Question PC won't boot, no POST or beep code

Jun 14, 2020
123
18
4,595
Hi all, I wasn't sure what board to post this in but I suspect this may be a GPU issue so I'm posting it here; I understand if it needs to be moved, though.

About a week ago, I had an issue where my PC crashed, freezing whatever audio I had playing at the time and buzzing with that audio for a few seconds before restarting. It then ran for a few minutes but then did the exact same thing. Both times, all I was doing was really low-demand tasks such as listening to music via Winamp or watching a Youtube video.

However, after the second crash, I couldn't boot my PC. It wouldn't POST and didn't give me ANY beep code whatsoever. All of my fans were powering on, it sounded like my hard drives were powering on, but it just would not POST or give any beep code. I read up a bunch of suggestions and tried them all -- from reseating/removing/rearranging RAM sticks to checking to make sure every cable and piece of hardware was plugged in/seated properly. Nothing worked.

I finally tried one last suggestion, which was to fully unplug the PC and hold the power button for about 20 seconds. I then tried to boot again, but no luck. I decided to give it one more try before I went to bed and lo and behold, that time it booted.

It went for a week with no major issues but occasionally, if I put the PC in sleep, waking it back up would give me a display of 1024x768, when my display is 1600x900. I would go into the screen resolution menu and try to change it back, but it would give me an error on my monitor saying it was out of display range (despite also recommending 1600x900). The only fix was to hit the Detect button in that menu, which would fix it. This didn't happen EVERY time I woke it from sleep, just a few times.

Then, it happened today but I was able to use my PC just fine... except that I noticed the Nvidia overlay wasn't popping up when I tried to run a game. I use Nvidia's built-in ReShade tool in most games so it was immediately noticeable. I went into GeForce Experience and noticed my GPU wasn't being detected, yet I was able to run the game and as far as I know, I don't have any integrated graphics with my CPU, so that's odd. I then went to check GPU-Z to see what the deal was and it was able to detect the GPU, but not the GPU load, temperature or fan statistics. I decided to reboot but then my PC gave me the issue of not POSTing or giving a beep code.

I tried all that I tried before, to no avail. This time, it just won't work.

As far as I'm aware, I haven't had any power surges lately (yes, it's plugged into a surge protector), I haven't made any BIOS or hardware changes in years, and my storage drives are older but showing no noticeable signs of failure (though I run regular backups and I'm looking into getting new storage drives anyway). That makes me believe it'd have to be hardware somewhere and it's making me think it may be the GPU. The unfortunate part is that I'm in a tight spot, financially-speaking, and I definitely cannot afford to buy a new GPU... especially since everything else in the PC is older.

So, my ultimate question is: does anyone have any suggestions, tips, or ideas for what I can try in order to hopefully fix this issue without having to buy replacements? I don't have any replacement parts to test this out, sadly. The PC itself is nearing a decade old but I've since upgraded here and there, with the most recent upgrade being that GPU and a new PSU in 2015.

My specs:
  • CPU: AMD FX-8320 (8-core, 3.5GHz)
  • MOBO: MSI 760GMA-P34(FX) (MS-7641)
  • RAM: 2x8GB DDR3
  • GPU: MSI GTX 980 (4GB VRAM)
  • Storage: 2x2TB 7200rpm HDDs
  • PSU: Rosewill 750w
 
Last edited:
Jun 14, 2020
123
18
4,595
Okay, in an incredibly bizarre twist, I decided to try one more time before bed. I power it on, no luck, but I notice my exhaust fan is rattling. It does that from time to time and I can't quite figure out why, but it never seemed to be an issue before as it would always settle down and spin normally after that.

So, I open my case and press on the fan, to make sure it wasn't loose or anything. I power it on again to see if the rattling stopped, and the PC booted just fine.

Is there any reason why that happened or is that just a really strange coincidence? I didn't adjust any of the other hardware this time, I just pushed on the fan a little bit and it booted.

Any suggestions to prevent this from happening again?