Strange issue...

Associate
Joined
30 Nov 2008
Posts
1,264
So as the title suggests, I've been having some odd issues with my PC the last couple of days - full specs are below & sorry in advance for the uber post.

Core i7 2600k @ 4.5GHz
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H
16GB HyperX Fury DDR3 1866MHz
Gigabyte GTX 780Ti Windforce 3x OC
Samsung 850 512GB SSD
Corsair HX850W (V1 Model, circa 2009)

Basically, PC has been running absolutely fine - no crashes, freezes or issues with temperatures

Thursday 7th

Turned the machine on, came back a few minutes later and there was just a blank screen - monitor had signal but nothing was displayed.

I held the power button and shut the machine down, pressed the power button again... nothing. No response at all - I could see the LED's on the motherboard, so there was definitely power.

At this point, I removed the kettle lead from the PSU, held the power button for 10 seconds to clear residual power and plugged it back in - power button worked & machine switched on - this time, I was met with a completely different BIOS splash screen to the normal one, which it sat on for 10+ minutes with no response to any keyboard input (Caps-Lock light was responding on the board itself)

I shut the machine down, opened the case & hit the CMOS_SW on the motherboard to clear the CMOS - booted the machine & it started fine; I loaded my OC profile back up and used the PC as normal all evening, playing BF1 etc. with no problems.

Monday 11th

Get home from work and go to turn PC on... nothing again - no response; I decided to take the panels off & give everything a good dust-off using a compu cleaner - at the same time, I switched out the CMOS battery for a new one.

Plugged everything back in, switched the PC on & it booted straight away - again, I used the machine as normal all evening with no problems.

Yesterday Evening

I came home from work and, you guessed it, no response from the power button again! I removed/ reinserted the kettle lead and the PC started up - this time, when it booted into windows I was seeing some strange behaviour; key presses were taking a couple of seconds to register, and the onscreen volume widget was constantly displayed, upon checking the mixer the volume slider was being forced down, no matter what value I set this to it just rolled back down again.

I have a USB sound card so unplugged it, checked device manager and my keyboard was showing with a yellow warning saying it had malfunctioned - luckily I have a spare keyboard so I plugged this in and the issues seemed to go away.

At first, my gut feeling was a faulty power supply or motherboard; surely a funky USB keyboard couldn't do all of this could it?! If I get home tonight & it happens again, I'll try running on stock BIOS settings for a while, though my OC has been solid for ~2 years so far.

Sorry for the massive post, just looking for some idea's I guess - been working on PC's for years but this one is a bit strange :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
19 Apr 2003
Posts
13,513
I'll try running on stock BIOS settings for a while, though my OC has been solid for ~2 years so far.
Running at stock is the logical first step - as it's quite possible your clock has eroded over time. I recently had to drop my 2500K from 4.7GHz to 4.5GHz using the same vCore.

I would also consider changing your motherboard battery - more of a belt-and-braces - but there is the coincidental chance you have 2 things going on at the same time.

If things settle down at stock you've identified your problem (although PSU may still be a factor as less draw). Reapply a new clock and test accordingly.

Is your BIOS up to date? Maybe worth a re-flash even if it is.

If it's still flaky post back.

Best of luck.
 
Last edited:
Associate
OP
Joined
30 Nov 2008
Posts
1,264
Running at stock is the logical first step - as it's quite possible your clock has eroded over time. I recently had to drop my 2500K from 4.7GHz to 4.5GHz using the same vCore.

I would also consider changing your motherboard battery - more of a belt-and-braces - but there is the coincidental chance you have 2 things going on at the same time.

If things settle down at stock you've identified your problem (although PSU may still be a factor as less draw). Reapply a new clock and test accordingly.

Is your BIOS up to date? Maybe worth a re-flash even if it is.

If it's still flaky post back.

Best of luck.
Thanks for your reply - got home from work yesterday & PC booted straight away, no issues at all.

I did swap the BIOS battery earlier in the week just to be sure - it's a good call on re-flashing the BIOS, it is indeed running the newest one available... even though it was released in 2014!

Will see how things go over the weekend.
 
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