[SOLVED] Electric cooker installer fried my PC! Q-Code 00

[Noris911]

... possibly!!! This could just be a coincidence but my PC was plugged in and on when I had a new cooker installed. The guy did various tests on the cooker. Not too sure what exactly but he definitely tripped the rcd during one test and probably did insulation test etc. (240v uk system). Obviously I found pc powered off when he left. Now it wont post and just gives dreaded 00 code. I have stripped to just CPU, tried with one ram stick installed, tried another psu, reflashed BIOS, discharged caps / left unplugged etc, and tried with ln2 off / on, tried another cooler, tried applying pressure to CPU etc. All to no avail

The pc has asus maximus viii and has been stable with no overclocking since being built around 3 or so years back. Cant believe this is a coincidence but surely he would have checked that no sensitive equipment was plugged in to mains if his tests could have caused damage.

The psu seems fine, the board lights up on power, bios flashback seems to work as it should, cpu cooler fires up, but none of the voltage/status leds light up and CPU doest seem to be producing any heat.

Any electricians know what commissioning a cooker would entail or whether it could have killed my system? I thought it might be worth trying a new bios chip if this might help?

 

[DSzymborski]

What do you mean by a cooker? Is this a full range with oven/stove or some countertop appliance like a microwave oven or a rice cooker? The former use a lot of power and should never be on the same circuit as your PC. But only you know what the specs of your house's circuits are. Did the tech know that the PC was plugged in and on? It would be shockingly incompetent to be testing a circuit if you knew there was an active PC running at the same time.

 

[Noris911]

What do you mean by a cooker? Is this a full range with oven/stove or some countertop appliance like a microwave oven or a rice cooker? The former use a lot of power and should never be on the same circuit as your PC. But only you know what the specs of your house's circuits are. Did the tech know that the PC was plugged in and on? It would be shockingly incompetent to be testing a circuit if you knew there was an active PC running at the same time.

Hi, yep it was a large appliance on dedicated 30amp circuit.

I'm not sure what his tests were but he mentioned something about a removing a fault before going out to consumer unit. We were just chatting away as he did it and I totally forgot the pc was running and he didnt ask etc The psu is fine though. Any idea what normal testing would involve and whether any resulting transients could get through the switching psu? Dont they have chokes in there and regulate the dc to the motherboard, etc?

Also nothing appears to be fried on the motherboard and pre boot stuff all seems to be in order. I've just had a shock checking prices of used z170 mobos so might have to try writing a polite letter if I've any grounds for complaint.

 

[DSzymborski]

Hi, yep it was a large appliance on dedicated 30amp circuit.

I'm not sure what his tests were but he mentioned something about a removing a fault before going out to consumer unit. We were just chatting away as he did it and I totally forgot the pc was running and he didnt ask etc The psu is fine though. Any idea what normal testing would involve and whether any resulting transients could get through the switching psu? Dont they have chokes in there and regulate the dc to the motherboard, etc?

Also nothing appears to be fried on the motherboard and pre boot stuff all seems to be in order. I've just had a shock checking prices of used z170 mobos so might have to try writing a polite letter if I've any grounds for complaint.

Unfortunately, the only real way to test this kind of thing is to swap out parts. Ideally, find somewhere with a liberal return policy! Safeties and how well they're implemented depend on the quality of the PSU, which I know nothing about (only got the first information in your last post that this is a Kaby Lake era rig). It's worth trying, since this isn't a Ryzen build or anything, removing the GPU and running off the integrated graphics and see if it fires up.

I don't know what UK electric standards are, but I would think it not a good idea to have a PC on the same circuit as an oven; I know my oven, dishwasher, air conditioner, fridge, and dryer are all on their own circuits. So I'm really unsure how much of it would be the electrician's fault.

 

[madmatt30]

Unfortunately, the only real way to test this kind of thing is to swap out parts. Ideally, find somewhere with a liberal return policy! Safeties and how well they're implemented depend on the quality of the PSU, which I know nothing about (only got the first information in your last post that this is a Kaby Lake era rig). It's worth trying, since this isn't a Ryzen build or anything, removing the GPU and running off the integrated graphics and see if it fires up.

I don't know what UK electric standards are, but I would think it not a good idea to have a PC on the same circuit as an oven; I know my oven, dishwasher, air conditioner, fridge, and dryer are all on their own circuits. So I'm really unsure how much of it would be the electrician's fault.

Most electric ovens nowadays in the UK are straight 3 pin plug to mains as they're below 3kw.
Most domestic circuits are simple
Upstairs mains
Downstairs mains
Upstairs lighting
Downstairs lighting

Unless it's a new build or has been completely rewired in the last 10 years
Pretty much the only thing you 'need' a seperate rcd protected circuit for are electric shower units.

Most of those dedicated cooker circuits are from a bygone era when electric ovens were incredibly inefficient and had huge power draw.

It all depends on how modern and update the house wiring and consumer unit is in all fairness, a lot of domestic housing in the UK dates back 200 years and there's no actual law stating that old wiring Has to be upgraded, just a qualified electrician will pretty much refuse to add to or work on an old circuit without a complete rewire or at least an upgrade to brings things upto current safety requirements.

And yes he should have Hoemstly asked you to power off any sensitive equipment but in legal terms I highly doubt he'd be classed as liable.

 

[Noris911]

Its definitely on it's own dedicated circuit & breaker hard wired to high current outlet. The pc was on a seperate, probably ring, circuit for sockets.
If commissioning tests are likely to damage sensitive equipment its predictable therefore surely someone doing this on a daily basis would simply isolate everything else before testing the circuit of interest if such tests produce potentially damaging transient voltages. This seems a pretty basic measure to avoid randomly frying PCs TVs etc!

I'm now wondering by what mechanism damage may have been incurred, and if it's the board, cpu, or bios chip etc.... could get quite expensive if CPU is dead. Unfortunately this is all 6th gen stuff so returning items is not an option.

I had a router fried after lightning strike which knocked out the memory and blew the psu but it was actually ok on new psu with full reset and reconfiguration.

 

[Noris911]

Unfortunately, the only real way to test this kind of thing is to swap out parts. Ideally, find somewhere with a liberal return policy! Safeties and how well they're implemented depend on the quality of the PSU, which I know nothing about (only got the first information in your last post that this is a Kaby Lake era rig). It's worth trying, since this isn't a Ryzen build or anything, removing the GPU and running off the integrated graphics and see if it fires up.

I don't know what UK electric standards are, but I would think it not a good idea to have a PC on the same circuit as an oven; I know my oven, dishwasher, air conditioner, fridge, and dryer are all on their own circuits. So I'm really unsure how much of it would be the electrician's fault.

I think psu is decent quality... its corsair cx650m so not a budget one, and yep I have removed gpu but board is not even getting that far. I dont think bios is even getting loaded though the flashback function does still appear to work. The sockets weren't on the same circuit but I'm guessing one of the tests on the cooker appliance or circuit may have caused voltage transient on any non isolated circuit. I believe insulation tests may apply 400v over live and neutral lines briefly to measure leakage, etc.

 

[Noris911]

Heres an update on my PC woes for anyone interested.... having nearly given up on the board I removed bios chip and reseated yesterday. 1st attempt at booting caused board to power off almost immediately rather than getting stuck in 00 mode but subsequent attempts just sat in 00 state.

Today I was about to order a new pre programmed bios chip but thought I'd try one more shot at fiddling with the mobo. I reset cmos again. Then put 2 sticks of ram in the board in dual mode (previous attempts since error cropped up were either with no ram or a just a single stick) and then held down the memok button for a while finished off with a final cmos reset and hey presto the board started up again

I was feeling most pleased until 20 seconds ago when the system, idling in bios setup, suddenly produced scrambled video output and errored to code 04. Now trying to boot goes back to 00 again

My feelings are it could be something voltage related... maybe the extra dimm module helped somehow to bring rail voltages back in line. Or maybe it's just the bios chip. Though the fact that the bios loaded successfully just now but the board failed while idling perhaps indicates some other hardware fault somewhere.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Though the fact that the bios loaded successfully just now but the board failed while idling perhaps indicates some other hardware fault somewhere.

CPU overheating and ram overclocking can do that.

 

[Noris911]

CPU overheating and ram overclocking can do that.

Hmm I'm very ill informed when it comes to overclocking and advanced bios settings so its pretty much set up as default other than efi and boot settings.

Cpu temp seems to be good, at a stable 24 deg but I am noting a rather high and drifting ram voltage, around the 1.7v mark and always In red text. 1.2 is stamped on the ram. I've tried stressing board slightly but this doesnt seem to affect the voltage reading. Not sure if this is anything to worry about but will try and work throug bios to get the most basic de tuned setup with only required devices active.

The board also has surge protection enabled as a bios setting and curiously I have found pressure around the heat sink below bios with the illuminated ROG logo or across ram chips to be influencing things... slightly stressing it in random ways while pressing start up will allow it to boot. I also pressed on the rog heat sink while bios was running and managed to get it to instantly fail on pch code 04.

This is quite bizarre as the board has been happily secured in the case for a fair few years so why it should suddenly start failing is a mystery but seems to imply that the cooker commissioning might just be a coincidence or was somehow just enough to knock my apparently slightly unstable hardware over some kind of temperamental edge it was already sat on!

 

[SkyNetRising]

Cpu temp seems to be good, at a stable 24 deg but I am noting a rather high and drifting ram voltage, around the 1.7v mark and always In red text. 1.2 is stamped on the ram.

What motherboard model? "Asus maximus viii" is not a full model name.

Anyway - it should be DDR4 board. Acceptable DDR4 voltages are 1.2V to 1.35V.
1.7V is definitely not ok. It will fry cpu dram controller (if not already).

 

[Noris911]

What motherboard model? "Asus maximus viii" is not a full model name.

Anyway - it should be DDR4 board. Acceptable DDR4 voltages are 1.2V to 1.35V.
1.7V is definitely not ok. It will fry cpu dram controller (if not already).

Ah ha thanks!!! Its z170 asus maximus viii gene skylake microatx.... yep ddr4.

I just did safeboot and voltage was still high. Then exit without save. Booted normally and it's been at at 1.2 ish while replying then just flicked back up to 1.66v!

I feel I'm getting somewhere now though and it doesnt seem to be totally fried! So is this likely to be a ram, bios config or power supply issue?

 

[Noris911]

So its seems to be drifting quite a bit and is hitting values of 1.8 at times! Flexing the board, changing ram slots and flexing board doesn seem to affect voltage. I've checked through bios and anything relating to ram voltage is greyed out so cant be changed.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Disable overclocking. It may be turned on by default.
BIOS/Extreme Tweaker/AI Overclock Tuner - set to XMP or manual.