five years.
5. Bringing the PC back from standby mode often triggered shutdowns, sometimes as if power loss occurred. I disabled standby in Windows for now. My initial suspicion was a PSU, but after replacing it with a newer Cooler Master model purchased under a year ago, the problems ceased. Now, once powered on, everything functions perfectly regardless of workload—games, benchmarks, no random crashes.
Overall, most glitches occur during startup or when returning from standby. I’m uncertain whether the problem lies with the PSU, motherboard, or another component. The intermittent nature and varied symptoms make troubleshooting challenging. I’ve disassembled, cleaned, reassembled everything, and issues would reappear after a couple of days. In short: the PC tends to shut down or restart itself during power-on, often leading to unstable booting. My guess is a failing PSU, but I’m still trying to figure it out.
It's been a while, so I just updated it. It didn't solve the problem—it seems I had to restart a few times to reset the BIOS settings (switch to M.2 mode, adjust boot priority, etc.). It appears about two-thirds of the time the PC restarts itself after turning on, which is definitely symptom #1. What stands out is that it would power off immediately right after the VGA LED lights up during POST.
The M.2 SSD is located in the slot connected to the CPU. The repeated restarts alongside the CPU activity might indicate a problem with the CPU itself, possibly related to the new PSU installation or occurring afterward.
Previously I relied on RIITOP NVMe to PCIe Adapter in the SLI slot for quicker NVME performance. To eliminate potential problems, I moved to the M.2 slot on the motherboard and enabled M.2 Mode in BIOS. So far, detection hasn’t raised concerns, though other symptoms continue. This change came after my PSU overheated in late February 2022, which caused the fan to fail and led to shutdowns during intense gaming. I replaced the PSU, and everything functioned normally until around October. Around that time, issues began appearing. One possible clue pointing to the CPU: near the start of these problems I experienced occasional 1-2 second freezes in games like CS:GO. Disabling turbo boost resolved the issue, which was unusual given normal temperatures.
Here is a quick video with the main issue (reboot cycle during power on, which in this case happens right after I press the button). Other issues usually appear after. When that happens chances it's going to boot with no issues are pretty slim so I have to retry multiple times. Apologies about the noise in the background. 1164884953_PXL_20221217_1750245052.mp4
Consider repeating the CPU to eliminate the possibility of it being the issue.