Hi everybody,
First I wanted to thank this community for the great support, as Tom's Hardware has solved many issues through its forums in the past for me. Here I'm bringing a case of a friend of mine, whose computer started to fail, and during Covid19 quarantine he is not able to make any replacement/swap to discard hardware issues.
Here we go:
For some months, I've rescued a PC that belonged to my brother. He had it in the atic, as it would just turn on sometimes and he doesn't know much about computers, so he saved it there and bought a laptop. In my "great wisdom" about PCs I asked him if he would lend it to me to fix it. Everything went alright, I tore it apart, cleaned it, put an SSD, installed W10 from scratch, and so far so good. It was all perfect, always turning on at the first time, 0 problems, ever.
After a while, it started to not turn on, in other words, it always does the same. It turns on completely, but it doesn't "BEEP" when booting, it doesn't show any video signal to the monitor, and I have to turn it off and on a thousand times until sometimes out of luck it works, or simply it just works after a while having the PSU disconnected. I clarify that the PC in idle mode has the LED which indicates the HDD functionality at the PC case half lit, and when the PC doesn;t turn on and doesn't beep that same LED stays on (but not dim, quite intense), not blinking and doing nothing, and that's enough for me to figure out it's not gonna turn on.
Yesterday my patience ended and I installed my old iMac on my desk and take the PC out into my wardrobe.
When it turns on, everything is alright. Some time ago it would turn off when I would push it to the limit, with a BSOD due to exceeding temperature in the CPU, so I decided to change the thermal paste, and a good heat sink with a good fan instead of the original that came with. It changed from 90-95 degrees to 60-65 at its full load. It never gave me any other BSOD, logically.
My problem is not anymore that it turns on or not, because I found out that every time I turn it off, if I turn off the PSU with the switch, the next day I can switch it back on, power up and it will always work at the first time, but Im scared of restarting it or seeing it fail cos it will mean it wont turn on in some hours.
The problem is reproduced when I play CS:Go, it runs alright, at 150-250 fps depending on the map and zone, but sometimes the GPU does some weird stuff, such as lines or planes drawn in the screen, that shouldn't be there. I simply learnt to live with them, or I restart the game and they are gone. However, lately it's happening that all of a sudden the PC freezes while I'm in the game, whether is in the shop menu, in a corner killing somebody, in other words, it doesn't show any fixed pattern of exceeding the use of any type of resources or anything like that. The screen freezes and some zones appear like burn, with a depth of 8bits. When this happens, if I leave it for some seconds, I can manage to get out to the desktop with ALT+TAB, but I can't get back into the game, I have to kill the CS:Go process and restart the game, and everything fine again, but some other times the PC dies in that screen, and I have to shut it down, and most of those times it doesn't turn back on again, as I described previously: it turns on, but it doesnt beep, and the HDD LED is permanently on, not blinking. It normally blinks if everything is alright.
What I've tried so far:
-I've done some stress tests with Furmark to the GPU, and its max. it doesnt exceed 77-78 degrees, playing CS:Go its weird I cross over 70. I also did a stress test to the CPU, and it doesnt exceed 65 after 10 minutes. But if I have the stress test of the CPU and I want to run the GPU test at the same time, as soon as it starts, the PC shuts down instantly, and back to the bad mood of knowing if it will actually turn on after 2 minutes or 2 days.
-I also updated the firmware of the motherboard and same results.
-Today I will try to flash the bios and change the battery to see if it changes anything.
-I dont know how to check if the PSU is what it's failing, but being so, it shouldn't turn on again... I anyways checked using OOCT, and the voltage levels seem to be within range, 3.36V, 4.99V, 11.82, and CPU 1.02V.
-I configured the 3D Nvidia panel for CS:Go, but neither default nor changing values prevents the game from crashing. Other games like League of Legends work just fine and never fail or crash the PC.
-I checked that the maximum amperage of the extension cable to which the PC is connected , and checked using other plugs (direct connection to wall plug too) and nothing, I don't know if there is any ESD issue.
It's been a while I investigate what it can be, and I've read it can be the motherboard, the PSU, GPU, CPU and yeah, I dont know because I couldnt find anybody that lives exactly the same as me (I mean the PC turning on whenever he pleases). And that is why I dont know where to start...
Please I accept guidance/help/advice for what it can be, as being quarantined I have no access to other components to be able to test, but I have access to amazon to buy anything.
PC specs:
Thank you!"
First I wanted to thank this community for the great support, as Tom's Hardware has solved many issues through its forums in the past for me. Here I'm bringing a case of a friend of mine, whose computer started to fail, and during Covid19 quarantine he is not able to make any replacement/swap to discard hardware issues.
Here we go:
For some months, I've rescued a PC that belonged to my brother. He had it in the atic, as it would just turn on sometimes and he doesn't know much about computers, so he saved it there and bought a laptop. In my "great wisdom" about PCs I asked him if he would lend it to me to fix it. Everything went alright, I tore it apart, cleaned it, put an SSD, installed W10 from scratch, and so far so good. It was all perfect, always turning on at the first time, 0 problems, ever.
After a while, it started to not turn on, in other words, it always does the same. It turns on completely, but it doesn't "BEEP" when booting, it doesn't show any video signal to the monitor, and I have to turn it off and on a thousand times until sometimes out of luck it works, or simply it just works after a while having the PSU disconnected. I clarify that the PC in idle mode has the LED which indicates the HDD functionality at the PC case half lit, and when the PC doesn;t turn on and doesn't beep that same LED stays on (but not dim, quite intense), not blinking and doing nothing, and that's enough for me to figure out it's not gonna turn on.
Yesterday my patience ended and I installed my old iMac on my desk and take the PC out into my wardrobe.
When it turns on, everything is alright. Some time ago it would turn off when I would push it to the limit, with a BSOD due to exceeding temperature in the CPU, so I decided to change the thermal paste, and a good heat sink with a good fan instead of the original that came with. It changed from 90-95 degrees to 60-65 at its full load. It never gave me any other BSOD, logically.
My problem is not anymore that it turns on or not, because I found out that every time I turn it off, if I turn off the PSU with the switch, the next day I can switch it back on, power up and it will always work at the first time, but Im scared of restarting it or seeing it fail cos it will mean it wont turn on in some hours.
The problem is reproduced when I play CS:Go, it runs alright, at 150-250 fps depending on the map and zone, but sometimes the GPU does some weird stuff, such as lines or planes drawn in the screen, that shouldn't be there. I simply learnt to live with them, or I restart the game and they are gone. However, lately it's happening that all of a sudden the PC freezes while I'm in the game, whether is in the shop menu, in a corner killing somebody, in other words, it doesn't show any fixed pattern of exceeding the use of any type of resources or anything like that. The screen freezes and some zones appear like burn, with a depth of 8bits. When this happens, if I leave it for some seconds, I can manage to get out to the desktop with ALT+TAB, but I can't get back into the game, I have to kill the CS:Go process and restart the game, and everything fine again, but some other times the PC dies in that screen, and I have to shut it down, and most of those times it doesn't turn back on again, as I described previously: it turns on, but it doesnt beep, and the HDD LED is permanently on, not blinking. It normally blinks if everything is alright.
What I've tried so far:
-I've done some stress tests with Furmark to the GPU, and its max. it doesnt exceed 77-78 degrees, playing CS:Go its weird I cross over 70. I also did a stress test to the CPU, and it doesnt exceed 65 after 10 minutes. But if I have the stress test of the CPU and I want to run the GPU test at the same time, as soon as it starts, the PC shuts down instantly, and back to the bad mood of knowing if it will actually turn on after 2 minutes or 2 days.
-I also updated the firmware of the motherboard and same results.
-Today I will try to flash the bios and change the battery to see if it changes anything.
-I dont know how to check if the PSU is what it's failing, but being so, it shouldn't turn on again... I anyways checked using OOCT, and the voltage levels seem to be within range, 3.36V, 4.99V, 11.82, and CPU 1.02V.
-I configured the 3D Nvidia panel for CS:Go, but neither default nor changing values prevents the game from crashing. Other games like League of Legends work just fine and never fail or crash the PC.
-I checked that the maximum amperage of the extension cable to which the PC is connected , and checked using other plugs (direct connection to wall plug too) and nothing, I don't know if there is any ESD issue.
It's been a while I investigate what it can be, and I've read it can be the motherboard, the PSU, GPU, CPU and yeah, I dont know because I couldnt find anybody that lives exactly the same as me (I mean the PC turning on whenever he pleases). And that is why I dont know where to start...
Please I accept guidance/help/advice for what it can be, as being quarantined I have no access to other components to be able to test, but I have access to amazon to buy anything.
PC specs:
- CPU: Intel core i7 950 a 3.07GHz
- Mobo: ASUS P6T SE
- GPU: MSI Nvidia geForce GTX 470 twin frozr ii
- RAM: 12GB DDR3 6x2GB 1066Mhz
- PSU: Corsair GS700
- Display: Samsung C24F396FHU
- Case: NOX similar to COOLBAY SX, with frontal fan of 12 cm that pushes air in, a sideways fan of 20 cm that pushes air directly to the GPU, CPU and mobo, and a fan of 8cm that draws air out.
Thank you!"
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