Question No POST and strange behavior from Gigabyte 970A-UD3P motherboard

[johnx125]

First of all, a little bit of backstory so you can understand the situation better.

Back in late February, my almost 8 year old PC suddenly would not POST. At first I waited for a few minutes, then I cleared the CMOS, first by using the jumper and then again by removing the battery. I used different RAM, different GPU etc. I tried every troubleshooting method I could and the system still didn't POST. So eventually I got a new PC and put the old stuff away.

Today, I decided to put the old system together and power it on to see if it would do anything. Nothing has changed, it still doesn't post. However, now I noticed there's a clicking sound coming from the GPU every 5 seconds and its fans try to start but stop immediately. This happens with every GPU I've tried also if there's no GPU at all, the clicking sound comes from the PSU and at the same frequency though much weaker. Also everytime I hear the click the CPU fan slightly slows down for a brief moment.

All of this got me thinking, could this be the result of power related issue? Maybe a VRM or MOSFET is shorting out everytime the motherboard tries to power on the PCIe slots and I could solve the problem by finding and replacing it? Do you think it's worth investigating further?

SPECS: (Original configuration)
Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-UD3P (rev. 2.0)
CPU: AMD FX-8350
RAM: G.Skill Ares 16GB 1866MHz
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 380 Nitro 4GB
PSU: Corsair CX650M (bought in 2021 as an upgrade)

P.S. The only component I was unable to test is the CPU since I don't have another AM3+ compatible CPU.

 

[hedwar2011]

I think it's more likely that the clicking noise has been coming from the PSU all along and it was simply sounding like it was coming from the GPU (hence you hearing the same thing after removing the GPU).

Whether you want to go through the hassle of replacing an 8 yr old PSU is your call.

 

[johnx125]

I think it's more likely that the clicking noise has been coming from the PSU all along and it was simply sounding like it was coming from the GPU (hence you hearing the same thing after removing the GPU).

Whether you want to go through the hassle of replacing an 8 yr old PSU is your call.

I've tried it with 2 different PSUs and it does the same thing. Also the CX power supply is only 2 years old and is the one that's currently on my new PC so it's a known good unit. My bad, I forgot to mention that I replaced the PSU on the old PC in 2021.

 

[hedwar2011]

I've tried it with 2 different PSUs and it does the same thing. Also the CX power supply is only 2 years old and is the one that's currently on my new PC so it's a known good unit. My bad, I forgot to mention that I replaced the PSU on the old PC in 2021.

Since you've replaced the PSU I would bet that something with the GPU fans or otherwise is on it's way out.