Question Troubleshooting possibly dead computer?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
N

NMyan

Jan 6, 2020
22
0
10
-edit- UPDATED First Post
Hey guys, new user here. I think I may have bricked my computer. Need help troubleshooting.

It's an oldish rig, built myself, hadn't been dusted in awhile. Computer had issues with stuttering, random freezes, occasional powering off, particularly when running games. Thought it was dust.

Opened the case up, dusted it off. Didn't use an anti-static wristband, but did use anti-static gloves. Graphics card was running very hot, so took it out, dusted it, wiped the top down with alcohol pads and sprayed it with compressed air. Let it dry for fifteen minutes or so. Put everything back together.

Now I'm not getting any signal to my monitor. Computer powers up and interior LED lights go on, but there's no signal. Not sure if I broke the video card, fried something through my gloves, reinstalled it the wrong way, plugged something into the wrong spot etc. It might also have been a completely different component failing FAIK.

Any advice? What steps would I take to troubleshoot this issue?

Hey guys, having multiple issues with my computer. The issues have been evolving somewhat, so I've updated the first post to reflect both what's going on, and the things I've tried.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Intel Core(TM) i7-4770 @ 3.40GHz
Intel 8 Series Chipset SATA AHC1 Controller
NVIDIA GeForce GTX780
Realtek 8821AE Wireless LAN 802.11ac PCI-E NIC
Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
WDC WD5001FZWX-00ZHU SCSI
Kingston RBU-SC4 SCSI
Matshita BD-CMB UJ160 CdRom
500w power supply
Windows 7
--------------------------------------------------------------

ISSUE
My computer keeps locking up, rebooting itself, and/or ceasing to send signals to my monitor, sometimes multiple times a day. The issue is most pronounced when running games (multiple games have been tried, issues generally occur within ten minutes), although these problems have happened a few times when not under load, too. The strangest lockup occurred a few nights ago, where I was not only unable to get signals to my monitor, but I was also unable to power off my computer (had to pull the plug out at the wall). When issues occur, reboots clear up any problems.


STUFF TRIED
So far, the following has been done:
Updated, and rolled back, drivers (no improvement)
AV scans with Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes (no issues detected)
Dusted and cleaned interior
Checked heat levels of CPU and GPU (seem normal? 35-40 degree range without load)
Disabled hibernation mode
Ran Windows system file checker (no issues detected)
Verified integrity of running software (no issues detected)


Any help troubleshooting and fixing this problem would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Sort by date Sort by votes
Barty1884 said:
Unless you were shuffling around on carpet, or petting your cat/dog (etc) with one hand while cleaning with the other, chances are you haven't damaged anything from a static standpoint.

Please post your full system specs.
Click to expand...

I'd love to... but I don't know them offhand, and I can't check my device manager because I can't get a monitor signal...!

ASUS motherboard
16gb RAM
nvidia GTX 780somethingorother
two harddrives, one solid one not
No clue what the CPU is, something from Intel
OS is Windows 7

Not very helpful, sorry.

Should I yank the case open again, look for model numbers etc?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
NMyan said:
Hey guys, new user here. I think I may have bricked my computer. Need help troubleshooting.

It's an oldish rig, built myself, hadn't been dusted in awhile. Computer had issues with stuttering, random freezes, occasional powering off, particularly when running games. Thought it was dust.

Opened the case up, dusted it off. Didn't use an anti-static wristband, but did use anti-static gloves. Graphics card was running very hot, so took it out, dusted it, wiped the top down with alcohol pads and sprayed it with compressed air. Let it dry for fifteen minutes or so. Put everything back together.

Now I'm not getting any signal to my monitor. Computer powers up and interior LED lights go on, but there's no signal. Not sure if I broke the video card, fried something through my gloves, reinstalled it the wrong way, plugged something into the wrong spot etc. It might also have been a completely different component failing FAIK.

Any advice? What steps would I take to troubleshoot this issue?
Click to expand...


Remove the GPU and re-install it...sometimes they simply don't seat well or maybe some dust got in the pci-e slot. Also wouldn't hurt to double check your power cords are seated correctly (on both ends if using a modular supply)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
dorsai said:
Remove the GPU and re-install it...sometimes they simply don't seat well or maybe some dust got in the pci-e slot. Also wouldn't hurt to double check your power cords are seated correctly (on both ends if using a modular supply)
Click to expand...

Ah, GPU power cord. Those are the little black thingies poking out the side, correct?

I noticed there were two sets: one with six black plus, and one with six and two. With the six and two, do the two go on the inside, or the outside of the arrangement?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hi. I reinstalled the GPU. No change.

This is a very, very basic and stupid question, but on the rear of my tower, right where the mother is, there are additional ports labelled DVI, HDMI, and DisplayOut. Does this mean I have a builtin GPU? If so, will I need to do anything to get it to work (like physically remove my nvidia card), or can I just plug in some cables and go?

-edit- I'll wait for some more advice. Tried a DVI and an HDMI cable in the non-nvidia slots but got nothing.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
NMyan said:
This is a very, very basic and stupid question, but on the rear of my tower, right where the mother is, there are additional ports labelled DVI, HDMI, and DisplayOut. Does this mean I have a builtin GPU? If so, will I need to do anything to get it to work (like physically remove my nvidia card), or can I just plug in some cables and go?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily, no. It means the board is capable of a display out, if the CPU has an iGPU.

Did you try removing the GPU and testing?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hello gentleman, was thinking about everyone's advice last night. Actually had a "dream" where it was a problem with the PCI-E slot. Checked again this morning, reslotted/ recleaned the PCI-E slot, and that did the trick! Dorsai had it right, and now my monitor is getting signals again.

I'm not sure if my computer is actually fixed, though. Again, I've been having a lot of issues with crashes and hangs, and while hope this cleaning resolved things, it's too early to tell.

If problems persist, should I open a new thread? With hardware specs, of course.


-edit- Going to jot down specs here, so I have them in case the computer dies again.

Intel Core(TM) i7-4770 @ 3.40GHz
Intel 8 Series Chipset SATA AHC1 Controller
NVIDIA GeForce GTX780
Realtek 8821AE Wireless LAN 802.11ac PCI-E NIC
Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
WDC WD5001FZWX-00ZHU SCSI
Kingston RBU-SC4 SCSI
Matshita BD-CMB UJ160 CdRom
Windows 7
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Hi, it stopped working again. The computer was fine yesterday night, but when I woke up, it was no longer getting signals to the monitor. What's more, I was unable to reboot the computer, as the power button seems to be stuck.

After unplugging everything, and powering on/off, it is again sending signals to the monitor. I'm moving my data over to another harddrive; in the meantime, any ideas what might be causing this?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Is your PC in sleep mode/hibernation but won't wake up and thus the monitor remains dead? You try pressing the power button (did you hold the power button down for any length of time?) but nothing happens and the reset seems to do nothing?

Turning the power off/on at the wall fixes everything?
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
zx128k said:
Is your PC in sleep mode/hibernation but won't wake up and thus the monitor remains dead? You try pressing the power button (did you hold the power button down for any length of time?) but nothing happens and the reset seems to do nothing?

Turning the power off/on at the wall fixes everything?
Click to expand...

It should have been in sleep mode, but neither keyboard nor mouse input was effective to wake it up (this has happened at least once or twice over the past couple months). Pressing the power button down did nothing either (held it for at least thirty seconds; this has NOT happened before, first time seeing this behavior) but turning off/on at the wall "fixed" everything, in the sense that I was able to reboot and get a display again.

This particular issue is not currently repeating (power button is working again) but my computer shut down and hard rebooted, randomly, twice, while I was moving files. (that may have been because I fired up Steam; I will try leaving it without putting any great load on the CPU or GPU whatsoever)

rgd1101 said:
make and model of the psu?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure. all I can tell you offhand is it's 500w; where can I find the make/model of the psu? Will I need to open the case and inspect it manually?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
zx128k said:
You could try some of the following to see if that helps.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBtSkJePt0s


https://www.dell.com/support/articl...ernate-mode-but-will-power-on?lang=en#Refresh

Disable sleep or hibernate.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vflC60EZ1nA
Click to expand...

It's Win 7, not 10, but I'll try disabling hibernate.

I don't think it will fix much (most of the erratic behavior occurs while the computer and display are active), but maybe it will prevent the computer from locking up again tonight?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
zx128k said:
Does your computer lockup while you are using it?
Click to expand...

Sometimes, usually when running something very resource-intense (like games), but as mentioned earlier in the thread, it got locked in hibernate mode a couple nights ago, too.

After disabling hibernate, I was able to keep the PC running all night, backing up files; then, with backups complete, I tested a couple games, and within five to ten minutes they'd either frozen the computer, or triggered a loss of power followed by a sudden reboot. (specifically, the computer shuts off, reboots for a second or two, shuts off again, and then reboots again)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
NMyan said:
Sometimes, usually when running something very resource-intense (like games), but as mentioned earlier in the thread, it got locked in hibernate mode a couple nights ago, too.

After disabling hibernate, I was able to keep the PC running all night, backing up files; then, with backups complete, I tested a couple games, and within five to ten minutes they'd either frozen the computer, or triggered a loss of power followed by a sudden reboot. (specifically, the computer shuts off, reboots for a second or two, shuts off again, and then reboots again)
Click to expand...

Sounds like the computer is unstable. I would run https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026529/windows-10-using-system-file-checker and reinstall the graphic card drivers. Just to rule out file corruption as a cause of the freezes. Also I would reinstall the game you are testing.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
zx128k said:
Sounds like the computer is unstable. I would run https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026529/windows-10-using-system-file-checker and reinstall the graphic card drivers. Just to rule out file corruption as a cause of the freezes. Also I would reinstall the game you are testing.
Click to expand...

Ok. Per instructions for Win 7, I opened cmd.exe as an Admin, ran sfc /scannow, and got the message "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations".

So not a file corruption, I guess?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
NMyan said:
Ok. Per instructions for Win 7, I opened cmd.exe as an Admin, ran sfc /scannow, and got the message "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations".

So not a file corruption, I guess?
Click to expand...

Thats just the OS files. You can get freezes if the drivers or game files are corrupt as well. Freezes can also be caused by hardware issues. Like a bad OC for example.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
zx128k said:
Thats just the OS files. You can get freezes if the drivers or game files are corrupt as well. Freezes can also be caused by hardware issues. Like a bad OC for example.
Click to expand...

Drivers are up to date (first thing I checked when the problems started; problems persist with both current and rollback drivers), and games pass their file integrity checks.

What is OC? How might I test it?

-edit- another crash/ reboot this afternoon, this time under no load besides Youtube.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
NMyan said:
Drivers are up to date (first thing I checked when the problems started; problems persist with both current and rollback drivers), and games pass their file integrity checks.

What is OC? How might I test it?

-edit- another crash/ reboot this afternoon, this time under no load besides Youtube.
Click to expand...

I would uninstall the graphics card drivers with DDU https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html and reinstall them. If the freezes go away and then come back but then go away again when you reinstall the drivers. Then the drivers are being corrupted, with my rtx 2080 it was the gpu core/vRAM overclocked too high. I would get freezes with videos playing via the browser but not in most games. Stress testing with Control helped me get the graphic card stable.

The next step is stress tests to find if your PC is unstable hardware wise. With all the freezing and rebooting, you can get corruption of drivers and/or files. Sometimes freezes in games or playing videos that are caused by corrupted drivers. This is not to imply that bad hardware/overclocking can also be a cause.

If your system is overclocked in anyway, I would try stock settings. Verify normal operation, then start restoring any overclocks you have.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
zx128k said:
I would uninstall the graphics card drivers with DDU https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html and reinstall them. If the freezes go away and then come back but then go away again when you reinstall the drivers. Then the drivers are being corrupted, with my rtx 2080 it was the gpu core/vRAM overclocked too high. I would get freezes with videos playing via the browser but not in most games. Stress testing with Control helped me get the graphic card stable.

The next step is stress tests to find if your PC is unstable hardware wise. With all the freezing and rebooting, you can get corruption of drivers and/or files. Sometimes freezes in games or playing videos that are caused by corrupted drivers. This is not to imply that bad hardware/overclocking can also be a cause.

If your system is overclocked in anyway, I would try stock settings. Verify normal operation, then start restoring any overclocks you have.
Click to expand...


Huh. you know what? I just checked NVIDIA again, and the "current" driver for my GPU looks like it's just been rolled back by more than three months. Judging by the release number, it's even older than my rollback driver.

I'm running a third antivirus scan at the moment, but when that's finished, I'll try the tool you recommended and see what happens with this "new"/old driver. Hopefully it's just NVIDIA screwing up a few months worth of updates on an outdated card.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
OH GOD, THAT DIDN'T WORK.

So I installed the older drivers Nvidia recommended, and now no games are working at all. I went through a bunch of titles, and most CTD instantly; only one actually runs (Pathfinder Kingmaker), but it runs at about 2 FPS and causes my CPU load to shoot up to 98%.

Bizarrely, I can't even locate my GPU in my device manager anymore. Will run DDU and try installing the recommended driver again.

-edit- finally got the older drivers to work, but sadly I'm back to square one. Computer is still locking/crashing under load.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom