Older PC suddenly not starting, no Post, black screen, fans/lights working

[rud3ltier]

Hi guys,

today my self built PC stopped working. It worked fine yesterday till late in the night and won't boot today. First observation: All fans and lights start, HDD sound like they come online, same for the DVD burner. The latter sounds like it is looking for a CD/DVD to boot from, but it is empty. Both screens stay black with no signal. My backlit keyboad usually blinks on start-up, but it is not doing this now.

The PC started the same yesterday, but after a view "tries" by the DVD burner it started just fine and I did not worry too much about it. It did this slower starting (seemed lke it was looking for a CD/DVD first) for a while now and I thought that it was something with the boot order. Thats the only thing I changed yesterday: put the DVD on a spot behind the SSDs with the bootloader.

I have not changed anything hardwarewise for at least a year.
Te PC was built in November 2014 (except PSU which is older) and worked fine so far. Only changes were a new GPU and some HDD to SSD swaps.

For trouble shooting purposes I installed an old MoBo speaker today.

I have tried almost everything described here: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/261145-31-perform-steps-posting-post-boot-video-problems without any success inlcuding:
- BIOS reset
- new CMOS battery
- reseating everything
- Changing around both RAM sticks
- disconnecting all the things
and am at the following point:

Only things connected are MoBo, CPU+fan and PSU. Boot - CPU fan comes online, three long beeps (might be short as well as I have not heard anything else beforehand). Systems stays that way.
Add one RAM stick to any slot (tried all four, same result). Boot - CPU fan comes online, no beep, nothing more. System stays that way.
Onboard GPU does not show anything via HDMI/DVI/VGA.

So, what would that be?
- RAM? MoBo? CPU? PSU?
- Am I missing something?

Hardware:
- MoBo: MSI 7930-001R (MSI Z97s SLI Plus)
- CPU: Intel E3-1231V3
- Noctua Cooler
- RAM: Corsair CML16GX3M2A1600C10B (2x8GB)
- PSU: Seasonic SS-650KM3 X650 80 Plus (from 10/2013)

Thanks in advance!

 

[jankerson]

Sounds like the MB.

 

[captaincharisma]

it may be the motherboard. i would try to find out what the beep code is reporting. you may be able to find a Manuel for the motherboard from a google search

 

[geofelt]

Your default boot order likely specifies the dvd as first.
Try removing the dvd from the boot order.

Try to run memtest86 which will boot from a usb stick and does not need windows.

My guess from your symptoms is that your psu is failing.
It is a very good one, but, in time, all things fail.

Unfortunately problem determination on a pc involves replacing suspected parts one at a time with known good replacements.

 

[rud3ltier]

it may be the motherboard. i would try to find out what the beep code is reporting. you may be able to find a Manuel for the motherboard from a google search

Hi, unfortunately, the manual does not provide info on this. However, according to this: https://forum-en.msi.com/faq/article/bios-beep-codes the three beeps for AMI BIOS indicate memory failure, which seems as it should be when removing the RAM.

 

[rud3ltier]

Your default boot order likely specifies the dvd as first.
Try removing the dvd from the boot order.

Try to run memtest86 which will boot from a usb stick and does not need windows.

My guess from your symptoms is that your psu is failing.
It is a very good one, but, in time, all things fail.

Unfortunately problem determination on a pc involves replacing suspected parts one at a time with known good replacements.

Pretty much the first thing I tried was removing the DVD drive, to no success. The noise was gone, but the system did not behave differently. I disconnected every drive as well, trying only with certain SSDs to boot, but nothing. I am no creating a bootable USB drive, but I am not very hopefull that this will work as I cannot see the BIOS or UEFI after a boot without any drives connected.

 

[captaincharisma]

it may be the motherboard. i would try to find out what the beep code is reporting. you may be able to find a Manuel for the motherboard from a google search

Hi, unfortunately, the manual does not provide info on this. However, according to this: https://forum-en.msi.com/faq/article/bios-beep-codes the three beeps for AMI BIOS indicate memory failure, which seems as it should be when removing the RAM.

then it seems the only thing you can try is to get new ram to try and if that doesn't get the pc to boot then its a failed memory controller

 

[geofelt]

Your default boot order likely specifies the dvd as first.
Try removing the dvd from the boot order.

Try to run memtest86 which will boot from a usb stick and does not need windows.

My guess from your symptoms is that your psu is failing.
It is a very good one, but, in time, all things fail.

Unfortunately problem determination on a pc involves replacing suspected parts one at a time with known good replacements.

Pretty much the first thing I tried was removing the DVD drive, to no success. The noise was gone, but the system did not behave differently. I disconnected every drive as well, trying only with certain SSDs to boot, but nothing. I am no creating a bootable USB drive, but I am not very hopefull that this will work as I cannot see the BIOS or UEFI after a boot without any drives connected.

Download memtest86 to a usb stick and try to boot from that.
If you can complete a full pass of testing with NO errors, your hardware is likely sound and the issue is with your devices or with windows.

If you have a problem, try testing with just one ram stick and in different ram slots.

 

[jankerson]

Your default boot order likely specifies the dvd as first.
Try removing the dvd from the boot order.

Try to run memtest86 which will boot from a usb stick and does not need windows.

My guess from your symptoms is that your psu is failing.
It is a very good one, but, in time, all things fail.

Unfortunately problem determination on a pc involves replacing suspected parts one at a time with known good replacements.

Pretty much the first thing I tried was removing the DVD drive, to no success. The noise was gone, but the system did not behave differently. I disconnected every drive as well, trying only with certain SSDs to boot, but nothing. I am no creating a bootable USB drive, but I am not very hopefull that this will work as I cannot see the BIOS or UEFI after a boot without any drives connected.

Download memtest86 to a usb stick and try to boot from that.
If you can complete a full pass of testing with NO errors, your hardware is likely sound and the issue is with your devices or with windows.

If you have a problem, try testing with just one ram stick and in different ram slots.

He isn't getting any display at all.

 

[geofelt]

Your default boot order likely specifies the dvd as first.
Try removing the dvd from the boot order.

Try to run memtest86 which will boot from a usb stick and does not need windows.

My guess from your symptoms is that your psu is failing.
It is a very good one, but, in time, all things fail.

Unfortunately problem determination on a pc involves replacing suspected parts one at a time with known good replacements.

Pretty much the first thing I tried was removing the DVD drive, to no success. The noise was gone, but the system did not behave differently. I disconnected every drive as well, trying only with certain SSDs to boot, but nothing. I am no creating a bootable USB drive, but I am not very hopefull that this will work as I cannot see the BIOS or UEFI after a boot without any drives connected.

Download memtest86 to a usb stick and try to boot from that.
If you can complete a full pass of testing with NO errors, your hardware is likely sound and the issue is with your devices or with windows.

If you have a problem, try testing with just one ram stick and in different ram slots.

He isn't getting any display at all.

My understanding is that he gets no display when booting into windows.
Is it possible that the discrete graphics card has gone bad??

 

[jankerson]

Your default boot order likely specifies the dvd as first.
Try removing the dvd from the boot order.

Try to run memtest86 which will boot from a usb stick and does not need windows.

My guess from your symptoms is that your psu is failing.
It is a very good one, but, in time, all things fail.

Unfortunately problem determination on a pc involves replacing suspected parts one at a time with known good replacements.

Pretty much the first thing I tried was removing the DVD drive, to no success. The noise was gone, but the system did not behave differently. I disconnected every drive as well, trying only with certain SSDs to boot, but nothing. I am no creating a bootable USB drive, but I am not very hopefull that this will work as I cannot see the BIOS or UEFI after a boot without any drives connected.

Download memtest86 to a usb stick and try to boot from that.
If you can complete a full pass of testing with NO errors, your hardware is likely sound and the issue is with your devices or with windows.

If you have a problem, try testing with just one ram stick and in different ram slots.

He isn't getting any display at all.

My understanding is that he gets no display when booting into windows.
Is it possible that the discrete graphics card has gone bad??

He is running off MB graphics.

 

[rud3ltier]

I doubt that it is the discrete GPU as I tried without any (onboard GPU) and with another discrete GPU of which I am pretty certain that is still working to the exact same result. No POST beep, no BIOS / UEFI screen, only black.

I did try a boot the Memtest on a USB disk,again nothing. I do not think that USB is receiving any power.

Plan for tomorrow is to visit a local repair shop that I found which got pretty decent reviews. I'll see where that gets me

 

[geofelt]

Repair shop is a good idea.
They will have the ability to swap components to find the offending part.