The mysterious case of the SSD and the missing monitor

Hello ladies and gents.

I bought a new SSD today. Wanted to make it my new C: so unplugged the other drives, installed Windows, powered down, then plugged in my other drives. Seemed a straightforward job but when I booted back up no signal was picked up by my monitors.

I have absolutely no idea why. If I reset the CMOS the monitor comes alive again, but only as far as BIOS and/or Windows loading screen and then it vanishes again.

I'm hoping some wise person might have an idea what to do as frankly I'm stumped!


Long-winded explanation:
I have an MSI Z77 Mpower Intel motherboard. Previously my setup was 2 x 150GB Intel X25M SSDs [running in regular AHCI mode], a 2TB Western Digital and a 1TB Samsung. Everything worked fine.

Today I unplugged the SATA leads and connected my new SSD (HyperX Savage 240GB). Installed Windows 10 Pro x64. Booted successfully. Powered down. Connected the two Intel SSDs, went into BIOS and changed the setup from AHCI to RAID and created a RAID 0 array out of the two Intels (with a 128kb strip).

Booted up and it appeared to work. Formatted the Raid 0 array so it appeared I had a working C: and a D: drive. While waiting for the format I installed Nvidia Geforce Experience and latest drivers and Creative X-Fi drivers. Both asked me to reboot and I selected 'I will restart later'.

Powered down. Plugged in the Samsung. Booted up... and no monitor signal. Unplugged the Samsung... still no monitor. Tried various combinations of plugged in/unplugged drives... still no monitor.

Reset the CMOS. This brought up the "you've just reset your CMOS - hit F1 to enter Setup or F2 to continue" menu. I can go into BIOS, but the moment I save and exit I lose the screen again. If I hit F2 instead I get the Windows loading screen for a moment and then the computer reboots and I'm back to blank screen again.


Possible leads:

• The speaker sound suggests the computer is in a continuous reboot of some kind. The LED on the mobo reads 32: Early CPU Initialisation.
• During one of my many attempts the monitor eventually came to life and displayed the mobo splash screen, although it was oversized and half off the screen
• I was able to get it to boot off my Windows installer (flash pen) and told it to reinstall Windows. It got about half-way through the process then just shut down and didn't appear to resume when I restarted.

What GPU do you have?

Quite possible that it's reverted to use your IGP and is now having issues powering up or the other way around.

Also what is on the samsung drive? - Is it trying to boot off the old OS image?

Nvidia GeForce GTX 680.

The Samsung and WD were just used for storage but it's possible (probable) there might have been an old Linux iso on there.

After some deft manoeuvring and a lot of waiting I've got it to reinstall Windows (yay!). I'm approaching with caution though as I'm still not sure what caused the problem.

Now that's interesting. Everything worked fine until I installed the driver for my X-Fi sound card. First reboot was fine but after second reboot to finish the installation I'm back to the missing monitor.

With just the new SSD and a fresh install of windows and drivers (besides your X-FI and other drives unplugged) does everything work as it should do?

I believe so but will test that tomorrow. I guess my next plan of action is to reinstall Windows, create a restore point and then try a few older X-Fi drivers.

Thanks for helping out. I appreciate it.

See if there is a firmware update for the new SSD. Also check if there is a new BIOS for your motherboard. (The other thing it can be is your motherboard just doesn't like the drive with your other components, so you may have to return it and get a different brand, Samsung I would recommend)

The Plot Thickens

I removed the X-Fi and relied on onboard sound. Everything worked flawlessly.

Deciding it was just time to retire that card I treated myself to a new soundcard. It arrived today, I installed it and... guess what. No monitor again.

I haven't even got as far as installing drivers on this one. Literally just plugging it in has caused the problem, as if that PCI-E slot has just suddenly decided to become trouble.

I can confirm the motherboard BIOS and SSD firmware are both the latest versions.

EDIT: Removed the soundcard and machine was still monitor-less for about 10 minutes but eventually it reappeared. Inserted the soundcard into a different port and I'm back to no monitor again.

nogoodreason said:

I removed the X-Fi and relied on onboard sound. Everything worked flawlessly.

Deciding it was just time to retire that card I treated myself to a new soundcard. It arrived today, I installed it and... guess what. No monitor again.

I haven't even got as far as installing drivers on this one. Literally just plugging it in has caused the problem, as if that PCI-E slot has just suddenly decided to become trouble.

I can confirm the motherboard BIOS and SSD firmware are both the latest versions.

EDIT: Removed the soundcard and machine was still monitor-less for about 10 minutes but eventually it reappeared. Inserted the soundcard into a different port and I'm back to no monitor again.

Click to expand...

It would be interesting to change the mobo and see the results, but obviously this isn't a viable option.

what sound card is it?

This has definitely been one of my more interesting troubleshooting experiences.

After a lot of playing around I've come to the conclusion that the monitor issue is the computer "thinking about it". After enough reboots it will eventually work. Once it's working I can use the PC fine and if I reboot it always returns to a working screen. But if I power down for the night and boot up the following day I'm back to the "let's be temperamental for a while" problem. The mobo always reports Early CPU Initialisation when this happens.

Example:

• Got back from work today, hit power button, no monitor
• Moved new soundcard to its original PCI-E port
• Still no monitor
• Unplugged the RAID drives
• Monitor! Hooray!
• Plugged the RAID drives back in
• Everything's currently working

Overall this is good news, but the question is whether the PC will continue to have a long period of "I'm thinking about it" every time I boot up - and if so, whether that's to do with the SSDs in RAID, the new SSD, or something else entirely.


Two observations that might be worth noting:

* When I open the Settings on iTunes (installed on C: ) there's a serious delay - about 5 minutes - before it opens. But just opening iTunes and playing music (stored on E: Western Digital) works fine.

* According to Speccy the RAID Type for my SSD RAID 0 array is "None":

I dismantled the RAID array. Motherboard now back to AHCI mode, nothing fancy happening with any disks. I formatted all the SSDs and reinstalled Windows on the new Kingston drive.

The temperamental problem still persists:
* I can clear CMOS and am guaranteed to get a working monitor, at least as far as BIOS
* Rebooting, and especially powering down for the night, results in a total gamble. The monitor might come back on first time, but usually I need to power off a couple of times before I get lucky.
* If the monitor doesn't come on, I can leave the machine for hours and still no progress so it's not just taking a while to get ready
* Mobo always reports 'early CPU initialisation' when the monitor is missing

I'm installing a game now to see how that runs, but overall the machine is otherwise running fine.

I ran AVG Disk Doctor and it passed everything, although then it asked to reboot and stalled at 10% on the Samsung 1tb.

Really not sure where to look for the problem. Could anyone advise on some diagnostic software I could run?

Unplugged all hard drives. One monitor plugged into onboard gfx, another plugged into gfx card.

Still no monitors.


Motherboard issue? (How would I confirm?)

What PSU?

Smells power related to me

-Leezer-

leezer3 said:

What PSU?

Smells power related to me

-Leezer-

Click to expand...

be quiet! Dark Power Pro 1000W (80 plus Gold, modular)

Reasonable brand, but I'd be testing with another if you can get your hands on one.

-Leezer-

Not really an option I'm afraid. Is there any software I could use to find a fault? Obviously I'll RMA it if it seems broken... my confusion is how everything worked absolutely fine right up until I plugged this new SSD in. I suppose it's possible some dust or static or something got involved, but I can't see any clear reason why something like the PSU or mobo would suddenly develop a fault.

Additional power draw
If your PSU was on the edge before, the SSD could have just tipped it over.

Sometimes these things happen too with no explanation......

Random reboots is almost certainly going to either be PSU or motherboard, and my instinct says PSU.

-Leezer-

Is there a way to monitor how much power it's eating? You could well be right; I just assumed 1000w would be plenty. I've only got one graphics card and nothing is overclocked.