Okay, so I have read ALOT of posts on this forum about the same issue, and I believe I have gotten a bit on the way to solving my problem, but now I'm out of ideas.
Problem: When trying to boot up the PC, all fans start spinning, LEDs light up, for a few seconds before it shuts off. Then it tries to boot itself again, over and over, until (very rarely) that it actually manages to POST successfully.
Timeline: I bought the components in august 2014, built it myself, and it has been performing almost flawlessly until now. It happened every now and then that my PC would just freeze, I didn't think much of it, I thought it had something to do with software.
But late in last december or so, I started encountering problems to POST. It would only start on like the 5th boot sometimes. Over time, it grew worse, until two weeks ago when I gave up.
I hear you ask: Did I use thermal paste? Yes, a drop about the size of a pea, like the internet told me.
What I tried: Cleared CMOS, did the paper clip test on the PSU (Corsair RM750), it failed, sent it in for repairs, got a brand new one instead (Corsair RM750x). But get this: I STILL fail to POST most of the time. That makes me wonder, did something other then my PSU also break?
So I started breadboarding. With only the PSU, motherboard, CPU and CPU watercooler connected, I still fail to POST. That rules out the RAM, the case and the GPU, right?
Now, interesting part is: I get this strange sound coming from the watercooler pump unit, mounted right ontop of the CPU. I'll admit, I would describe the sound as something close to eggs in a frying pan. Not a very comforting sound, but I can't exlude the possibility that it's meant to sound like that. Either way, a faulty CPU cooler shouldn't cause an immediate boot failure, right? Using fans, I can see when the system reboots itself over and over, even when I disconnect the strange sounding CPU cooler. That sortof exludes the CPU cooler from causing the boot failures.
I should add that during the entire time I have had this PC, I have never gotten any motherboard beep codes. I can't seem to find any internal speaker on the motherboard, so I assume it doesn't have one, which sucks.
What I did the few times I successfully did POST: Went to BIOS, set it to use optimized defaults. Checked system information from msconfig, checked cpu temp using realtemp. CPU temperature seems ok at 29-34 celcius, CPU load seems okay aswell during idle. If I kept the system on I could probably keep it going for several hours if not a few days. It's the initial power-up process that is the problem I think. So I went into BIOS again, ticked "enable dummy load", which should stop the system from powering down due to consuming too little power, apparently. Still, no game.
Synopsis: With my limited expertise, I am 98% sure that neither my new PSU, my GPU, some sort of case grounding, or my RAM is causing these boot failures. What I DO think is, it's either my motherboard or my CPU. How they sometimes work but most of the time don't, that is a mystery to me. I hope you experts here can help me out.
Obligatory component list:
PSU (old): Corsair RM750, 750w
PSU (brand new): Corsair RM750x, 750w
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K
CPU cooler (watercooler): Corsair H100i
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB
RAM: Crucial DDR3 BallistiX Tactical 16GB
Case: Fractal Design Define R4
Thermal paste: Noctua NT-H1
Problem: When trying to boot up the PC, all fans start spinning, LEDs light up, for a few seconds before it shuts off. Then it tries to boot itself again, over and over, until (very rarely) that it actually manages to POST successfully.
Timeline: I bought the components in august 2014, built it myself, and it has been performing almost flawlessly until now. It happened every now and then that my PC would just freeze, I didn't think much of it, I thought it had something to do with software.
But late in last december or so, I started encountering problems to POST. It would only start on like the 5th boot sometimes. Over time, it grew worse, until two weeks ago when I gave up.
I hear you ask: Did I use thermal paste? Yes, a drop about the size of a pea, like the internet told me.
What I tried: Cleared CMOS, did the paper clip test on the PSU (Corsair RM750), it failed, sent it in for repairs, got a brand new one instead (Corsair RM750x). But get this: I STILL fail to POST most of the time. That makes me wonder, did something other then my PSU also break?
So I started breadboarding. With only the PSU, motherboard, CPU and CPU watercooler connected, I still fail to POST. That rules out the RAM, the case and the GPU, right?
Now, interesting part is: I get this strange sound coming from the watercooler pump unit, mounted right ontop of the CPU. I'll admit, I would describe the sound as something close to eggs in a frying pan. Not a very comforting sound, but I can't exlude the possibility that it's meant to sound like that. Either way, a faulty CPU cooler shouldn't cause an immediate boot failure, right? Using fans, I can see when the system reboots itself over and over, even when I disconnect the strange sounding CPU cooler. That sortof exludes the CPU cooler from causing the boot failures.
I should add that during the entire time I have had this PC, I have never gotten any motherboard beep codes. I can't seem to find any internal speaker on the motherboard, so I assume it doesn't have one, which sucks.
What I did the few times I successfully did POST: Went to BIOS, set it to use optimized defaults. Checked system information from msconfig, checked cpu temp using realtemp. CPU temperature seems ok at 29-34 celcius, CPU load seems okay aswell during idle. If I kept the system on I could probably keep it going for several hours if not a few days. It's the initial power-up process that is the problem I think. So I went into BIOS again, ticked "enable dummy load", which should stop the system from powering down due to consuming too little power, apparently. Still, no game.
Synopsis: With my limited expertise, I am 98% sure that neither my new PSU, my GPU, some sort of case grounding, or my RAM is causing these boot failures. What I DO think is, it's either my motherboard or my CPU. How they sometimes work but most of the time don't, that is a mystery to me. I hope you experts here can help me out.
Obligatory component list:
PSU (old): Corsair RM750, 750w
PSU (brand new): Corsair RM750x, 750w
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD3H
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K
CPU cooler (watercooler): Corsair H100i
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB
RAM: Crucial DDR3 BallistiX Tactical 16GB
Case: Fractal Design Define R4
Thermal paste: Noctua NT-H1
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