Last week I decided to upgrade my 12 year old i7-2600k processor with a new one. The old one was starting to show it's age, and I felt justified bying a new upgrade seeing as I've had the old one for for more than a decade.
I bought a new motherboard, new RAM, a M2 SSD and a new CPU. Seeing as my graphics card is fairly new and my watercooler works fine, I decided to keep those and my old PSU.
I built the new PC got everything in the old cabinet and tried starting it up. When I started it up it wouldn't start up properly. It powers on for about 0.5 seconds, the fans, the water pump and the lights turn on, but instantly turn off and goes into a boot loop. Having experienced this before, my first thought was that it was some kind of short. When I built my first PC 20 years ago I had forgotten to put in the spacers in the cabinet and had the same problem. To see if that might be the problem I decided to breadboard.
I took everything out, put it on a cardboard box and started eliminating components.
In the end I was left with the CPU in it's socket, the CPU-fan and one stick of RAM. Everything else was disconnected. No matter what I did I only got the same bootloop.
Seeing as the CPU-fan and the PSU was (and is) working fine in my old computer, and that removing the CPU and trying to start with just one stick of RAM and the CPU-fan didn't resolve the problem, I concluded that it was the motherboard. Contacted the retailer I bought it from and got sent a new one.
Today I got the new motherboard. I tried assembling everything again, but instead of inserting it into the cabinet I started testing it while breadboarding. I installed the CPU in its socket, I fastened the CPU-fan and connected it, and I added one stick of RAM. Tried starting the computer and felt my heart sink as the same problem prevailed.
After getting the new card I did a thorough comparison of the old motherboard and the new motherboard and found that the old motherboard had one bent pin in the LGA Socket. That could explain why it didn't work with the previous motherboard, but the new motherboard had no bent pins, and I couldn't find any other issues with the motherboard either.
I've googled and tried every single variation of components connected and disconnected, I'm at my wits end.
As a last hail mary, I realized I hadn't tried starting the motherboard with the CPU power disconnected. I didn't really expect it to work, and even if it did work, it wouldn't really help me, but I decided to disconnect the 8-pin EATX cable from the motherboard. Lo and behold, it worked.
Seeing as it worked when the CPU wasn't powered I tried removing the CPU, reconnecting the 8-pin EATX and tried powering it on again. That didn't work, I was back to the old bootloop again. I've used the correct EATX cable, it's the 2x4 pin CPU cable, not the 2+6 pin GPU cable.
Does anyone have any ideas what it could be? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can try? I'm getting desperate and slightly pissed off that I'm unable to get this to work.
I guess it could be the PSU, but seeing as it works with the old computer that seems unlikely?
Specs:
Motherboard: Asus TUF Gaming Z590 Plus
CPU: Intel Core i7-11700k
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 2x16GB 3200Mhz RAM
CPU-Fan: Corsair H60
PSU: Lian Li 850W Silent Force
TLR What I've tried:
I bought a new motherboard, new RAM, a M2 SSD and a new CPU. Seeing as my graphics card is fairly new and my watercooler works fine, I decided to keep those and my old PSU.
I built the new PC got everything in the old cabinet and tried starting it up. When I started it up it wouldn't start up properly. It powers on for about 0.5 seconds, the fans, the water pump and the lights turn on, but instantly turn off and goes into a boot loop. Having experienced this before, my first thought was that it was some kind of short. When I built my first PC 20 years ago I had forgotten to put in the spacers in the cabinet and had the same problem. To see if that might be the problem I decided to breadboard.
I took everything out, put it on a cardboard box and started eliminating components.
In the end I was left with the CPU in it's socket, the CPU-fan and one stick of RAM. Everything else was disconnected. No matter what I did I only got the same bootloop.
Seeing as the CPU-fan and the PSU was (and is) working fine in my old computer, and that removing the CPU and trying to start with just one stick of RAM and the CPU-fan didn't resolve the problem, I concluded that it was the motherboard. Contacted the retailer I bought it from and got sent a new one.
Today I got the new motherboard. I tried assembling everything again, but instead of inserting it into the cabinet I started testing it while breadboarding. I installed the CPU in its socket, I fastened the CPU-fan and connected it, and I added one stick of RAM. Tried starting the computer and felt my heart sink as the same problem prevailed.
After getting the new card I did a thorough comparison of the old motherboard and the new motherboard and found that the old motherboard had one bent pin in the LGA Socket. That could explain why it didn't work with the previous motherboard, but the new motherboard had no bent pins, and I couldn't find any other issues with the motherboard either.
I've googled and tried every single variation of components connected and disconnected, I'm at my wits end.
As a last hail mary, I realized I hadn't tried starting the motherboard with the CPU power disconnected. I didn't really expect it to work, and even if it did work, it wouldn't really help me, but I decided to disconnect the 8-pin EATX cable from the motherboard. Lo and behold, it worked.
Seeing as it worked when the CPU wasn't powered I tried removing the CPU, reconnecting the 8-pin EATX and tried powering it on again. That didn't work, I was back to the old bootloop again. I've used the correct EATX cable, it's the 2x4 pin CPU cable, not the 2+6 pin GPU cable.
Does anyone have any ideas what it could be? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can try? I'm getting desperate and slightly pissed off that I'm unable to get this to work.
I guess it could be the PSU, but seeing as it works with the old computer that seems unlikely?
Specs:
Motherboard: Asus TUF Gaming Z590 Plus
CPU: Intel Core i7-11700k
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 2x16GB 3200Mhz RAM
CPU-Fan: Corsair H60
PSU: Lian Li 850W Silent Force
TLR What I've tried:
- Breadboarding with only CPU, CPU Fan and RAM connected -> Bootloop
- Breadboarding with only CPU Fan and RAM connected -> Bootloop
- Gotten a replacement motherboard -> Bootloop
- Breadboarding with CPU, CPU Fan and RAM connected, and 8-pin CPU Power EATX cable disconnected -> Powers on, but it doesn't really help me get anywhere.