Question PC Boot issues. Stuck in power on/off loop with beeps ?

[AdamG921]

It started a couple days ago. My son was playing a steam game and he said the pc just suddenly shut off on him. We started it back up and started the game up for him again. This time after about 5-10 minutes, he calls me over and says he’s got a blue screen (blue screen of death). Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out an error code in time before it shut off suddenly again. Now, I don’t know what the heck’s going on at this point. I then try to start it up a second time and now after a few seconds of being on, my pc beeps 4 times in succession (about a half second between each beep) then shortly thereafter shuts off to only repeat the process until I kill the power supply switch to stop it. I’ve read online that it could be a ram issue, as well as potentially other add on components. Ive also read that the beeping is a code and depending on the BIOS chip maker, it could mean different things. I for the life of me, can’t find my chip maker. I have an ASRock z77 pro3 mono but looking online, I haven’t found it. I’ve looked on my mono for a chip with a name on it but none have corresponded with the big 3 makers. I’m at a loss for what it could really be though and I don’t want to have to replace every component to see what could be wrong. Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

• Reseating ram sticks
• taking out one set of ram sticks (I have 4x8gb of ram) and swapping between them to see if a set went bad.
• swapping power supply and it’s cords with another power supply. Same problem.
• removing my usb 3.0 PCI express card and restarting.
• removing my GPU and restarting.
• Reseating all power supply cords.

I do notice one interesting thing when I swap sets of ram sticks. When all for sets are in, I get the same problem as described before with the beeping and the power loop. When I leave just one set (set A) in, I get the same issue. But when I swap set A for Set B, I now don’t get beeping but instead just the power loop, and now it’s a shorter loop (from on to off in about 3 seconds, then repeats).

I’m sorry for the format guys. I’m typing this up from my phone. If anyone has any tips that could help me resolve this issue that would avoid me scrapping my PC, I’d be forever grateful 🥲.

 

[Darkbreeze]

What are your FULL hardware specification? Please give exact model number wherever possible especially in the case of the power supplies.

CPU
Motherboard
Memory kit
Graphics card
Power supply (Original and the one you swapped it out with. Exact model numbers or series are very important here as is approximate age of each unit. If you knew how many times somebody here swaps out a PSU with a worse PSU and then says "not the PSU" when it actually is, it would boggle your mind)
CPU cooler
Storage devices

 

[AdamG921]

Yes sorry about the specs. Here they are below.


CPU: Intel i5-3570k

Mobo: ASRock z77 pro3

Memory: Patriot Viper 4x8gb 1600mhz DDR3 (2 x PV38G160C9KRD, 2 x PV38G160C9K)

GPU: Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce 1060 Windforce (GV-N1060WF2OC-6GD)

PSU(original): Corsair HW 650w (CMPSU-650HX)
Serial number - 12167003005310511159

PSU(test): VGA Supernova 750 G5 Gold
(750 G5)
Serial number - 2203140701800767

CPU Fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1000gb (ST1000DM003), Seagate Barracuda 1TB (ST1000DM010), and Samsung SSD 850 Pro 128gb (MZ-7KE128)

I built the PC originally 9 years ago. The only relatively newer components are:

• One set of ram sticks (2 x PV38G160C9K) bought several months ago.
• GPU (bought a couple years back.
• one of the HDs a year back or so.
• USB 3.0 PCIE card a couple years back.

 

[Darkbreeze]

So, the G5 is absolutely terrible. I mean, it's really pretty bad for a G series model from EVGA. It has known problems with transient response, meaning it is highly probable that it will go out of spec with real world changing loads and that alone could cause it to begin having failures which will likely only get worse over time. It has other problems as well. It's not the worst product EVGA has ever sold, but it is by far not even what I'd consider mediocre. It's a VERY budget platform, trying to pretend it's a high quality unit. Capacity isn't the problem here, but this is definitely a far lower quality unit than your HX650.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/evga-supernova-750-g5-power-supply,6344-6.html

Speaking of the HX650, if it is 9 years old then it is almost certainly done had it. Even the absolute best PC power supplies ever made, and of those, only the ones made in the last few years, have warranties of 10 years or more. Most of the older units have five year warranties if they were very high quality and that was very high quality when it was new, but that was so long ago it hardly matters now. In the end, while the PSU may not BE the problem, you DO have a PSU quandary. It would be a really good idea to start with a new, quality power supply, since it's very likely you need one anyhow.

I'm not super confident that is going to be the solution, but it might be, and is probably the least expensive fix among the probable contenders.

Given the age of this system it could very easily be a motherboard, graphics card or power supply.

First thing I'd do here is remove ALL of the memory, and the graphics card. Connect your display to the motherboard video output that uses the integrated graphics. Be sure to completely remove the graphics card from the motherboard when you do this. A problematic GPU card can still cause problems for the system even if no auxiliary power or display cable is connected to it. When troubleshooting graphics card issues, always completely remove it from the board.

Then, one at a time, try each DIMM (Memory module) in the A2 slot which should be the second slot over from the CPU. Try them all individually one at a time. Try one, if no love, try the next one.

I'd probably do this all on the bench as outlined in my guide because unless you go ahead and get a replacement PSU now, you will want to do this with both power supplies to make sure that any lack of change isn't simply the PSU still being the problem. I'd also NOT have any drives connected when you do it. Not to power nor to data cables.

How To - Motherboard bench testing

Finding the problem through bench testing If you are here then it’s likely you have encountered a serious hardware issue and have been unable to resolve it using the standard no-POST troubleshooting procedures. If you have not yet attempted to resolve your issues using the no-POST...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[AdamG921]

Thank you so much for the info darkbreeze. Gonna need to try the bench testing soon and report back on what I find. Thanks for taking the time to respond!

 

[Darkbreeze]

No problem.