[SOLVED] Massive issue with backup PC ?

[sinth4565]

Hello guys,
I pulled my backup pc after a couple of month out of the storage as I always do just to see if it still works.

Last time I tested it and let heaven benchmark run for almost 4 hours, everything was fine.

Today I pulled it out restarted it and it hang in a boot loop. As its gigabyte motherboard I waited for a couple of minutes and it switched to the backup bios, saying main bios corrupted . So it switched yo the second bios. I tried to get into windows, but all I get us a blue screen of death. updated to the latest bios and nothing. I tried to reinstall windows 10 and see if it's corrupted windows 7 copy. Crashing on install.

I unplugged the boot ssd and left the wd blue plugged in and still blue screening. I do understand one ssd goes bad but 2?

Now everytime I go into bios my pc won't blue screen, I guess it can't but it won't crash neither. If I try to go into windows or install it I blue screen.

It worried me my dual bios kicked in, I'm scared something fried the motherboard as I plugged it into power. The power supply worked fine before storing it. It's and evga 80+ gold.

Hope someone can help. Before I start random replacing parts

 

[iPeekYou]

Hello guys,
I pulled my backup pc after a couple of month out of the storage as I always do just to see if it still works.

Last time I tested it and let heaven benchmark run for almost 4 hours, everything was fine.

Today I pulled it out restarted it and it hang in about loop. As its gigabyte motherboard I waited for a couple of minutes and it switched to the backup bios, saying main bios corrupted . So it switched yo the second bios. I tried to get into windows, but all I get us a blue screen of death. updated to the latest bios and nothing. I tried to reinstall windows 10 and see if it's corrupted windows 7 copy. Crashing on install.

I unplugged the boot ssd and left the wd blue plugged in and still blue screening. I do understand one ssd goes bad but 2?

Now everytime I go into bios my pc won't blue screen, I guess it can't but it won't crash neither. If I try to go into windows or install it I blue screen.

It worried me my dual bios kicked in, I'm scared something fried the motherboard as I plugged it into power. The power supply worked fine before storing it. It's and evga 80+ gold.

Hope someone can help. Before I start random replacing parts

What's the full specification of your backup PC?

From the hardware end, it sounds like unstable voltage from the PSU. Motherboard could be funky, but bit far-fetched that it can't hold stable installing Windows. I only ever have that problem with a dodgy MB pulled from an old prebuilt in tandem with failing drive.

And yes, failing PSU can happen suddenly. A lot of failed PSU cases are "it works fine yesterday". I'd tackle that one first if I were you, but I do have a spare PSU or two for this exact purpose. If, say, the board somehow killed my testing PSU I wouldn't be out my personal PC PSU.

 

[sinth4565]

What's the full specification of your backup PC?

From the hardware end, it sounds like unstable voltage from the PSU. Motherboard could be funky, but bit far-fetched that it can't hold stable installing Windows. I only ever have that problem with a dodgy MB pulled from an old prebuilt in tandem with failing drive.

And yes, failing PSU can happen suddenly. A lot of failed PSU cases are "it works fine yesterday". I'd tackle that one first if I were you, but I do have a spare PSU or two for this exact purpose. If, say, the board somehow killed my testing PSU I wouldn't be out my personal PC PSU.

Hey mate,

The thing why I think first it's a mb problem as it straight accessed the dual bios and said my main bios is corrupted.

The specs are.

I5 4670
H87- hd3 motherboard
Hyperx blue ram
Evga 750 gold rated
Asus Gtx 970 oc
Crucial mx500 I belive and a wd blue ssds

Worked fine last run. But I'm a bit worried as I never seen a corrupted bios if I never updated it. I updated it now still same results.

 

[iPeekYou]

Hey mate,

The thing why I think first it's a mb problem as it straight accessed the dual bios and said my main bios is corrupted.

The specs are.

I5 4670
H87- hd3 motherboard
Hyperx blue ram
Evga 750 gold rated
Asus Gtx 970 oc
Crucial mx500 I belive and a wd blue ssds

Worked fine last run. But I'm a bit worried as I never seen a corrupted bios if I never updated it. I updated it now still same results.

MB being faulty is possible, I just never see it personally nor read anything about it.

 

[sinth4565]

MB being faulty is possible, I just never see it personally nor read anything about it.

Yeah this why I'm here. I'm confused, last time I used my pc all was fine running heaven just to see if it runs okay. Turned it off boxed it in and after 6 month of storage I take it out of the box plug it in. Wait a few minutes and turn it on. It was at least in 10 minute boot loop, then it suddenly said main bios corrupted please check for bios updates. And it moved to the second bios.

I unplugged both of my ssd, plugged one after the other in. In bios everything is fine I let it run for 5 minutes all is good no crash as soon as it leaves the gigabyte splash screen it goes unstable.

I might get one ssd fails but both at the same time?

I don't know where to check first and I don't want just replace parts I got to buy.

 

[Vic 40]

Did you try and reflash the latest bios?

Might also be good to change the motherboard battery.

 

[sinth4565]

Did you try and reflash the latest bios?

Might also be good to change the motherboard battery.

The cmos battery seems fine the system time was good.

Yes I reflashed the latest bios. Normally I do not mess with bios, but this time I made exception.

Could it be that after 6 month of storage and then going power through blew something on the motherboard?

I will take the whole thing apart tonight I should still have a spare seasonic which might help me find out if it's the psu

I got a spare gtx 760 to see if it's my 970 in my backup pc but that's all I can try as it's Mt only spare parts.

I have never seen a bios being corrupted while the pc isn't even used.

 

[sinth4565]

I completely stripped the pc, put different power supply on seasonic 750w titanium 80+ and it finally started and I installed windows.

After a few restarts I ended up in a boot loop. But it isn't really booting just turning on, no picture, turning off and repeat.

I did plug the hdmi on board and with a gtx 760 in and still no picture .

I couldn't see any damaged capacitors or anything suspicious. A few times I had a gigabyte splash screen saying on top gigabyte uefi dual bios. Then it shut off and never came back. Just the described boot loop.

 

[InvalidError]

How well electronics will fare in storage depends heavily on storage conditions. High humidity promotes corrosion while high temperatures degrade EEPROM/NAND data retention, so you need to keep them in a somewhat dry and temperature-controlled location - if it is far too warm or humid for human comfort, it is too warm or humid for long-term electronics storage.

If your "complete strip" included removing and re-installing the motherboard, CPU and memory, that should have taken care of most possible corrosion, especially if you looked for it and didn't see anything obvious in the sockets, CPU, DIMM, etc. and behind the motherboard.

One of my friends bricked a Gigabyte board while attempting to update the BIOS. I tried re-imaging the chip from dumps I could find online and while attempting to program the EEPROM, it turned out that both the primary and secondary chip were completely screwed - thousands of bits in both BIOSses had unstable states. After replacing the EEPROMs, I managed to get the board to POST again but couldn't get it to go beyond that, spontaneously reboots when attempting to enter BIOS setup, also reboots immediately after displaying the hardware summary page that comes between POST and looking for boot media.

 

[sinth4565]

How well electronics will fare in storage depends heavily on storage conditions. High humidity promotes corrosion while high temperatures degrade EEPROM/NAND data retention, so you need to keep them in a somewhat dry and temperature-controlled location - if it is far too warm or humid for human comfort, it is too warm or humid for long-term electronics storage.

If your "complete strip" included removing and re-installing the motherboard, CPU and memory, that should have taken care of most possible corrosion, especially if you looked for it and didn't see anything obvious in the sockets, CPU, DIMM, etc. and behind the motherboard.

One of my friends bricked a Gigabyte board while attempting to update the BIOS. I tried re-imaging the chip from dumps I could find online and while attempting to program the EEPROM, it turned out that both the primary and secondary chip were completely screwed - thousands of bits in both BIOSses had unstable states. After replacing the EEPROMs, I managed to get the board to POST again but couldn't get it to go beyond that, spontaneously reboots when attempting to enter BIOS setup, also reboots immediately after displaying the hardware summary page that comes between POST and looking for boot media.

Sound a bit similar to my problem.
Only thing is I only updated the bios once as a error occurred and gigabyte dual bios ask me to upgrade. What worries me still is as I pit him into storage, which is my hall way inside my flat between living room and bedrooms. No window close by and I always air my place out. The pc was in its original cardboard box over the time and had no issues for 2 years. Then I suddenly turn it in and it says main bios corrupted. If I haven't updated the bios remotely on an uncovered pc I don't know what happened. I don't know if after the time turning on the power supply fried the bios chips. But they don't show burn marks. Only a white spot which I looked up every gigabyte motherboard got a red or white spot on top left corner on each bios chip.

I really can't figure out the issue hope someone has an idea. It's an weird issue I know. I build pcs myself but came never across this issue. I'm not rich and got not much money. I just bought an msi motherboard seller refurbished and hope that fixes it. Otherwise I will have to spend another 40 £ for another power supply as I don't have another repaired one.

 

[dorsai]

Have you replaced the BIOS battery yet ? Sudden issues with a BIOS not working on an old system almost always lead to the battery being spent.

Replacing the BIOS battery should be the first thing you do if bringing an old system out of storage. It may not be your issue, but always cover the easy things first when troubleshooting.

Replace the battery. Reset the BIOS to defaults following the user manual instructions (simply having the battery out doesn't always reset the BIOS). Reconfigure boot options and once booting into Windows then go back and configure options like XMP, audio, and LAN settings.

 

[InvalidError]

I don't know if after the time turning on the power supply fried the bios chips. But they don't show burn marks. Only a white spot which I looked up every gigabyte motherboard got a red or white spot on top left corner on each bios chip.

The white spots and other marks on BIOS chips and select other components are usually just QC marks - proof that someone at a QC station went through the check list and at least physically checked those items.

Another way electronics can die from storage is electrolytic capacitors losing their effectiveness from lack of use, though that process usually takes years and is at least partially reversible with use.

 

[sinth4565]

Have you replaced the BIOS battery yet ? Sudden issues with a BIOS not working on an old system almost always lead to the battery being spent.

Replacing the BIOS battery should be the first thing you do if bringing an old system out of storage. It may not be your issue, but always cover the easy things first when troubleshooting.

Replace the battery. Reset the BIOS to defaults following the user manual instructions (simply having the battery out doesn't always reset the BIOS). Reconfigure boot options and once booting into Windows then go back and configure options like XMP, audio, and LAN settings.

I should get tomorrow a pack of duracell once hopefully this works a new cmos battery

 

[Vic 40]

Make sure it's a CR2032 battery.

 

[sinth4565]

Have you replaced the BIOS battery yet ? Sudden issues with a BIOS not working on an old system almost always lead to the battery being spent.

Replacing the BIOS battery should be the first thing you do if bringing an old system out of storage. It may not be your issue, but always cover the easy things first when troubleshooting.

Replace the battery. Reset the BIOS to defaults following the user manual instructions (simply having the battery out doesn't always reset the BIOS). Reconfigure boot options and once booting into Windows then go back and configure options like XMP, audio, and LAN settings.

Thanks mate. Never thought of an easy fix like this.

 

[sinth4565]

I still think my main bios chip is fried somehow or gone, problem is that it takes way to long to show the gigabyte boot splash screen, the screen doesn't even get signal. This never took this long, 10 seconds or more I'm waiting. I never worked with dual bios, does my system tries first to access the main and then the secondary bios?

I'm asking cause it worries me I wait 10 seconds for the splash screen to come up

 

[Vic 40]

You went into the bios and reset to optimal default values?
Time and date ares et correctly?
After that enable XMP.