Weird issues 18 months after building PC

maloflora999

maloflora999

maloflora999

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19
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London
Hi all,

I built a hardline watercooled PC about 15 months ago. Specs were: Lian Li Evo XL; Ryzen 7800X3D; Motherboard: Gigabyte B650E Aorus X Ice; Asus TUF GTX 4080 Super; PSU: Lian Li Edge 1300 PSU; memory: TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16); two M.2 drives. Various EK and Alphacool blocks and fittings.

All was working fine until about a week ago. Suddenly, after a crash, I started getting disk errors on both M.2 drives. Windows tried to autorepair but failed every time. Chkdsk found failed sectors and said it repaired them. I tried to reinstall Windows a few times, and got it working again, but then it would find more disk errors. Reconnecting the non-boot drive caused the whole system to stop working again. Weirdly, I started getting intermittent ethernet connection issues at the same time, where it would have to keep reconnecting to the router every minute or so - no other device connected to the router had any issues.

After a few days, it's now got to the point where it now can't see any M.2 drive in either of the slots I'm using. I bought a new cheap M.2 to test, and the BIOS can't see that either. The computer always POSTs without problems, but now always pushes me into the BIOS, as it can't find any bootable drive.

I've looked over it carefully and can't see anything wrong, or any leaks. BIOS temps look absolutely fine, so I don't think it's a heat issue. I've reset CMOS - no change. I then updated to the most recent BIOS and now it won't even boot from the Windows installation USB. It will post but then hangs when I put the USB in the socket and reboot. It's like every day another drive functions shuts down...

Does this sound like a motherboard going wrong? If so, I can't see any alternative but to take the whole thing apart again! It's obviously a huge pain to repair as I'll have to drain the system.

Thanks for any help.
 
maloflora999 said:
Hi all,

I built a hardline watercooled PC about 15 months ago. Specs were: Lian Li Evo XL; Ryzen 7800X3D; Motherboard: Gigabyte B650E Aorus X Ice; Asus TUF GTX 4080 Super; PSU: Lian Li Edge 1300 PSU; memory: TeamGroup Delta RGB 32GB (2X16); two M.2 drives. Various EK and Alphacool blocks and fittings.

All was working fine until about a week ago. Suddenly, after a crash, I started getting disk errors on both M.2 drives. Windows tried to autorepair but failed every time. Chkdsk found failed sectors and said it repaired them. I tried to reinstall Windows a few times, and got it working again, but then it would find more disk errors. Reconnecting the non-boot drive caused the whole system to stop working again. Weirdly, I started getting intermittent ethernet connection issues at the same time, where it would have to keep reconnecting to the router every minute or so - no other device connected to the router had any issues.

After a few days, it's now got to the point where it now can't see any M.2 drive in either of the slots I'm using. I bought a new cheap M.2 to test, and the BIOS can't see that either. The computer always POSTs without problems, but now always pushes me into the BIOS, as it can't find any bootable drive.

I've looked over it carefully and can't see anything wrong, or any leaks. BIOS temps look absolutely fine, so I don't think it's a heat issue. I've reset CMOS - no change. I then updated to the most recent BIOS and now it won't even boot from the Windows installation USB. It will post but then hangs when I put the USB in the socket and reboot. It's like every day another drive functions shuts down...

Does this sound like a motherboard going wrong? If so, I can't see any alternative but to take the whole thing apart again! It's obviously a huge pain to repair as I'll have to drain the system.

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
I’m afraid this does sound like your motherboard has a big problem. The fact that both m2 drives have errors at the exactly the same time is a red flag to me. You also bought another drive and that has problems aswell. Hmmmm. Unfortunately I do not see you have any choice other than to replace it. Out of interest do you have any tiny leaks.
 
Thanks for the quick response! I refilled it a month or so ago, and it had lost perhaps a small amount of liquid over a year. I've checked and checked and can't see any leaks, but it is possible something is going on. Obviously I did an air pump test before I put any liquid in a year ago but maybe something's opened up since then.
 
Sounds like potentially damage to the motherboard somewhere

I had an Asus motherboard years ago that just had very odd behaviour after 24 months with the CPU. I blamed the PSU, CPU, RAM etc - all replaced before RMAing the motherboard. Turned out it had a hairline crack near the CPU socket.
 
Thank you all! Very helpful suggestions. I'll test PSU first, as that's the cheapest option, then replace motherboard and see if that fixes it. I'll report back!
 
Was an issue with Windows 11 update killing NVMEs.
I faced even stranger issue few days back. No updates or anything, suddenly getting black screen. PC still working, but no video output.
Temporarily solved using 120MHz max on Monitor. Worked fine for weeks since last updates. Tried other GPU ports, cables.
In your situation, considering there are different brands of NVMEs, I bet on the motherboard being the issue.
 
It's definitely looking that way. I've taken everything out of the case and just tried a simple bench test: PSU, CPU (with a stock air cooler), RAM and NVMEs. Still no M.2 is visible in the BIOS. On closer inspection I wonder if this is something - small mark visible on the M_BIOS chip? https://ibb.co/gbYXk1Dm
 
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Another day another new symptom! New motherboard arrived - test bench set up POSTed fine and then repeated the error of not finding any M.2 drive. Trying it again later on it refused to POST at all. Now it only POSTs with memory sticks in A slots. Any stick in slot B and it won't POST. Both sticks, either sticks in either or both of A1/A2 and it's fine. Still can't see an M.2 though. Looking like a bad CPU now perhaps?
 
Interesting your having issues as ive suddenly started developing an issue with my Gigabyte 650 based system too. Randomly it just powers off, lights on the fans stay on but it completly cuts out in games, sometimes after 10 min sometimes it takes an hour or more.

Can sit at a desktop all day, hit it with furmark and cinebench no issues but games are still a problem and again bios update reverted eveything back to stock even removed the expo on the ram. Completly random but its been rock solid for over a year till this point
 
Sounds like a dodgy cpu.
Specifically the CPU i/o die.
The I/o die has the memory controller and the pcie lanes so may well be the cause of your woes.
If you don't mind tinkering you can try bumping up the vsoc/vddio voltages but ultimately it's a RMA jobbie
 
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