Asus Motherboard boot loop, month and a half problem

Dravakiirm

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Jun 14, 2015
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have a PC that i custom built, that has started bugging me to NO end. the more i learn about what is wrong with it, the more confused i get. i am at the point where i haven't a CLUE what is going on. i have been trying to track this problem down for about a month and a half.
i have an Asus P8Z77V-Pro
intel Xeon E3-1240V2
Gskil Ripjaws 2x4 GB ddr3 1300MHZ
Asus Gtx 760
Corsair AX760i
Corsair H80
WD green 1.5TB
Kingstone 128GB
a myrid of different fans,
and all of it packed into a NZXT Guardian 921
i can provide links to all pieces if you need.

what this thing has started doing is not booting. specifically it will sometimes randomly shut itself off durring work. when i go to reboot it, it will power on for a second, just long enough to power all the pretty blue fans on, then instantly shut off. about 3 seconds later, it will power back on, then of, and repeat till i kill the main power. i have already replaced the AX760i, and the Motherboard is only 3 days old, after having it sent back with the same problem.
for a little while on the old MB i could get it to start by clearing the CMOS, but after about 6 times, that failed all together and quite working. this time, i found out that i could turn the PSU off. unplug the 20+4 and the 4+4 wait a few seconds, and plug them back in, BINGO it worked. but I'm afraid that tomorrow morning it will do the exact same thing. is there any thing i can do to A, figure out what on earh is wrong, and B, get it fixed?
 
Solution
"for a little while on the old MB i could get it to start by clearing the CMOS, but after about 6 times, that failed all together and quite working. this time, i found out that i could turn the PSU off. unplug the 20+4 and the 4+4 wait a few seconds, and plug them back in, BINGO it worked"
They point to a motherboard or power supply issue. Are you sure that they sent you back different product and not same motherboard/power supply?
If your checking volts, may want to check outlet itself as well. Bad utility power can cause strange issues as well. Odds of two bad motherboards and PSUs is highly unlikely. Try alexoiu's idea too. Bare minimum components testing and adding when things check out.
 


i did that, still wouldnt post. i even pulled everything except the CPU, same issue. the other day, i pulled the CPU and did it, and believe it or not, it tried to boot 2 times, then realised it had no CPU. to make matters stranger i tried something else. i tried killing the mains to the system, (I have a power bar that has its own switch) and left it like that for 16 hours, and it did the same thing.

to address 1LiquidPC, not that it is accurate, but the AX760i has that digital power monitor in it, and it registers the mains as 119-121V. i have my entire PC behind a TripLite UltraBLock isobar ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006B81D?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00 )

one other thing that showed up, is this morning when i got it going, it pulled up an error saying overclock failed?? i havent touched any overclocking settings for this PC, primairly because i dont want to, and the Xeon CPU doesnt support it.

before i forget, the only way i can get this thing to turn on after this boot-loop thingy, is to flip the switch on the PSU, unplug the 20+4 and the 4+4, then plug them right back in. then it boots like nothing is wrong.
 
"for a little while on the old MB i could get it to start by clearing the CMOS, but after about 6 times, that failed all together and quite working. this time, i found out that i could turn the PSU off. unplug the 20+4 and the 4+4 wait a few seconds, and plug them back in, BINGO it worked"
They point to a motherboard or power supply issue. Are you sure that they sent you back different product and not same motherboard/power supply?
 
Solution


99% sure
the PSU was wrapped up in a brand new box, (the old one shorted out and kept tripping the breaker) and the motherboard came back with NO included parts (sata cables, I/O shield, Wi-Fi antana, which were all sent back) and no dust. also none of my orignal bios settings.
 


will try that, but out of curiosity, what will swapping the GPU to a different slot do to aid in the boot loop? sounds like a peculiar solution.
 


if i hand another CPU, that would be the only other thing, but without that, i cant rule out anything else, aside form Zerk2012's idea of checking the battery.

my only other thought on this, is that the Xeon is not liking the overclocking, and somehow causing issues with the MB. other than that, im COMPLEATLY stumped. i (accidentally) tried something this morning. the faulty overclocking error poped up, so i went to the AI tewaker, and unintentionally pressed the auto tune button. the system shut off. powered on to full, cycled down to half, back up to full, then shut off. about 5 seconds later, it powered up and booted like normal. this was after i did the cable "swap" to get it to boot up.
 
"my only other thought on this, is that the Xeon is not liking the overclocking, and somehow causing issues with the MB"
Are you saying the BIOS settings are not set to default?
I mean, I thought that you tested the new board without changing the BIOS settings?
 


Currently, yes, the bios had been changed, but yes, I did run the new board with default settings for 3 our 4 days, and it did this problem. I believe the only thing that I changed, is the memory settings, to XMP, and the boot order. Besides this auto tying thing I clicked this morning.
 


cahnging XMP settings make no difference. and yes, i ran with stock bios, and it again... made no difference.

i checked the battery, out of the system, was 3V even. granted, it was not in the socket. (couldnt locate the - terminal) and the standby power. 5.04 or somethng like that. the last digit on my meter was compleatly broken. i couldnt measure anything else because the meter responce time was SO slow that it couldnt pick up the voltages.

i also took and pluged the system into a different outlet and still same thing. (also without the isobar)

the only other thing i can do is swap the CPU, but i dont have another to swap into it, and i dont want to spend the money on a test that may or may not work.

one thing that i can think of, but since i dont do overclocking in the least bit, is are there any settings that are enabled by default in the BIOS, that support overclocking? or in otherwords, is there a setting that i should change to perhaps make the CPU happy?
 

I would never check the battery. It's just to simple and a problem I have seen many times.
 
There shouldn't really be an settings on a default BIOS that's trying to auto OC, other than maybe the Rampage Series(My RIVE did actually). Anyways, has this happens the whole time since the system was built, as in it never worked properly? Again, since you swapped both the CPU and motherboard, and are sure they didn't send the same ones back, I don't think the problem lies there. With that said, looking at ASUS' website, although your CPU is supported, it does say there can be disabled features because it's technically a server CPU. Perhaps some kind of odd compatibility problem exists w/ your other hardware because of your specific CPU. Not sure about being intermittent though. Do you have some other RAM around or a cheapo videocard to try?
 
okay. lot of time went by, here is where i am at so far; overvolted the CPU +.025V and for some crazy reason, it hasnt done anything for a week. bought a new MB to put in. durring its process of installing drivers, shutdown, install driver, shutdown ect, it started doing it. so, yeah. not the main board. packed that up and got it sent back. put it back in the ASUS board and NO issues. till today. i have had the entire PC sitting on a bench for the last week almost 2. yesterday i pluged the hdd led, power and reset switches into the board to make it easier than having to take a screw/driver to short the connection out. and low and behold, the PC didnt start today.... dont know if it is a cowincadence or not. trying to figure out what was causing the issue, i again, took everything off the board save the CPU/cooler, and 1 stick of ram. it booted!.... long enough to say that my memory stick wasnt fit in the board all the way... it had that little red MEMCheck LED on. so i seated it all the way and it booted right back up. turned it off and proceded to plug the rest of my stuff back in and it worked like a charm.
 



no, this hasnt happened the whole time. i built this for my uncle, who used it about 6 months, then quit using it, and sold it to me. then about 1 month after i got it, the PSU died. put in the Corsiar one, and 4 weeks later, it shorted out. got a new one and then within about a month or so, it starts doing this. and no, i havent swapped the CPU. just the MB and the PSU i have a GTX 6800SLI that is laying around, but no compatible RAM
 

turns out you were compleatly right. the power supply was the culprit. after about 3 weeks, they sent me a new AX 860I and i have not had a single problem sense. thanks for all the help guys!