Question Random restarts to No Display, please help me troubleshoot components

[NoCoS]

Hello,

I would appreciate some help troubleshooting the below before I start RMAing random components.

As of about a month ago the PC started rebooting randomly. At first it was when running specific games in full screen (ex. Shogun 2), then it devolved into restarting whenever I'd launch a full-screen game. Yesterday it restarted when watching a video on VLC and the display never came back on. During all this it never once overheated according to the BIOS temp stats.

As of this moment the PC lights up when turning it on, the fans are all working, the mobo lights are on, the RAM RGB lights are on and no error beeps are sounding. However both my screens are saying "no input signal detected", at all, from the very start (not even the POST screen shows up).

I tried using the on-board HDMI port assuming it would default to it but I'm having the same problem. Right now I'm between Mobo/PSU as the possible culprits since the Mobo HDMI output is also showing me nothing but I might be way off in my assessment.

GPU is EVGA GTX1080 FTW2
PSU is EVGA 650G3
Mobo is MSI Arsenal Gaming Tomahawk
RAM is 2sticks of GSkill

Anyone have any ideas? I've looked through various similar threads on the net but none match these exact symptoms

 

[NoCoS]

Update in case anyone sees this:

Pulled out some old parts from storage for testing.

• Replaced the PSU and removed the GPU: still no signal from the Mobo HDMI.
• Put back the current PSU and removed the GPU: still no signal from the Mobo HDMI
• Replaced the GTX with an old Radeon and ran a DVI to a screen, a glimmer of hope: The screen displayed a message that a hardware change was detected and allowed me to access the BIOS. After saving changes and exiting, the situation reverted to 'no signal' on the monitor. The old Radeon is significantly louder so this allowed me to hear the GPU spinning up its fan, then spinning it down, then up then down, like the system was experiencing sequential restarts.

I'm starting to lean towards a Mobo issue or perhaps it's a drive issue. The reason why I'm not seeing pre-drive-access stuff on the display might be because the system is booting up too fast to "catch" them since the screen goes through a whole idle/on cycle which takes a few seconds.

 

[NoCoS]

Update: What the hell.

Forgot the PC on in its original problematic configuration while I was using the laptop.

Only 1 screen connected to the GTX via DVI.

Notice it was on so I gave it one last off/on via the power button. The goddamn thing booted up and is now running "normally". I fully expect it to restart at any moment. It's almost as if it got a required amount of auto-restarts out of its system.

Disabled automatic restart so perhaps I'll get a message to further follow up on.
Noted that windows is presenting a message "failed to update".

At this point I'm just adding to this thread for future reference in case anyone needs it.

 

[NoCoS]

Update: Despair

Yup it rebooted again and went back to the ol' "no signal detected".

I now know that if I let it "do its thing" in that state for a while it will eventually manage to load into windows after a restart.

I'm guessing this means it's not GPU/PSU related as I managed to run several stress tests in FURMARK that went swimmingly.

This evening I'll be double-checking any and all connectors to make sure they're properly seated, hunting for iffy capacitors on the mobo and maybe attempting a CMOS reset because why the hell not.

 

[epsilodyne]

I've got eerily similar issues. While I haven't solved them yet, I thought I'd share my "process" so far.

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600X
GPU: GTX 1060 (but I tried others that I can confirm work)
Mobo: ASRock X570 Steel Legend
PSU: 700W and 750W EVGA units, both "Gold" efficiency
RAM: Two 8 GB G.Skill RGB sticks

My video output suddenly blacked out in the middle of a game a few weeks back, and I had no option but to shut down. Couldn't get the PC to boot back up for the rest of the night. I was getting 5 beeps which apparently signifies video output problems.

After doing.. seemingly nothing new, it spontaneously booted properly, but then the random black screens/restarting began. No blue screen, and no discernible pattern, just a sudden loss of video that would sometimes recover after a few seconds, and other times never recover without reboot. My CPU doesn't have onboard video, but I tried two other GPUs and still ran into issues.

I swapped out the PSU, still random blackouts. Tried every possible configuration with my RAM, still happens. Even reset the CMOS battery, nothing

Whenever I change anything there's a chance it'll go back to beeping and giving no video. A couple of times I even got stuck in a boot-loop. Eventually it always starts booting up properly again, but the random black screens and forced restarts still occur.

My RAM is old, and I've got a replacement on the way. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll have to do something about the Mobo or CPU.

Hope at least one of us figures out what this is. It really sounds like it might be the same thing. Good luck to you!

 

[epsilodyne]

The RAM wasn't the issue.

I tried swapping the GPU to the secondary PCIe slot to see if it was just that primary slot that was screwed up. I was able to run it normally for a couple of hours, but then it suddenly blacked out on me again when I least expected it. It's better than the 30 minutes of use I was getting before at least.

At this point I'm pretty sure it has to be the board though, it's too strange to think that changing PCIe slots would even have an impact if it wasn't.