Question Z790H dying or PSU issue or something entirely different?

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Lodashi

Lodashi

Jun 4, 2025
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0
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Howdy everyone, first time I've resorted to posting a question as I'm absolutely baffled and confused.

Specs first:
Motherboard - ROG STRIX Z790-H
CPU - Intel i9-13900k, no turbo boost because it started killing itself (I caught it on time though)
RAM - 64GB Kingston Fury
GPU - 3080TI, Gigabyte
PSU - Corsair HX1200

Age - Built April 2023

The question/incident:

My PC shut down out of nowhere. No load except a youtube video playing with music while I was working on a work laptop (entirely separate, including power bar).
Power button did absolutely nothing. Press - nothing. Hold - nothing. No fan spin, no electric sound, no beeps boops or boinks.
The RGB lights on the Motherboard were working in "passive" or "sleep" mode I guess, cycling a rainbow.

So I troubleshot:
  1. Turn PSU off/on, unplug & replug cable
  2. Completely unplug from power, hold power button down for ~2min
  3. Connect directly to power bar, bypassing UPS, check if UPS is fine (it is)
  4. Disconnect and unseat GPU
    1. Check GPU headers, got voltage so ruled out PSU partially
  5. Reseat RAM, scrub pads just in case they got gunky somehow
  6. Disconnect and reconnect power button headers
  7. Short power pins using flathead
  8. Unplug and re-plug Motherboard power header (about 10 times)
    1. Also check voltage, got 12v on the pins so ruled out PSU entirely
  9. Loosen CPU cooler screws
  10. Tighten CPU cooler screws
  11. Disconnect CPU cooler cable, reconnect
  12. Try CPU cooler cable on all other headers - AIO Pump fan header, Case fan header, anything that matched the header type and would fit
    1. I did this based on my knowledge that the Z270E wants a CPU cooler connected to even start as a failsafe to protect the CPU
  13. Verified no hairs, bugs, or any metal or any other foreign object were on the front or back of the Motherboard causing a short
I also ran the entire system with an air compressor, everything was blown and dusted.

At this point I concluded (sadly) that the Motherboard was done, only 2 years old but RIP.

10 minutes later, as I was dusting off my old PC to use as a backup while I can send off this one for a second opinion and testing with compatible spare parts, IT TURNED ON BY ITSELF.

I was approx. 1 meter away and it just lit up randomly. It showed me the BIOS (Press F1 to configure) screen, and an F10 later it just booted without issue.

I have no idea what this is or how to even approach troubleshooting anything like this.

Any ideas? Anyone else ever had something like this happen?
 
Last edited:
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Update: PC just had a BSOD, ntfs.sys error code.

This is getting really weird and I don't understand where this instability is coming from so suddenly with no system changes in the last ~6 months.
 
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COLGeek said:
Did it start normally when you did this?

You likely have some Windows corruption form the previous shutdowns. Have you run DISM and SFC to repair/check the help of Windows?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...em-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e
Click to expand...
Doing that now, I'm starting to suspect the same thing and that the BSOD is "natural" after a bad shutdown like this.

geofelt said:
I7-13900K is not supported on your ROG Strix Z270E motherboard:
https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-strix/rog-strix-z270e-gaming-model/helpdesk_cpu/
No doubt a typo.

Is the bios level current?

My guess would be a psu related issue.
Click to expand...
Apologies, am dumb and confused my old PC Mobo with the new one.

Correct one is ROG STRIX Z790-H. Updating topic as well to correct error.
 
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COLGeek said:
Did it start normally when you did this?

You likely have some Windows corruption form the previous shutdowns. Have you run DISM and SFC to repair/check the help of Windows?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...em-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e
Click to expand...
SFC found errors and fixed them.
Ran DISM CheckHealth, ScanHealth - both state "No component store corruption detected".

I now assume, hopefully correctly, that the ntfs.sys BSOD was indeed caused by the abnormal shutdown.

I have also shutdown (not restarted) the PC 2 more times and it boots up like nothing even happened.

My original incident still confuses me.
 
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Lodashi said:
SFC found errors and fixed them.
Ran DISM CheckHealth, ScanHealth - both state "No component store corruption detected".

I now assume, hopefully correctly, that the ntfs.sys BSOD was indeed caused by the abnormal shutdown.

I have also shutdown (not restarted) the PC 2 more times and it boots up like nothing even happened.

My original incident still confuses me.
Click to expand...
Is that with or without the GPU installed?
 
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COLGeek said:
Is that with or without the GPU installed?
Click to expand...
With, the PC is in the exact same configuration as it was pre-crash. CPU & GPU have normal-sounding fan spin and temps are looking normal.

My current issue is Firefox tabs crashing, including while I type this out, so I suspect something is definitely wrong/not OK.

Could this be my 13900k finally dying? I thought I had saved it by completely turning off Turbo and it's now running at a permanent 3Ghz, but I just don't know.
 
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Lodashi said:
With, the PC is in the exact same configuration as it was pre-crash. CPU & GPU have normal-sounding fan spin and temps are looking normal.

My current issue is Firefox tabs crashing, including while I type this out, so I suspect something is definitely wrong/not OK.

Could this be my 13900k finally dying? I thought I had saved it by completely turning off Turbo and it's now running at a permanent 3Ghz, but I just don't know.
Click to expand...
What CPU cooler are you using?
 
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COLGeek said:
See if there is a BIOS update available for your motherboard. If so, install it.

If not, make sure your BIOS is reset to its default settings.

Need a solid baseline to troubleshoot from.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I cannot reset BIOS to defaults since it would also reset the CPU to have its Boost and cause even more issues.

I'll see for updating it but I'm not hopeful.

At this time I can't do much sadly. Programs crash randomly, games won't even go past loading screens, getting EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) a lot.

During writing this out, the Firefox tab crashed 2x.

sfc /scannow no longer works, hangs at 29% and complains about locked resources. DISM no longer work, throw errors about locked resources.

Getting a feeling this is a write-off.
 
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COLGeek said:
Try booting with a Live Linux distro, just to see how the hardware works with a different OS (you don't need to install Linux to do this, it will run from memory via a USB drive).
Click to expand...
I will attempt this if my current attempt to update the BIOS is not successful in resolving the problems.

I'm updating to version 3001 (looking at the progress bar right now). Fingers crossed this does something.
 
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