[SOLVED] Computer Won't Boot. After Power Knocked Out, Very Strange Problems

[Centimetro]

I have an Intel i5 10600k in a MSI Z490 motherboard. Graphics card iis an Nvidia GTX 670 32 GB RAM (16x2)

PSU: EVGA 850 G3

Accidentally knocked the surge protector from the wall. Plugged back in, system won't boot. Just built the system a few days ago, but was working fine before then.

The EZ Debug lights get stuck on "VGA". Fans etc everything boots up, but no display.

Things I've tried:

• Holding power button, replugging power, etc.
• Reseating video, reseating RAM, trying one stick at a time, booting without video card. None of this changed things.
• Swapped Out Video Card for a different one (same model, i had a second). Same problem. However i did notice if i leave the Power cables for the video unplugged, the system gives me an error message on the display. If I plug them in then there are problems. Tried switching out the display power cables (modular power supply), this also didn't work.
• Tested video card in another system. Works fine.
• Resetting CMOS via jumper... now here's where things got weird...

After rsetting CMOS, I thought it did nothing. Still had same problem. But while laying down with the system powered up, I heard the computer shut off at some point and reboot on its own. Still black screen. Went away for 5 minutes. Came back to an error messages on the display: "There is no GOP (Graphics Output Protocol) support detected in this card. 'BIOS CSM/UEFI Mode" settings in BIOS will be changed to "CSM"

Press F1 to run setup. Never seen that error before.

So there was display! Unfortunately, keyboard wasnt responsive, system was frozen. I noticed the Debug light for VGA was still lit.

I rebooted a few more times, nothing.

While starting to write this post initially, I looked over and saw an "All settings were reset to default values" message, and F1 to run SETUP. This time keyboard responded! And there was no VGA light. I got into BIOS. When I exited BIOS, it reset, and got the old problem again, and VGA light was back.

So inconsistent problems, was only able to (rarely) get display after resetting CMOS, but not sure if that was coincidence or not, as its still unpredictable.

Seems to me like if any component is damaged/faulty, it has to be the motherboard, but I'm not the most knowledgable by far, so thanks in advance for any opinions or advice!!

The fact that I'm able to occasionally see something is very strange to me.

Things I haven't tried yet:

• Different motherboard (I don't have one, not possible. same goes for CPU)
• Different power supply (Could swap power supplies but seems very unlikely to help, right?)

 

[Centimetro]

OK it seems like if I just leave it on for a really long time (15 minutes or so) i'll eventually get a BIOS splash screen at some point. but whenever ive noticed this come up, its frozen (prompts to hit F11 for boot menu, DEL for setup, etc, but nothing works)

 

[Centimetro]

I will just try RMAing the board and will update if that fixes it. In meantime freel free to add suggestions if you have any, but I've done a bit of reading now and not finding anything revealing that I haven't tried.

Kinda wish I just got a different board though, first time with MSI and not really happy with it regardless of problems. The BIOS sucks imo! Have used Gigabyte, ASUS, and ASRock in past and preferred all of them heavily.

 

[Centimetro]

I will just try RMAing the board and will update if that fixes it. In meantime freel free to add suggestions if you have any, but I've done a bit of reading now and not finding anything revealing that I haven't tried.

Kinda wish I just got a different board though, first time with MSI and not really happy with it regardless of problems. The BIOS sucks imo! Have used Gigabyte, ASUS, and ASRock in past and preferred all of them heavily.

Wow, nevermind, you really do have to test EVERYTHING. somehow my problem stopping my computer from posting past VGA is a drive. not my primary one, with windows installed, either and luckily. but when i unhook all my drives (i have about 5-6) I can boot.

Still have to figure out which one it is. But that's the last thing I would have guessed.

 

[DSzymborski]

Yup, when diagnosing these types of problems, it makes sense to simplify a build as much as possible! In some difficult cases, it's highly recommended to even take the motherboard out of the case and breadboard it with as few things as possible to see if it POSTs (motherboard, CPU, one stick of RAM, cooler). Weird things can happen to PCs in sudden power outages like this. While it's a bit annoying to have to boot up your PC, one drive at a time, one of the drives being dead would be one of the more painless hardware failures to have, assuming you're keeping proper backups (and if you're not, you really should start, it's very important!)

 

[Centimetro]

Yup, when diagnosing these types of problems, it makes sense to simplify a build as much as possible! In some difficult cases, it's highly recommended to even take the motherboard out of the case and breadboard it with as few things as possible to see if it POSTs (motherboard, CPU, one stick of RAM, cooler). Weird things can happen to PCs in sudden power outages like this. While it's a bit annoying to have to boot up your PC, one drive at a time, one of the drives being dead would be one of the more painless hardware failures to have, assuming you're keeping proper backups (and if you're not, you really should start, it's very important!)

Yep, lessons learned, thanks for the advice, I'll make sure to keep this all in mind in future when troubleshooting. Learned a lot tonight.

As for the backups... no good news there I'm afraid. But another lesson learned. Culprit found -- it was just a small old 256 GB SSD from a previous windows installation/build. So no big monetary loss, but definitely had some stuff I would have preferred to keep. I've never had a drive fail on me before.

 

[DSzymborski]

Yep, lessons learned, thanks for the advice, I'll make sure to keep this all in mind in future when troubleshooting. Learned a lot tonight.

As for the backups... no good news there I'm afraid. But another lesson learned. Culprit found -- it was just a small old 256 GB SSD from a previous windows installation/build. So no big monetary loss, but definitely had some stuff I would have preferred to keep. I've never had a drive fail on me before.

Hopefully nothing too bad.

There are lots of good ways to back up data. For example, I use software called Bvckup, which automatically backs up a number of directories to multiple backups and after the initial backup, only daily backups files that have changed. If you haven't had a drive fail yet, you're lucky!

 

[Centimetro]

Hopefully nothing too bad.

There are lots of good ways to back up data. For example, I use software called Bvckup, which automatically backs up a number of directories to multiple backups and after the initial backup, only daily backups files that have changed. If you haven't had a drive fail yet, you're lucky!

Thanks, I'll look into that backup tool . Yeah, figured I was previously lucky based on what I've heard. I've used computers for a long time too.

Also as you pointed out in the other thread, I had the video card wrong. Should have said GTX 670 (i edited it now for posterity). While I'm down here on my hands and knees still I'm going to go ahead and add the bad SSD to another build and see what happens (I'm expecting it to not boot also, but willing to find out!)