A little help with new system

[jjmeadow]

Greetings all. I hope I'm posting to the right spot, and if I am thanks for helping out. I have a fairly new system (~6m old) that I built (1st build) with my son (details below). It was a blast to build but now it's misbehaving and I find myself in over my head. The other day while playing a game his screen became a red garbled mess, then the monitor went into power save mode. We restarted but encountered the same. I could boot into the BIOS. The screen was still garbled but readable. I reset to defaults but this didn't change anything. My general assumption as a 1st build is that I did something wrong (although I don't know what to make of the timing) but I'm looking for some direction before I open the whole thing up and retrace the build. My first thought was that this was a GPU issue, but maybe it's a motherboard thing? Any suggestions on directed trouble shooting would be great. Thanks!

___
System:

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO LGA1151 DDR4 M.2 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Type A Type C Intel Z170 ATX Motherboard

• CPU: Intel Core I7-6700K 4.00 GHz 8M Processor Cache 4 LGA 1151

• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler

• SSD: Samsung 950 PRO -Series 512GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD

• RAM: G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8GB) Ripjaws V Series DDR4 PC4-25600 3200MHz for Intel Z170

• GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB SC+ GAMING ACX 2.0+

• Power: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 80+ GOLD

 

[JustCallMeAllen]

Try moving the GPU to a knew PCI-E slot. It sounds like you have a visual driver issue. I wouldn't always assume you did something wrong. It could definitely be hardware/software related and not user error. Welcome to the PC community! Let me know if that changes anything.

 

[jjmeadow]

Try moving the GPU to a knew PCI-E slot. It sounds like you have a visual driver issue. I wouldn't always assume you did something wrong. It could definitely be hardware/software related and not user error. Welcome to the PC community! Let me know if that changes anything.

Thanks. Tried the last night. No go. In fact, it's doesn't even seems to be sending any signal to the monitor now. I swapped out HDMI cable and monitor and it's not those. Sounds to me like it starts up and then immediately shuts down.

 

[jjmeadow]

Try moving the GPU to a knew PCI-E slot. It sounds like you have a visual driver issue. I wouldn't always assume you did something wrong. It could definitely be hardware/software related and not user error. Welcome to the PC community! Let me know if that changes anything.

Thanks. Tried the last night. No go. In fact, it's doesn't even seems to be sending any signal to the monitor now. I swapped out HDMI cable and monitor and it's not those. Sounds to me like it starts up and then immediately shuts down.

 

[JustCallMeAllen]

Try moving the GPU to a knew PCI-E slot. It sounds like you have a visual driver issue. I wouldn't always assume you did something wrong. It could definitely be hardware/software related and not user error. Welcome to the PC community! Let me know if that changes anything.

Thanks. Tried the last night. No go. In fact, it's doesn't even seems to be sending any signal to the monitor now. I swapped out HDMI cable and monitor and it's not those. Sounds to me like it starts up and then immediately shuts down.

Sorry for my late response. If your computer is booting up and immediately shutting down then we know it is a hardware issue. Remove the GPU entirely and try booting the machine. It should default to the internal graphics on your i7. If your computer boots fine, then you know that your GPU has failed in some way.

 

[jjmeadow]

Thanks. Actually, I pulled out one of the RAM chips and restarted it. Worked. I replaced the RAM and it worked again. Perhaps just a poorly seated RAM chip? Odd. I'll keep in mind removing the GPU. That would have been a good next step.

Thanks again!

Try moving the GPU to a knew PCI-E slot. It sounds like you have a visual driver issue. I wouldn't always assume you did something wrong. It could definitely be hardware/software related and not user error. Welcome to the PC community! Let me know if that changes anything.

Thanks. Tried the last night. No go. In fact, it's doesn't even seems to be sending any signal to the monitor now. I swapped out HDMI cable and monitor and it's not those. Sounds to me like it starts up and then immediately shuts down.

Sorry for my late response. If your computer is booting up and immediately shutting down then we know it is a hardware issue. Remove the GPU entirely and try booting the machine. It should default to the internal graphics on your i7. If your computer boots fine, then you know that your GPU has failed in some way.

 

[JustCallMeAllen]

Thanks. Actually, I pulled out one of the RAM chips and restarted it. Worked. I replaced the RAM and it worked again. Perhaps just a poorly seated RAM chip? Odd. I'll keep in mind removing the GPU. That would have been a good next step.

Thanks again!

Try moving the GPU to a knew PCI-E slot. It sounds like you have a visual driver issue. I wouldn't always assume you did something wrong. It could definitely be hardware/software related and not user error. Welcome to the PC community! Let me know if that changes anything.

Thanks. Tried the last night. No go. In fact, it's doesn't even seems to be sending any signal to the monitor now. I swapped out HDMI cable and monitor and it's not those. Sounds to me like it starts up and then immediately shuts down.

Sorry for my late response. If your computer is booting up and immediately shutting down then we know it is a hardware issue. Remove the GPU entirely and try booting the machine. It should default to the internal graphics on your i7. If your computer boots fine, then you know that your GPU has failed in some way.

Strange about the RAM, but when it comes to computers really anything can make anything break. Glad it worked for you. I would consider moving the GPU if it continues to give you problems. About the RAM though. Make sure your RAM is seated in the First and Third memory slots since you have 2 sticks. I forget the technical reason why, but overall it runs your ram properly and more efficiently.