Help problem solving PC that won't boot please

Drewb

Drewb

Drewb

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9 Jan 2007
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188
PC won't boot. Press power, monitor wakes, fans briefly spin, light comes on graphics card and red light on mobo. This sequence lasts less than a second and the fans never get up to speed.
This cycle repeats itself many times then stops, during this cycle the monitor goes back into power save mode.
Sometimes the fans spin up properly and the graphics card light stays on for 3-5 seconds, it seems like it is going to boot but the bios screen never appears and then everything switches off again.
All the time I have power to a USB port I use to charge my phone.
Is there any way to determine which component is faulty. I am guessing the PSU is OK.
Any ideas gratefully received.
 
Thanks,
I had taken all USB devices off except the keyboard widget. This mobo does not like booting with certain USB devices attached but the phone isn't usually one of them.
I was afraid you were going to say strip it down and rebuild minimum - oh well needs must :)
 
I can't get logged in to ocuk for order history as I can't remember the pw and it's on the PC :(
PSU is EV3A 1000P2
GPU is EV3A GTX980Ti
Memory is Corsar DDR4 something
Mobo is an ASUS
that is as much as I can see for now. Need to dig up some paper doc/user manuals.
 
Right the PC decided to boot, couldn't work out why it wouldn't go past bios for a few secs, realised I had unplugged the drives - DOH!
Is there any useful diagnostics I can get from it now it is up and running? I am loath to switch it off again today as I have urgent things to finish.
 
Thanks for the help so far. Here is complete spec from my OCUK order history (all 7th Oct 2015 if it helps)

EVGA GeForce GTX 980Ti Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel i7-5820K 3.30GHz (Haswell-E) Socket LGA2011-V3 Processor
Asus X99-AUSB3.1 Intel X99 (Socket 2011) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
EVGA SuperNova P2 1000W '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply
Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Black
Fractal Design Define R4 Midi Tower Case - Black
Windows 10 64 bit.

I don't think the reseating helped as it failed several tries after I checked all connections, I think the problem is sporadic. Could room temp be an issue do you think, it was cold in here first thing and has warmed up by 4 or 5 degrees now.

Any diagnostics I can run while it is up and running OK?
 
Haha no penguins, cold to me is under 20, warm is where it is now at 22 :)
I don't seem to have the Asus monitor software installed to check temps at present, when I was in bios CPU was at 25C but that is irrelevant I guess.
I will get the Asus monitor software installed later, how do I get GPU temps? I don't think I have ever seen them before.
A big NOTE, I don't need that sort of GPU power anymore, I don't play games on the PC now, my graphics requirements are just to be good for photo editing and the occasional 4k video. If I can get a fairly cheap GPU to replace it, I would rather do that than strip the whole thing down.
Thankyou very much for your help so far, it is very much appreciated.
 
I apologise I used reseating incorrectly, I just wobbled everything to make sure it was firm. I will have to power down at the end of the day and take the risk tomorrow, shall I reseat GPU? (I am loath to take CPU out as it is fiddly even in a big case like mine).

Thanks I will try Real Temp and GPUz in a bit.
 
OK these are at relative idle, just a few browser windows open.
Realtemp shows max of 29C
GPUz shows steady 50C. However the GPU fan is showing at 0 RPM is that right?
I will check load temps later today, after your earlier comment I am loathe to stress too much at the moment.
 
Load System and check temps/fan before power off.
Then reseat, reset BIOS. Thanks so much for your time and help.
Better go and do something useful now.
 
Furmark ran for nearly 20 mins with GPU fan speed never rising above 48% (1600 rpm) and GPU temps 76-77C. At the time CPU temps never higher than 45C. I have seen updated the graphics card drivers via Windows hardware management.

What I hadn't noticed this morning is the mobo has a LED display, it was hidden behind the graphics card due to the angle I was looking at it. Currently it reads AA, will check this when I power off a bit later to reseat all I can except CPU.
 
Thanks for the link I have run Prime95 for 5 mins, max CPU temp reached 67C but most of the time it was 64 or 65.
I also did a windows restart to see if it would restart and to watch the mobo LED. All started OK. Time to try a power down now I think.
 
Before I read your reply, I powered down, left it 5 secs and powered back up, all OK and normal.
Will power down for 10 mins now.
If that is OK I am calling it a day and have set time aside in the morning to reseat if it fails to power up.
Once again thank you very much for your time and help.
 
It has powered up again 1st attempt after 10 mins off.
I can't see how my wobbling the connections can have done it though as it didn't want to boot for quite a few attempts afterwards.
I will worry about it tomorrow, it's power off for the night now.
 
As the case side was still off this morning I reseated the easy bits I could reach before power on, that is 2 of the 4 memory sticks, power to mobo and graphics card. The sata cables and power to the drives had been disconnected and thus reseated yesterday.
It powered up first time :)
Thanks for your help, if it reoccurs I will post again here. At lest with the stress tests I know the system is still good when running anyway :)
 
Sadly the problem hasn't gone away. Out of for boot ups from cold, 3 of 4 worked first time, the last took 6 attempts then booted.
This morning was more like the first time on Monday, it took many attempts over a 30 min period. You can tell when it is going to boot because the fans don't cut out and a few seconds later you see the bios screen. All failed attempts the fans cut out before they get up to speed. (I say fans but it is also the graphics card lighting up etc)
Could this be anything to do with the case power switch or wiring from switch to mobo? I don't know how these soft switches work.
The good news is I can power down any time today to have a look.
Just a thought, there is a boot switch on the mobo isn't there, if it won't start again should I try that?
 
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