Question PC repeatedly restarts ?

[oddsock]

Any helpful advice appreciated.

Specs
Mobo: MSI Pro B660 A WiFi
CPU: Intel i5-12400F
GPU: Gigabyte Radeon 6650 XT
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2 x 16GB)
SSD: Crucial Gen4 M.2 2TB (Primary)

... And other drives, disconnected for troubleshooting.

Background

Machine was running fine and has done so for almost a a year. The box was moved recently but worked fine afterwards.

A few days ago it started powering on, the little lights next to CPU, DRAM, VGA and boot cycle through (though it never gets to boot) then restarting.

It briefly had a screen pop up saying something along the lines of

"Overclock failed! Press F1 to enter BIOS..."

It would then restart about 3 seconds later. And choice made was ignored as the restart happened anyway.

My Troubleshooting

I have since tested the ram in another PC and it seemed fine.

Tried the Video card in another PC and it worked fine.

I haven't tested the M.2, the CPU or the MB separately as I don't have another LGA1700 machine.
(should I take the M.2 out?)

All advice seemed to indicate that resetting the BIOS was the best move, so lacking a jumper I used a little piece of aluminum foil in a pair of pliers held across the bios rest pins for 15 seconds. I didn't remove the battery as this motherboard has it in a stupid place.

It now gives the an error saying something about the the "System memory has changed", gives the same options but restarts 3 seconds later again.

I am assuming it is the MB or CPU at this point. (Though if it gets that far can it be the CPU? )
I am leaning towards just getting a new motherboard.

Any helpful ideas or advice?

 

[Misgar]

Machine was running fine and has done so for almost a a year.

Were you running a CPU overclock? Did you invoke an XMP memory overclock?

"Overclock failed! Press F1 to enter BIOS..."

I've seen this many times and not always after a recent overclock change. Sometimes a tried-and-tested previously "stable" overclock fails. The F1 message is a sign you need to enter the BIOS, restore the system to the Default values, set the boot drive and then try to load Windows, etc.

It now gives the an error saying something about the the "System memory has changed"

Well you did remove the memory didn't for testing in another computer. Clever things these computers. I sometimes see this message if I've added more RAM or removed some RAM, especially in Dell PCs, but it appears occasionally at other times after a failed overclock.

I have since tested the ram in another PC and it seemed fine.

Unless you ran a thorough test using MemTest86 (or similar) for several hours, you haven't really "tested" the RAM. All you've done is shown the other computer boots up with it installed.

When a motherboard get "stuck" at POST, I sometimes resort to removing all the RAM and switching on. The system beeps (if a speaker is attached) reporting no memory which is normal. I then fit just one DIMM and switch on again. If the system boots into Windows, I power off and fit the remaining DIMM(s).

I didn't remove the battery as this motherboard has it in a stupid place.

I assume this means it's hiding under your GPU and it's difficult to shift the tag on the PCIe connector to release the card. You'll have to change it when it eventually goes flat.

I am leaning towards just getting a new motherboard.

I swapped the motherboard on an old system. Turned out the CPU had died. You might be able to pick up a cheap(ish) second hand CPU to test the system. Whatever you change, it's often someting else. All you need is money when fault finding!