Question PC gets stuck at MSI boot screen, can’t enter bios or start Windows ?

[HolySaintChange]

I’ll start off by saying my PC is pretty old now. I built it summer of 2016, and haven’t really had any issues with it until recently. I suspect it might be a motherboard issue but honestly I can’t afford to replace it right now, so I thought I’d ask here to see if anyone has any ideas I haven’t tried.

This started about a week ago. At first, my PC would have a hard time booting to Windows. It would get stuck at the MSI screen with the options to enter bios or open boot menu. If I was fast enough, I could press delete and my screen would turn black with a non-blinking cursor top left. If I wasn’t fast, it would just be stuck at the MSI screen until I restarted my PC a few times. Every 1 in 4 or 5 times I could get my PC to boot to windows or open the BIOS. It gradually got harder and took more tries to boot. Now, it’s constantly at the MSI screen or the black screen.

I can’t open my BIOS or boot menu at all. The lights on my motherboard light up at boot, but turn off after maybe 15-20 seconds. The start up VGA light works and indicates no issues. Note that my motherboard lights have always been finicky, sometimes when my PC is on and working they just aren’t on. I’ve tried everything I can think of:

• I switched out my RAM, didn’t make a difference other than it would tell me that my RAM has been switched and that I needed to enter setup. That just brought me to the same black screen.
• I’ve also switched which slots my RAM is in.
• I switched out hard drives and SSDs numerous times, including cables. Didn’t help.
• I removed my graphics card and tried using integrated graphics, but then I couldn’t even load to the MSI screen, only black screen with no cursor.
• I tried a different power supply, no change.
• I took out my CMOS, waited, put it back in, nothing.
• I tried a new CMOS battery, nothing.
• I reset my CMOS using a jumper cap, which then told me I needed to enter setup again, but was a black screen.

I know it’s not an overheating issue as all my fans are working properly, including CPU fan, and I’ve replaced the thermal paste recently.

Here’s a list of my parts:

MSI H170 Gaming M3
Intel i7-6700k
HyperX Fury 2133MHz 8GBx2
ASUS GTX1070 8GB
EVGA 650W 80+ Gold
Some Gigabyte network card, don’t remember which.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Sounds like the motherboard was telling you it was fading away slowly imho.

 

[Misgar]

It's possible your Windows boot drive has errors which prevent it from booting up. If you can still get to the UEFI/BIOS screen sometimes but cannot boot into Windows, try booting from a copy of your OS downloaded from the Microsoft web site and burned to a USB memory stick using Rufus (this assumes you have another working PC to create the bootable USB drive).

When Rufus finishes writing the Windows ISO to USB, plug the USB stick into the faulty computer, enter the UEFI/BIOS and change the boot order to USB first. If the computer boots up to the Windows Setup screen from USB, it proves the hardware is working (CPU, GPU, etc.) and the fault probably lies with your OS drive.

It's up to you whether you attempt an "in system" repair of Windows or cancel out. Personally, I'd switch off the computer, disconnect all the SSDs and hard disks, fit a new drive and install a fresh copy of Windows from USB. That way you can test the computer without the risk of deleting important files on your existing disks.

If you can't even get to the BIOS, consider re-seating the CPU. You've already reseated the RAM.

Remove one stick of RAM. I've "woken up" an awkward BIOS by changing the amount of RAM. You can fit the second stick later.

Remove the network card, it's not essential for booting.

Check the CMOS battery with a multimeter. 3.0V and above is good. Below 2.0V is bad.

Pull as much as possible out of the machine that isn't essential, to see if it helps.