Motherboard Possibly Dead? Z87i-Pro

tobehfaic · 2 Aug 2017 at 16:26

Hey guys, bit of an odd one.

My wife's PC decided mid-way through a gaming session yesterday evening to just turn off midway through Guild Wars 2. No blue-screen, no error just powered off. We let it settle for a bit then tried turning it back on. Nothing. Silence. However, the SBPW LED in the bottom left was flashing intermittently and occasionally stayed solid.

Ah, Power issue right? PSU must have died. So I disconnect the Corsair GS 750 (Yeah, bout 4 years old) and tried the green wire / black wire paperclip trick with the Motherboard PSU cables disconnected, and all the system lit up as it would on boot, except of course the motherboard so just all the ancillaries etc.

So that ruled out the PSU (maybe?). I even tried stripping down the PC to its bare minimum (H60, mobo, hdd, psu, single stick of ram) and still nothing.

Just to be sure, I ripped my Super Flower 850W PSU from my own rig which I know for a fact works, as I type this ... and plugged just the essentials into her motherboard. Nothing. Not even a power on / fans etc.

So am I right in assuming its the Motherboard thats gone pop? I've yet to try her i5 4570 in my own PC, but historically I've seen PCs turn on and 'try' to post with a badly seated CPUs or at least the PC would light up and fans start spinning which this doesn't even do now.

Any ideas?

Also just reset the CMOS just incase, now the SBPW LED stays constant when the PSU is turned on at the back and plugged into the Motherboard. Still no life though. Thoughts?

Doogles · 2 Aug 2017 at 17:38

It's either the CPU or Motherboard and I'd bet it being the motherboard, if you can test the CPU to be sure though because it would be a nasty surprise to go buying a new board to find the CPU went. Have you tried only using one stick of RAM at a time to see if they are dead?

tobehfaic · 2 Aug 2017 at 18:04

Well I've popped the 4570 into my own motherboard (Z97 Gryphon) and it works fine, detects it and boots into windows. Tried my 4690k in the Z87IP and still nothing so at present everything points to the board.

I have also as you suggested tried with a single stick of ram and no benefit!

Danny75 · 2 Aug 2017 at 18:49

Don't forget to test the video card (unless you were only using onboard). A GTX 680 I had died while playing GTA V. The symptoms were: computer turned off. Clicked the Start button, no life at all. Removed GPU from slot, connected display to onboard, clicked Start and it fired up.

It can be confusing, because you'd expect the computer to power up, just no display. But it does happen from time to time that a dead GPU will prevent the computer from even starting.

mistersprinkles · 2 Aug 2017 at 19:39

power supply motherboard cmos battery are my guesses

tobehfaic · 2 Aug 2017 at 20:49

Danny75 said:
Don't forget to test the video card (unless you were only using onboard). A GTX 680 I had died while playing GTA V. The symptoms were: computer turned off. Clicked the Start button, no life at all. Removed GPU from slot, connected display to onboard, clicked Start and it fired up.

It can be confusing, because you'd expect the computer to power up, just no display. But it does happen from time to time that a dead GPU will prevent the computer from even starting.

I've tried with the 750ti both installed and not installed. Also popped it into my own rig and it works fine.

Just odd how it did it out of the blue just died. If I use the 24pin paperclip trick with everything plugged in it sparks into life straight away, obviously not the motherboard as its unplugged. But the GPU fans spin, case fans spin, HDD spools. If its giving the same LED error with 2 different PSUs then that sorta leaves just the one culprit.

I do remember about a year ago that HWMonitor read some really skewed (like 200c) temps on the SB so it could have been faulty all along. Did a thermal check with a thermal gun and it was barely touching 35c so eh.

tobehfaic · 16 Aug 2017 at 17:43

Also in addendum, just discovered my AIO (which, bought 5 years ago and was refurbed at the time, H60) might be dead. Which would explain the shutdown if it died amidst gaming, and seemingly took the Motherboard with it. You live and learn I guess!