Question Computer would not boot

Astralv

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Hey there

I have Caby Lake 7770K system with Asus motherboard and M2 drive. This computer is built for audio production and it took almost a year of work of installing multiple software titles for audio production over 5 or 6 drives. If this system fails and will need Windows reinstall, it would likely take another 6 months of work to reinstall and re-authorize everything installed- so there is a lot of pressure to keep it going at any cost.

The problem is that it frequently freezes on the "Republic of Gamers" screen. When it happens, the keyboard and mouth dont work, so there is no F1 or F2 or delete. Pressing Reset or Hold Power down results in light going out to come back exactly to the same screen. Initially there was issue with this computer turning itself on by touching anywhere on the top panel- some kind of shortage that would power it on by touch- BeQuiet was contacted, they said, "Wow- we never heard of that!" and did nothing to resolve it- refused to replace. So I stuck with it. I have different computer for internet use and this music computer supposed to stay off when not in use, but it frequently turns itself on, and I can't tell how often it gets unstable- I just find it being on glowing under my desk.

Initially- this "Republic of Gamers" screen was happening once in a while and restart would solve it, but last night I was restarting over and over and over and over and could not move forward, until the power cable unplugged itself by accident when I moved computer from under my desk to look inside the case and then it went to initial screen before you get to BIOS, and it said something about booting in safe mode becoming unstable and to revert to previous configurations- press F1 to enter configurations, and it loaded BIOS.

I have very simple XMP profile enabled- with Asus BIOS, it is 1 click operation.
CPU Frequency 4200 Mhz
Memory Frequency 2133Mhz

Target CPU Turbo Mode Frequency 4500Mhz
Target DRAM Frequency 3000Mhz

The worse part is that I can't get to the BIOS when it hangs up on Republic of Gamers screen. Right now computer is booted to Windows and running normally. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you.
 

Dave8671

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Hmm the touching the top and it powers on the power supply is multifunctioning next thing it could be is a bad reset or power which. And or both.

Testing the switches is easy. Both the reset and power are basically the same thing. Remove the reset switch header on the motherboard only. Than see what happens.


PSU i would replace this since touching the case powers it on that should not happen. Check for raw exposed wires also in the case.
 

Astralv

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Thank you for your limited replies. The system is 2 years old now, been rarely used as this is strictly for music production. When I built it, I believe we had thread about it powering on by itself. I remember posting power supply pictures... we never came to any conclusion. Even BeQuiet did not help. They were more like "Duh!" in German. Tried to say it must be power supply. It looks like static. When I touch it, it has tiny spark that even light LED on USB iLOK (Little USB stick that stores license- it has built in LED, so the stick lights up when I touch top of computer. I do have separate everything else system- Hasswell. This one is only for audio.

But I dont think instability is related to power ON issue. It just boots in to Republic of Gamers screen and stays there- it says- overclocking made it unstable. Do I have to revert it by disabling XMP profile? I have like 3500MHZ memory and processor capable of 4.5Mhz- Caby Lake. What else can make it unstable? Thank you.
 
OK....on the turning on with a static-y touch, you may want to check the wiring of the outlet that you have that plugged into. You may be missing a ground wire in there.

As to instability on OC-ing, if it's unstable, you should back off on the OC settings until it's stable.

Sorry for the limited reply earlier but, really, if the data on the system is that important, you really do need to separate your use of the system from gaming. From my observations here (and elsewhere), most gaming systems--especially those that are OCed--are extremely unreliable and prone to data loss; and it sounds like you have plenty of time invested in the setup not to want to turn it on, one day, and find that your boot drive is corrupted.
 

Astralv

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Thanks for reply, Allan

I dont do any gaming. I am not a gamer- this is strictly music production system. If I could explain how music software stores itself... It usually has .dll file, .exe file samples and presets. I have probably about 1000 titles installed between software synths, samplers and audio effects and processors. There are 6 drives to store everything, and it is a pain because if one drive fails, all software loses parts- everything is interdependent. So...

How do I back off of the OC? I did not change any parameters- Asus BIOS overclocked it for me. I just set XMP profile. I dont remember it asking me to select any parameters. Will this forum allow posting a picture of my settings? I could take a screen shot, but it is very boring- it just says what I posted in 1st post. I dont know why it says Memory is 2133 Mhz- I thought my memory had 3500 Mhz capacity.

As of the switch... Your suggestion about Grounding is what was the last post on previous thread on this topic and this is why I accepted this malfunction as "There is nothing I can do about it. This is 1953 house, we changed receptacles to 3 prongs but I doubt anyone ran extra wire for ground. I am in a moving process to another 1953 house where we custom added grounded line, so I will see if it solves this issue. But this is the only computer that doing this. Also I had power buttons going out on 2 other computers for different reasons. My son's computer had some weird glitch that would make all LED indicators on motherboard turn red and computer not booting- it resolved by changing computer case with all same parts- I thought he had power switch problem. And my other older music computer also had power switch issue- it was not turning on- changed top panel and now it works fine. If this shortage is not going to shut me when touching accidentally, and not fry my multiple drives, then I am ok for now. I need to know what makes it unstable.

The other day something was connecting and disconnecting like over and over and over again. I thought it was Thunderbolt audio interface. I have ASUS Thunderbolt 3 card installed- it converts USB-C to Thunderbolt 3 or something like that. Then I have Apple TB 3 to 2 converter connected to TB 2 Audio interface. Suddenly (without any provocation) it started to connect and disconnect. That thunderbolt system is over $5000, and there is no other Thunderbolt motherboards that would match my configuration. I had to buy my Thunderbolt card on Amazon because Asus stopped sale them. The last thing I want is to get stock with 5K audio unit I cant connect. This stuff is soooo expansive. And finances are not good right now... Thanks.
 
1953......is the house on a concrete slab, or is it pier-walled with oak floors throughout?

If you have a crawl space under the house, you can run a ground wire from a cold water pipe, up through the bottom plate to the outlet you use for the computer.

The house we have was built in 1961, and wasn't FHA financed, so I had to go back and remediate all the wiring in the house to bring it up to computing snuff....what a pain in the patoot, but it was worth it.