Question PC Unresponsive to Starting Up - Totally at a Loss

[Sciron]

For a while I was getting crashes on my PC playing a particular game that seemed to indicate an issue with power getting to the GPU. I underclocked the GPU and CPU a bit and it seemed to resolve the issue. After a few weeks, however, the PC totally locked up, so I held down the power to turn it off. When I booted back up, there was nothing in the events of reliability report about the crash. Less than an hour later, same crash, except now the PC will not turn on, no response whatsoever when hitting the power button. Below I'll list what I've tried so far.

New Power Supply

My initial thought was to swap the power supply, so I bought the exact same one. Swapped it (new cables), no help. It was only after this that I learned about the paperclip test, so I tested both new and old power supplies, and they both passed. I stripped out everything from the PC except for MOBO, CPU, RAM, and I think harddrives (one SSD, one HDD), and tried again. The power supply fan would kick on for maybe 5 seconds, and then turn off for a few, and repeat indefinitely. I was able to repeat this result with both the old and new power supply (used different combinations of cords and wall outlets). I figured it was something else, so I returned the power supply I bought.

Next assumption was MOBO, but finding an equal replacement was more expensive than getting a new one, so I replaced/upgraded MOBO, CPU, RAM. Swapped everything, and fully attached all components (GPU, hard drives, etc.), and same result - no response to the power button. Next was to disconnect everything, including drives, and try again - same result. Paperclip test still works on power supply.

I'm at a total loss. Not even sure what I can test next, or how to do it. If it's somehow just my case...

Original build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/q49rFT (capture card is https://www.avermedia.com/us/product-detail/C985)

Replacement parts: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/s86ssZ

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[rgd1101]

latest bios?

 

[RememberThe5th]

Are you sure that you didn't over tighten the Cooler onto the socket?

 

[Sciron]

latest bios?

Not 100% sure, but I can't access it to check currently.

Are you sure that you didn't over tighten the Cooler onto the socket?

I don't believe so, particularly not on both MOBO's. But, if this is the case, did I straight up hose myself, or can I simply loosen it a bit?

Thank you!

 

[RememberThe5th]

Loosen it however you like it, Just to keep the cooler on, or try to start for few seconds without cooler just enough to see the post screen. (Keep finger on CPU)

 

[Sciron]

Not sure what the etiquette is for this site, so I'm not sure if I should just reply here or make a new thread. For a myriad of reasons, I wasn't able to work on this for a while. In the meantime though, I did the following:

• New case
• New PSU
• New drives
• New cooler
• New cables (almost all)
• New MOBO (same from above)
• New CPU (same from above)

The entire machine is new, except the GPU, sound card, and the SATA cables that go from the drives to the MOBO.

Built the whole thing, same issue, no response to powering up. Different wall outlet from last time as well. I originally was going to keep the GPU and sound card out to start, but I decided to just go for it. Other than removing them and trying again, I can't think of any other next steps.

Maybe I did botch the CPU coincidentally, or maybe I'm just missing something completely easy.

Build ended up looking like this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/tY87HB

I appreciate any ideas.

EDIT: Removed GPU and sound card, and it's booted. Assuming GPU, since it crashed while gaming and I had been getting power errors for a while related to the GPU (assumed PSU since the error was the GPU losing power for a split second which was crashing games). Maybe I'll get lucky and ditching the sound card will work though.