Question Is my PSU or motherboard failing? (no post)

Jul 11, 2020
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I lack the experience to diagnose myself what the problem is with my pc. Lately I have been getting frequent freezes and the occasional BSOD (like once every 2 days), after which I usually restarted my pc and then it would work fine again. I suspect this is due to my rather old HDD (6y), which I was going to get replaced by a SSD in the near future. Three days ago I shut my pc down as usual with everything seemingly working alright. The next morning it wouldn't boot anymore. To clarify: when I pressed the power button the pc seemed to turn on as usual (fans spinning, lights and I also tested the DVD drive which was working as well), but there seemed to be no connection to my monitor, keyboard or mouse. I left it be for a while seen as I was busy that day. That evening I looked online for help and shorted my CMOS pins to drain the CMOS and reset it. That seemed to have worked as it booted up without problem after. Now today it froze up again while active and when I tried to restart it wouldn't boot anymore just like before, but it seemed to have power to an extent. (spinning fans etc) I haven't tried to reset the CMOS again because I think it will just fail again after a day or two.
I suspect the culprit to be either the CMOS battery, the mobo itself or perhaps the PSU. If any of you have some insight on this that'd be much appreciated

Specs:
MOBO: Asrock B150 PRO4/D3
PSU: EVGA 600W 80 plus
CPU: Intel i5-6600K
GPU: GTX 1060 3GB
HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda (old from a previous build)
RAM: 12 GB DDR3 (4GBx2 and 4GB corsair vengeance, both running at 1600MHz
 

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
I lack the experience to diagnose myself what the problem is with my pc. Lately I have been getting frequent freezes and the occasional BSOD (like once every 2 days), after which I usually restarted my pc and then it would work fine again. I suspect this is due to my rather old HDD (6y), which I was going to get replaced by a SSD in the near future. Three days ago I shut my pc down as usual with everything seemingly working alright. The next morning it wouldn't boot anymore. To clarify: when I pressed the power button the pc seemed to turn on as usual (fans spinning, lights and I also tested the DVD drive which was working as well), but there seemed to be no connection to my monitor, keyboard or mouse. I left it be for a while seen as I was busy that day. That evening I looked online for help and shorted my CMOS pins to drain the CMOS and reset it. That seemed to have worked as it booted up without problem after. Now today it froze up again while active and when I tried to restart it wouldn't boot anymore just like before, but it seemed to have power to an extent. (spinning fans etc) I haven't tried to reset the CMOS again because I think it will just fail again after a day or two.
I suspect the culprit to be either the CMOS battery, the mobo itself or perhaps the PSU. If any of you have some insight on this that'd be much appreciated

Specs:
MOBO: Asrock B150 PRO4/D3
PSU: EVGA 600W 80 plus
CPU: Intel i5-6600K
GPU: GTX 1060 3GB
HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda (old from a previous build)
RAM: 12 GB DDR3 (4GBx2 and 4GB corsair vengeance, both running at 1600MHz
Reset the CMOS to get it running and test the easiest things first: Seagate drive using Seatools for Windows and if that passes, then test your memory with Memtest86. Both are free programs and are common sources of issues.

You can replace the CMOS battery, but that will only keep your system time and other settings correct when the power to your system is completely off -- as in unplugged or PSU turned off -- it should not cause the issue that you describe.

At this point I would suspect your HDD followed by memory, it does not sound like typical issues from a PSU or the motherboard.
 
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Jul 11, 2020
3
0
10
Reset the CMOS to get it running and test the easiest things first: Seagate drive using Seatools for Windows and if that passes, then test your memory with Memtest86. Both are free programs and are common sources of issues.

You can replace the CMOS battery, but that will only keep your system time and other settings correct when the power to your system is completely off -- as in unplugged or PSU turned off -- it should not cause the issue that you describe.

At this point I would suspect your HDD followed by memory, it does not sound like typical issues from a PSU or the motherboard.

I have tried to reset the CMOS once more this morning but it doesn't post sadly like it didn't before. I'm taking the pc to a repair shop on tuesday to let them find it out properly. Nevertheless, thanks for your help!
I'll update here when I know what's up for future people with this problem
 
Jul 11, 2020
3
0
10
I got my pc back from the shop yesterday. They cleaned it and found that it did post for them. They ran multiple benchmarks and verified that my parts were working as they should (good temps & speeds). Only my HDD was rather slow, as it's almost 7 years old now. They initially couldn't find a way to replicate my problem but they ran into it by accident and fixed it by replacing the power cable. The old one didn't have good contact.

All seemed to work fine again yesterday but when I tried to boot this morning I ran into the same no-post problem as I had before. I tried to reboot two more times and the second time it posted but I got a BSOD . The third time it posted normally as I'm now typing this on my pc.
BSOD: View: https://imgur.com/a/KWHb8JU

I'm flabbergasted as to what could be causing it now. Could it be the PSU starting to age? Or perhaps the old HDD sometimes causes the BIOS to error out when it tries to check devices, causing it not to post at all?