Question PC will not restart / reboot, is driving me INSANE

[royj23]

Specs;
Asus Sabertooth X79
Intel i7-4820k
32GB DDR3 RAM
AMD Radeon R9 390
850w gold+ PSU

Basically, title. My gaming PC runs just fine. No issues whatsoever while gaming. It posts 100% of the time, every time. No other issues that I can tell. Just that fact that it will absolutely refuse to reboot. When I use "Shut Down" from the start menu, it works normally. System shuts itself down then the hardware turns off. However when I use "Restart" what happens is the PC goes through the process like it should, then the display goes off and it hangs. It will not start coming back on. All of the fans continue to spin indefinitely. Motherboard, CPU cooler, case fans, all of them. I've left it like that for like 40 minutes before and it just hangs. From that point I press the power button once and it turns off. Press it again and it boots normally and runs and games perfectly fine. Same goes for any kind of Windows update that restarts after like 30%. It will get that far, go to restart itself then hang. I manually shut it down with the power button and when it comes back it continues installing.

I bought this PC secondhand from someone I went to high school with. Initially he mentioned he had the same problem with it at first and ended up fixing it in BIOS messing with the settings, but couldn't remember which one. I've since lost touch with him and have no idea how to get in contact either.

Installed BIOS is the latest 4801 from here;
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_X79/HelpDesk_BIOS/

Here's a couple of YouTube videos of an overview of the X79 BIOS settings (heavily outdated BIOS version, but I can't find anything newer);

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGG884JJ19k

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE-JPQ3Clrk


If anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it, I'm at my wits' end here. I need to get this figured out. Thanks in advance...

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Yeah, I fixed same problem by updating BIOS on one of my old PCs.

All I can tell you is that the 4801 BIOS update you've installed is actually a BETA version so it will likely have some bugs of it's own --- it's only meant for those who are willing to give it a test-drive on a spare PC and report the bugs to Asus so they can be fixed.

You should try the previous BIOS update instead, 4701

 

[royj23]

Yeah, I fixed same problem by updating BIOS on one of my old PCs.

All I can tell you is that the 4801 BIOS update you've installed is actually a BETA version so it will likely have some bugs of it's own --- it's only meant for those who are willing to give it a test-drive on a spare PC and report the bugs to Asus so they can be fixed.

You should try the previous BIOS update instead, 4701

It happened on 4701, I was told to try to update to 4801 to see if that fixes it. I'm sure it's one of the settings within BIOS itself, but I have no idea what I'm looking for in there.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I can't think of any wrong setting in the BIOS which would stop the PC from doing a "restart" successfully, yet doesn't affect cold-booting. But if your friend did fix the problem by changing a BIOS setting, how come it needs changing again?

Don't know what else to suggest.

 

[royj23]

I can't think of any wrong setting in the BIOS which would stop the PC from doing a "restart" successfully, yet doesn't affect cold-booting. But if your friend did fix the problem by changing a BIOS setting, how come it needs changing again?

Don't know what else to suggest.

Probably because he fixed it back when he used it back in 2014, didn't run the PC at all until it was built when I bought it early 2019 and the CMOS battery was replaced, so I guess all the BIOS settings reverted to stock.

 

[royj23]

Anyone have any ideas or is there a better place to post this question?

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Anyone have any ideas or is there a better place to post this question?

Don't post it elsewhere on THF as it will be deleted by mods as "cross-posting" which isn't allowed.
Just hang fire and see if anyone else chips in with suggestions.