4 year old PC wont boot up all of a sudden, powers on and off in a loop

[Mark A]

Hi, Just wondering if anyone had any ideas on what could be wrong. I was using my PC last night and everything was fine, then today I tried waking it up from sleep mode and the fans spun for for a few seconds, then it all powered down and kept looping like that continuously.

I have tried unplugging everything, removing the gpu, removing the ram sticks one at a time and trying different slots, resetting the cmos and nothing has worked.

I can test my brothers PSU to see if mine has died, but is there anything else worth checking? It couldn't be anything to do with the mobo battery could it, with it being 4 years old. I'd assume it would still post even if the battery was dead?

Specs:

i5 4670k
Asus maximus VII Ranger
16gb HyperX Beast (2x8gb)
Asus Strix 1070ti
Seasonic X series 660w psu

Thanks for any help.

EDIT: The PSU is 6 years old I just found it in my orders on OcUK. 1 year out of warranty . I'm really hoping it is the PSU and it hasn't damaged any other conponents, but I didn't hear a pop or anything when I turned it on. Are Seasonic still a good PSU brand to go for a replacement?

 

[Mark A]

Thanks, i'll hopefully be able to test my brothers PSU in my PC tomorrow.

I didn't realise i'd had this PC for so long, it seems like last year I bought it. I'm wondering now if this is a sign it's time to upgrade my CPU, mobo and ram anyway. Would there be much gain over my current spec if I went for the latest i5 cpu and DDR4 ram?

I just bought a 1440p 144hz monitor a few days ago and was a little disappointed with the fps in some of my games after jumping up in resolution from 1080p. Do you think the cpu could be bottlenecking the gpu?

 

[Mark A]

I suspect motherboard, then PSU. Are there no error codes or anything? Does your motherboard have a speaker module plugged in?

Yeah there is a speaker plugged in, but it doesn't even get to a stage where it could beep as it powers up, then a second later it powers down and continuously loops like that until I hold the power button. The only code that has time to pop up is 00, but it goes through a few codes during bootup, so I don't think that is the error code.

The motherboard leds are still lit, as is the power button that is on the mobo, so there must be some power coming from the psu still. I hear a click inside the psu, but i'm pretty sure it always did that when you first boot up.

My last Asus motherboard lasted me 6 years, then i built a pc using it for my brother and he had it a couple of years, then i sold it on ebay for £50 lol. I was hoping this fancy ROG version would have lasted longer than 4 years. Then again Seasonic are also supposed to last a long time.

Hard to say whether you should upgrade anything without numbers.

You need to benchmark the card on a few common benchmarks (timespy, firestrike, valley, etc) and see if the card is performing like similar cards. (Use one of kaapstad's threads in the graphics forum, he has a large list of specs and their scores).

If your CPU is overclocked I'm not sure it is much of a bottleneck at 1440p for demanding games. If you are wanting to hit 144fps to match the monitor on esports titles like overwatch I have a feeling you need all the CPU you can get because the GPU won't be fully loaded - you can test that by having afterburner running in the background and checking the GPU utilisation graph to see if it's low.

My cpu was clocked to 4.5, but it got a pretty low cpu score on Firestrike. I went from 120fps in Pubg, to 80fps after upgrading to 1440p. A few other games dropped from 80, to 60, but these were single player games like the Evil Within 2, so i'm not too bothered as it was still smooth. I probably should have gone for a 1080ti instead of the 1070ti.

 

[Mark A]

I tried another PSU today and it did the exact same thing . Would you say it was the mobo that is dead then and not the cpu? Anything else I could try?

 

[Mark A]

Thanks, i'll give that a shot tomorrow. I just tried warming the mobo up with a hair dryer after seeing a video on Youtube and it powered up, but I didn't get a picture on my monitor with the hdmi plugged into the mobo. I then restarted it and it started looping again .

I guess I better start researching components as I haven't looked for around 4 years.

 

[Mark A]

Before spending money, take the motherboard out of the case, inspect it, and test it. It's entirely possible a dead insect or something is causing a short.

Its out of the case at the moment. I had a good look around and can't see anything obvious.

I just tried updating the bios using the bios update utility and it hasn't solved it unfortunately.

I guess my last option would be to take it to a PC repair shop, but i'm thinking with it being 4 years old it might just be better to upgrade to an i7 setup.

 

[Mark A]

Just been doing some research on parts and it seems this couldn't have happened at a worse time with a possible die shrink around the corner. I assume he older chips will end up cheaper if that happens as it'll be a decent jump in efficiency. I'm not sure spending £400 on an i7 is the best idea now, but then again I just bought a 1070ti and a fancy monitor and wanted to game over christmas .

One other option would be to buy a used Asus Maximus Ranger mobo from ebay and just do a temp swap to keep my PC going for a while...

Otherwise I might just raid my savings account and get this lot:

Asus Rog Maxiumus Hero XI
I7 8700k
Hyper X Fury 2400mhz 16gb (2x8gb)

But I am not sure whether to buy a new PSU, or reuse my Seasonic 660w psu, with it being 6 years old. I know newer Seasonic Psus have 10-12 year warranties, so maybe 6 years isn't that old for a decent psu?

 

[Mark A]

Cheers guys, i'll look into AMD as well. I did notice they were a lot cheaper, which would be a bonus. If I do upgrade i'd want a decent jump in performance from what I have to justify the cost, so wouldn't want to skimp too much. At the time I built this pc the general consensus was that i5 was best for gaming and an i7 was overkill as very few games made use of hyperthreading. But from what I have read it seems that has changed now and an i7 would be a better bet. I'll have to look into some benchmarks for i7 vs the equivalent AMD.

Regarding the motherboard, even though this Asus mobo only lasted 4 years i'm kinda drawn to using another rog mobo, mainly for the looks, but I also like the features. I tend to make a PC last years, so don't mind spending a bit extra for a nicer looking board as i'll have it on my desk for hopefully another 4 years or more. I just hope asus have sorted their software out so it works with windows 10 as my current utility software bugged out when windows released the anniversary update.

There were alterations to PSU requirements with Haswell so a new PSU is probably in order.

I got this PSU oct 2012, so its a year out of the 5 year warranty. Its gold rated and 660w, so do you think it wouldn't be up to the job of a new system? I was looking at the Seasonic prime 750w gold as a replacement, but as i'd ruled out the psu as the issue I was hoping to reuse it for now. But i guess an extra £135 for the psu isn't too much and will be under warranty for 12 years.

Did you try re-seating the CPU? Seems like you've tried everything else at this point.

I'll give this a try in a minute if I have any thermal paste in my box of pc stuff. It'll be 4 years old though, so hopefully it hasn't dried up.

I did move case a month or so ago, but it all seemed to go smoothly and I haven't had any issues. It's weird how it has just died all of a sudden. I was just watching iplayer the night before then put it in a sleep mode and this happened.

 

[Mark A]

If debug sits on 00 then cpu is dead.

I don't think its reading a debug code, that just happens to be the first code during boot and the mobo resets before it can show anything else. The mobo powers on for maybe a second before turning off again, so it has no time to show anything else. I tried the mobo with no cpu in at all and it does the same thing if that makes any difference.

Also that display used to read 00 when in windows since I built the PC 4 years ago.


I'm so tempted to take advantage of the ebay 15% off offer and buy some new parts, but that still ends up being £370 for the cpu. It seems a lot for a cpu considering I got my current CPU plus the Asus Maximus VII ranger motherboard for under that price 4 years ago.

I could wait and see what happens with the new AMD chips, but I don't know if I can hold out that long, especially since I have preordered Resident Evil 2!

 

[Mark A]

If you're considering AMD I don't think their next round will be out until well into 2019, you'd need to decide based on their current line up and then swap the CPU out later if you felt it was worth it. The 2700 is quite a good value for money CPU anyway.

Also, are you certain 00 was your running code? I think it's usually A0.

[Edit: You're -> Your, what a derp].

In windows? Yeah it displayed 00 once it got to desktop and then stayed like that. IIRC it was something else at one point, then I think i had to update the bios for some reason and then it started displaying 00 instead, but its been like that for years and there has been no issues until now.


I was all set to order a i7 9700k and Asus motherboard last night, using mine and my brothers ebay accounts to get the 15% off each component. Then i saw a comment about the temps being high for this chip and it put me off. I currently use a Thermalright true black 6 heatpipe 120mm cooler, which I have used for years and it has been an amazing cooler. From what I can gather this will no longer be sufficient if I got for the intel chips and i'd need an AIO watercooling setup? I read that on air at stock the chip can reach 90c and if you overclock at all aircooling is a no go?

I'm more interested in an AMD setup now as they apparently run cooler, although i'd probably need to buy a new air cooler as i doubt mine will fit on an AM4 socket. Also like you mentioned I could upgrade in future and the mobo would still support the new chip.

My main reason for wanting to go Intel is because one of my favourite games (Stalker) is very cpu dependant and only uses a single core, which I believe the Intel chips have superior single core performance.

 

[Mark A]

@Pulseammo After a bit more research it seems it could be possible to cool on air on something like the Dark Rock 4. From a Youtube video where he tested both the DR4 and a 240mm AIO cooler the temps were almost identical and he concluded that it was just a hot chip and was probably down to Intels shoddy thermal compound.

But I'm torn between that and the AMD platform as the zen 2 sounds like it might increase single core performance and I like the idea that I can use the same AM4 mobo and just update the bios for the new cpu. Only slight concern is that I have read PCIe 4 and 5 are coming, so i'm not sure how that would affect future proofing.

Thanks for all the help btw. I don't know anyone IRL that is into PC building so its been great to get some input after being out of the loop for so long.

 

[Mark A]

There was a fault with some Seasonic X series PSU's. Think it was the overload protection that was faulty and shutting down the psu.

I had a X850 last year that i think has this fault, made thread here about it https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/psu-reassurance.18790352/#post-31136453

I tested with my brothers seasonic Focus+ psu and it did the exact same thing unfortunately. I was hoping it might be the psu as that would have been an easy fix. Thats interesting though and maybe i should get a new psu when I build a new PC. Although this psu has been pretty solid for the 6 years I have had it.

@pp111 These mobos do pop up on ebay now and again and usually sell for around £100. I was thinking about doing that as a stop gap, but I'm hesitant to throw money at a 4 year old system like you say. Plus i'm not sure if my oem copy of windows would still be legit, which would add more to the cost.


Update: I just tried my PC again and this time it cycled on and off a few times and then stayed on for a minute or so and the display read 00, but there was also a red led lit on the mobo with cpu stamped next to it. Then it went off again and kept cycling on and off again.

So could it be the cpu after all?

 

[Mark A]

We could do with a collective parts bucket. Where members retain older parts and charge a small fee + shipping to borrow parts for testing.

As you say, it’s so frustrating when you need to troubleshoot but can swap components in and out at will!

That would be awesome! I almost bought a cpu from ebay last night, but then thought about it and there would be no way of knowing if you had been sent a dead cpu by an untrustworthy seller. So then would be back to square one.

 

[Mark A]

RYZEN 7 EIGHT CORE 2700X 4.35GHZ (SOCKET AM4) PROCESSOR - RETAIL

ROG STRIX X470-F GAMING AMD X470 (SOCKET AM4) DDR4 ATX MOTHERBOARD

TRIDENT Z RGB 16GB (2X8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHZ DUAL CHANNEL KIT
or
HYPERX PREDATOR RGB 16GB (2X8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHZ DUAL CHANNEL KIT

Dark Rock 4 cpu cooler

Does this spec look ok? Not sure about ram, but just picked two sets out of the christmas deal lineup that looked good. I think it's more of a sidegrade rather than an upgrade gaming wise, but theres always the next gen cpus that I can upgrade to down the line if it struggles with some cpu intensive games.

I've given up on the idea of trying to get my old pc working as i'm not sure if its the mobo or cpu and don't want to waste more money on it.