Question Which of my components is causing my PC to NOT boot?

[fzavier]

Hi greetings!

This is my first time in the forum, posting my 1st ever thread. I really need guidance from all of you as I have a new PC that I built near the end of 2021 and it just stopped working 1 day after 6 months of usage. I built it around Sept of 2021. The last I had it working fine was at the end of Mar 2022.

I have since replaced the motherboard as well as the PSU to new ones, It just powered ON for a few seconds & then died out just like before. Nothing seems to work. I bought another new motherboard and this replaced the GPU as well. Same thing happened. I am just at my wits ends as to what I should do next. This is the 3rd motherboard that I bought. When I checked the PSU using the paper clip method I find that the fan does spin showing that the PSU is OK. But my build didn't turn ON at all. Which of the components is giving me this problem and what I should do? I brought it to the local repair shop but they don't know how to solve it either. Please help me guys! Thank you all so much.

The original build Specs as below;

Mobo	MSI B450M MORTAR MAX
CPU	Ryzen 5 2600
Ram	KINGSTON FURY X RGB 8GBx2 16GB 3200Mhz
HDD	Seagate 1TB BarraCuda 3.5 SATA 64MB 7200RPM Internal Hard Disk / Hard Drive (ST1000DM010)
nVMe	Transcend NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 MTE110S M.2 SSD (128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB)
PSU	Cooler Master MWE 550 Bronze V2 PSU, 230V, 80 Plus Bronze, 88% Efficiency, DC-to-DC + LLC, EP
Case	COOLER MASTER MASTERBOX Q300L (MCB-Q300L-KANN-S00)
CPU Cooler	Thermaltake UX100
GPU	Asus GT710-4H-SL-2GD5 2GB GDDR5 Graphic Card (Support 4 Monitors)

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

When I checked the PSU using the paper clip method I find that the fan does spin showing that the PSU is OK.
The paperclip test is flawed, it merely shows you it can output power. What it doesn't tell you is how much power it can effectively output.

MSI B450M MORTAR MAX
Your motherboard has a Flash BIOS button on the back of your motherboard, refer to page 40 on your motherboard manual;
https://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/mb/E7B89v1.1.pdf
and see if you can flash the BIOS without the CPU, ram and discrete GPU in there.

 

[fzavier]

Thank you! Will give that a try.

 

[fzavier]

Hi just tried to re-flash the bios and I was able to do it and it successfully flashed . After that I bench tested a bare minimum of a motherboard, CPU, CPU cooler, graphics card and rams on top of the motherboard box and tried to boot but still failed to boot or post. Nothing worked, zero. Not even the fans were spinning on the power supply or the CPU cooler fan. After trying many many times by removing all 2 rams and inserting one by one in the ram slots 1 ram stick at time, it still failed. After each time I tested with the ram I also removed the CMOS battery and reset the BIOS before doing the test each time. It failed all the time. Since the rams tried were quiet new ones, its impossible that they don't work at all. If not the rams could the CPU be the culprit? Will a dead CPU (no idea why or how that happened) be preventing the POST? Which is the likely culprit. Earlier I managed to revive the same motherboard and managed to flash the BIOS successfully using an USB and the flash button at the back of the motherboard. It was flashed as it completed the cycle completely as it should. SO I know the motherboard was revived. But the bench test assembly still failed to post. Please help.

 

[fzavier]

When I was flashing the BIOS, the PSU was connected and worked well as it was also a new unit. When I flashed the BIOS, the fans of the PSU spinned continuously. So no issues there. Its only when I tried to minimal boot during the bench test that it simply failed to boot.

 

[fzavier]

I cant even see any lights or ANY signs of life during the minimal boot. When I cleaned the motherboard earlier I also visually checked for any visible damage physically, There were none. Visually there is no damage.

 

[geofelt]

The 700 series cards was at the transition point between legacy(monochrome text oriented) and uefi(graphic with color).
A gt710 graphics card may need a legacy bios to be detected.

 

[fzavier]

I replaced that gt710 with a new RX-580 because I feared that the gt710 could be one of the parts that might be problematic. I just replaced new parts of the parts I suspected to be the cause of the problems. So I am not using the gt710 anymore. The RX-580 should be compatible.

 

[DaleH]

I replaced that gt710 with a new RX-580 because I feared that the gt710 could be one of the parts that might be problematic. I just replaced new parts of the parts I suspected to be the cause of the problems. So I am not using the gt710 anymore. The RX-580 should be compatible.

I suggest you use the info at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/t...rformance/windows-boot-issues-troubleshooting to help you narrow down the problem.

 

[fzavier]

I suggest you use the info at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/t...rformance/windows-boot-issues-troubleshooting to help you narrow down the problem.

Thanks! Will look at it.

 

[fzavier]

Its not a windows boot issue though since the basic bare bone bench test also could not get a fan spinning or have any signs of life.

 

[DaleH]

Its not a windows boot issue though since the basic bare bone bench test also could not get a fan spinning or have any signs of life.

Can you get a PSU for troubleshooting purposes?

 

[fzavier]

Can you get a PSU for troubleshooting purposes?

I bought another brand new PSU which resulted in the same predicament. Both PSUs I used were brand new so I know the PSU is not the cause though. Since I managed to re-flash the mobo without the CPU, Rams, etc as the motherboard had a button at the back for the flash function (as explained earlier) it seemed to have went dead as I added in the CPU, rams etc. In fact I bought another brand new ram (just 1 stick for testing purposes) and nothing worked. Somehow I feel it could be the CPU that is causing the issue, since a dead CPU could stop the mobo from posting, correct me if I'm wrong. The CPU is the Ryzen 5 2600 which I bought in 2021 when I first built this PC. Could it be the CPU from what I explained? All 3 mobos that I bought ended the same way. Appreciate any ideas.

 

[fzavier]

The only thing I have not bought yet is a new CPU and pretty much all the rest are replaced with new parts. If I bought a new CPU can I re-use any of the 3 mobos that has failed to post with the current CPU I have? Or are they completely gone? I hardly ever used the 2 which all I ever did was flicked on the wall socket switch and they never got past anything. If the CPU I have now is the cause of the 2 new mobos not working at all, could it be that the 2 new mobos were damaged by the CPU already? If yes, would it also damage the new CPU if I bought it & placed it in the 2 new mobos?