PC Died

pp111

pp111

pp111

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Well, one of my PC's died this morning. It was running as normal then completely froze. Everything was dead except there was something on the display. All the ports died keyboard leds and so on were off. It wouldn't even reset.

Rebooting the PC the Gigabyte Z370 Gaming 7 comes up with the error message C1, which of course is not in the manual. There is no sign of life from anything. No power to the usb ports. The graphics card LEDS are illuminated but there is no sign of any output to the display. Also things like the onboard led for the ethernet ports are off. It looks like the motherboard doesn't get far and certainly is not posting anything.The onboard lighting does not come on but I guess that's just an indication that boot is failing very early.

I am not sure whether this is a RAM failure or Motherboard failure. Anyone any clues here? I am not sure about booting with only one stick of memory..should that work? Would that be a valid test?
 
Basically, rule of thumb when PC fails is to remove everything non essential to the minimum. So that mean leave only one ram stick, only BOOT HDD/SSD, if motherboard/cpu has integrated GPU, remove discreet one. Any other peripherals. All the USB devices even disconnect USB extension cables going from motherboard to the front panel if you have them connected. Clear CMOS by removing the battery from motherboard (google how to do it correctly in order to really reset the bios) or with specific pin on the motherboard. And then try booting. If boot fails, try another ram stick. If PSU is modular, remove all the cables which are not connecting to anything.
All this is providing you do not have extra components around you to swap one by one to see which one is actually failing.
Do a visual motherboard check up, to see if there are any melted connectors, which would indicate maybe faulty PSU.
Reseating CPU and CPU heatsink wouldn't hurt as well.
That hopefully will get you started.
CPU is one part which very rarely fails, so for starters assume that it is not at fault. SSD/HDD and GPUs do not hard lock the system that it does not even POST. By the signs you describe it might be either ram or motherboard.
Quick google tells me that C1 error on your motherboard refers to RAM. Owners solve the issue by reseating the ram
 
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Thank's for the replies.
Well, I looked at the manual and the onboard lights indicate the RAM has failed.
However, I am a little concerned about this. I tried just using one memory stick but it didnt work, giving me the same results as before and the same indicaions from the motherboard. I mean it seems unlikely to me that both RAM sticks failed at the same time.
I tried resetting the BIOS by the way, which is an easy process on the G7 but it made no difference.
There are just one or two reports on the internet of apparently the same error message being resolved by replacing both sticks of memory but nothing for this particular board. The reports aren't very detailed but it still seems very strange to me that I can't get even one stick to work.( I am not a memory expert though I have no idea whether one stick would work at the best of times ).
 
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Another thing that worries me a bit is the way the USB ports seem completely dead. I mean there doesn't seem to be any power on them. Surely there should be?

Oh, correction, I just checked and there is power on them. 5V. No data but that's to be expected.
 
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Board RMA is easily enough, so should the sticks of ram .
Hoefully got both from a good reseller like OCUK or could go direct with Gigabyte .

Try RMA the ram , they'll very very quickly find if its at fault in another board .

Might even be able to send both down just to be extra sure if bought from the same place
 
Thank you. I have ordered some new RAM. It will arrive tomorrow so I will get my answer quickly. I have to say that I am only 50% sure it's the RAM to blame. Although there is no doubt the board can not see any RAM it may well be the board that has failed. The RAM is the cheapest option ( it's come down in price a lot since I bought it ). Worst case I have 32GB of working RAM but that's no big disaster. Tomorrow if the RAM fails to sort the problem out then I ill order another motherboard. If that sorts the problem then I can just return the original.
Yes luckily all the parts came from decent suppliers so there is no problem. I have already been told that if it's the RAM I can get a refund, which is kinda good cus it's a lot cheaper now than it was when I bought it lol. so i get £190 back when the new stuff only cost £129
My one real worry is thet it may turn out to be the memory controller.
 
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pp111 said:
Thank you. I have ordered some new RAM. It will arrive tomorrow so I will get my answer quickly. I have to say that I am only 50% sure it's the RAM to blame. Although there is no doubt the board can not see any RAM it may well be the board that has failed. The RAM is the cheapest option ( it's come down in price a lot since I bought it ). Worst case I have 32GB of working RAM but that's no big disaster. Tomorrow if the RAM fails to sort the problem out then I ill order another motherboard. If that sorts the problem then I can just return the original.
Yes luckily all the parts came from decent suppliers so there is no problem. I have already been told that if it's the RAM I can get a refund, which is kinda good cus it's a lot cheaper now than it was when I bought it lol. so i get £190 back when the new stuff only cost £129
My one real worry is thet it may turn out to be the memory controller.
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memory controllers are on CPU, and they do not fail that easily :)
 
Yes. I phoned Gigabyte today and the techie guy confirmed what we are all thinking, The board should have worked with just one stick of RAM so although CPU failures are extremely rare, it could be a failure of the memory controller. Short of that then it is some obscure problem with the board that caused all the memory to be "unreachable" at once, but he didn't know what. Looks like I may have to replace stuff until it works then refund or Rma stuff that I eventually find to be broken. A pain, but there you go. I have already spent £500 and this could go all the way up to £750 ish lol. Ah well, I will get some back, or a second computer...not sure which.
 
Wll i think the mohterboard has cracked under the CPU from pressure from an over-tight cooler. I can't be sure about it so I am replacing the CPU and the motherboard, albeit I am pretty sure the CPU is OK.
 
Can now confirm that the heatsink was over-tight and eventually the motherboard developed a micro crack. Unfortuantely I can't really return the motherboard under these circumstances so I have just bought another. I am replacing the CPU as well, just in case, although I am reasonably sure it's fine. I thought that I might as well upgrade since I was replacing the mobo.
 
pp111 said:
Can now confirm that the heatsink was over-tight and eventually the motherboard developed a micro crack. Unfortuantely I can't really return the motherboard under these circumstances so I have just bought another. I am replacing the CPU as well, just in case, although I am reasonably sure it's fine. I thought that I might as well upgrade since I was replacing the mobo.
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Why you can't? you can always chance it? :) We don't know how thorough the companies RMA process is :)
 
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