Need help with a computer issue

WeatherMan

WeatherMan

Active Member
Hi guys, not been on here for a long time, but prepare for a long post!

Background info

This morning I tinkered in the BIOS to try and get a DVD disc to boot so I could use it for another persons PC that I'm working on, the DVD did not boot until I switched my SATA controller into IDE mode, this made Windows fail to boot. Switching back to AHCI mode fixed this. I then turned off the PC and removed the DVD drive, then booted back into Windows 10 on my PC, and used it for about an hour without issue, then turned it off.

Fast boot was enabled, and boot logo was disabled, but I then reset them back afterwards.

Boot devices were also switched around this morning in the BIOS from #1 SSD to #1 Optical drive and left like that, without issue after removing the DVD drive.

About 10 hours later I came home to turn the PC on (the DVD drive is still at my friends house).

I turn the PC on and it will restart within 2 and 6 seconds.

First off the CPU fan spins up, but then stops, (It's done this for a few months) and the same thing happens if I connect it to a system fan header, if I connect another fan to the CPU fan header then the spin is continuous, ruling out a bad header.

I thought this may be overheating, so stuck the good fan on the heatsink which runs properly, still the same issue.

The PC shows a display on the monitor approximately every 3 or 4 boots but nothing in between, and when it does, it will only show the "UEFI DualBIOS" screen, which is blank, the keyboard does not respond either, even with ctrl alt del. The system reboots before anything else displays and then continues a reboot cycle.

The BIOS has been reset, the PSU has been tested and has no issues, the GPU, RAM, Soundcard and HDD's have been removed from the motherboard, and just the board, 1 stick of ram, and PSU has been powered up using onboard VGA but still give the exact same issue.

Does anyone have an idea what my next step should be, or the likely culprit hardware? I myself am leading towards a bad BIOS/motherboard.

Thanks! Jason
 
johnb35 said:
bios jumper or removal of cmos battery?

Could be a short somewhere. Try building it outside of the case on a piece of card board.


If other options I gave you don't work, this would be a good diagnosis.
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Hi John, it was reset with the jumper, going to remove the battery now. I forgot to mention that PC has been stripped from the case, I'm diagnosing on my desk with the motherboard and PSU at the minute
 
WeatherMan said:
1 stick of ram
Click to expand...
Have you tested with all your stick of RAM individually? Like 1 by 1 in slot 1 to boot? I've had bad RAM before where it wouldn't post if I had any bad RAM in there at all.

Do you have a voltmeter to check what's the voltage reading on your CMOS battery?
 
Iended up falling asleep during the early hours so put the battery back in this morning, still the same issue, also it's every 3 boots, not 4 that I get the UEFI DualBIOS screen appear

Intel_man said:
Have you tested with all your stick of RAM individually? Like 1 by 1 in slot 1 to boot? I've had bad RAM before where it wouldn't post if I had any bad RAM in there at all.

Do you have a voltmeter to check what's the voltage reading on your CMOS battery?
Click to expand...

Thanks I've just tried that, stick #1 in each slot one at a time, repeated with stick #2 and still getting nowhere.

I do have a multimeter at my mums, so will try that when I get there with my PC, I was thinking of swapping out the battery from another PC just as I read your post actually!

I've got some spare parts at home so can try this motherboard with another PSU, CPU and RAM later today, and also dump all my PC's components into a working board just to make sure.

Just for info the board is a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H, and it's only been running for around 3 years

EDIT: Just Googled the issue and have found quite a few threads with the exact same issue, one with the same board as mine
 
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Hi again, just a quick question.

I know I'm going to have to reinstall windows once I change motherboard, and my Windows 10 was an upgrade from 8. Can I install 10 with my serial key for 8 or do I have to install my copy of 8 again and then upgrade to 10?

Bare in mind that Windows will think I'm using this copy on a 2nd PC, due to the different motherboard.

About the motherboard:

I've dumped a spare CPU and RAM into the board and still have the issue, I'm going to pull the optical drive from my dads laptop and connect it up to get me as close to how my system was before it went haywire, and test again.

If this doesn't work I'll put my original CPU and RAM into my spare board which should then work, confirming a bad mobo, I'm also picking up my original DVD drive tomorrow so I can retest with that connected, but I'm 95% sure it's the motherboard.

I'm going to run my system on my spare MATX board for a while until I have funds to buy a new one, what's the best socket 1155 board to go for with a budget of around £80?

Minimum requirements are 2 dimm slots that can run at 1866Mhz, and a single PCI-E socket

Thanks
 
If its a totally different motherboard as in chipset/hardware, you'll have to ring up microsoft and tell them the motherboard took a hit and you had to replace it. You can just fresh install 10 using the windows 8 key.
 
i had a similar problem. i had a Z77x-ud5h gigabyte board. did this to me and then died. it would then switch on and then die immediately. i think your mobo is on its way out.
 
johnb35 said:
If its a totally different motherboard as in chipset/hardware, you'll have to ring up microsoft and tell them the motherboard took a hit and you had to replace it. You can just fresh install 10 using the windows 8 key.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm downloading the Windows 10 Professional ISO now from Microsoft, I will call them up and tell them what happened.

Should I remove the PC device from my microsoft account, or leave it there for now so when I call they know there was a previous system using the product key?
 
Hi again, been a while since I posted, lost one of my small dogs!

I've been testing for quite a few hours now and here is where I'm up to so far!

The old Gigabyte motherboard wont come out of its dualbios boot sequence no matter what, I've changed the PSU, RAM, GPU, CPU, battery, cleared CMOS, removed all devices, put my old optical drive back in. No combination fixes the boot issue, so I've come to the conclusion that the board is dead. I've emailed Gigabyte for RMA (it's 3 months out of warranty) and they are willing to test it, but going by other threads I'll not get a repair, and due to no warranty it will not be replaced.

At this point I know the Gigabyte motherboard is dead

I then went to stick all of my components onto a smaller MATX board that I know is working, without the graphics card. Installed Windows 10 without issue.

I then installed the GTX670, booted up and installed the drivers, the next time I went to boot the system would either black screen or restart instantly, on the odd occasion I could get to windows the system would freeze up or give me blackouts in 2D mode whilst browsing the internet.

I then decided to test my GTX670 in another machine, here it will boot but I cannot run any 3D applications, I get massive artifacting after 3 seconds, I have the same result with different PSU's and RAM.

At this point I know that my Gigabyte board is dead, and I'm pretty sure my GTX670 is dead.

I then installed a GT520 into my MATX motherboard to see if the board was functioning correctly.

The board will boot up with the graphics card installed.

Errors occur when I try to run benchmarks or run games, I get a system freeze which sometimes hangs up the audio, sometimes it doesn't.

I've also tried to downclock the card, this makes the system stable for longer but the freeze does eventually happen. This happens in both 2D and 3D modes, more frequent in fullscreen 3D, Many times the system will finish a 3D application, and freeze upon exit resulting in a blank screen, this only comes back if I unplug and replug the HDMI cable, and will not come back unless I press CTRL-ALT-DEL.

To eliminate the issue I've tested the ram with 2 passes with 0 errors. Tried one stick of ram at a time in different slots, tried multiple power supplies, stress tested the CPU with prime95 and GPU with furmark (no issues), cleared CMOS, disabled intel turbo mode and C1E/EIST/Speedstep.

The only way I can make this system stable is to run the sytstem on intergrated graphics. So I'm thinking that this board has an issue with PCI-E graphics cards?

System temps are fine:

Ambient Temp: 23c

CPU - (Idle - 30c) (Load - 67c) TJmax 105
GPU - (Idle - ) (Load - 69c) TJmax101

As an overview:

My GTX670 seems to bed bad
RAM has been tested and is OK
CPU has been stress tested and is OK
Board is OK with onboard graphics, but not with PCI-E Cards

Which do you guys think is the best next step to take?

I know my Gigabyte board is dead, (being thrown away). I'm pretty sure I have a bad GTX670, and a MATX (Asus PH861-I R2.0) motherboard that does not like any graphics card installed.

I cannot find my other Socket 1155 CPU to test, but don't think I need to, as Prime95 showed no errors, I'd surely be having many more errors than just 3D freezing if I had a bad CPU?

I'm going to swap out my GT520 with a spare GT520 tonight just to make sure I don't have 2 bad cards!

What would be the most common reason for these simultanious failures, a power surge? Around the time that I first see issues was the same time there was a huge electrical storm in the area, and I didn't have a surge protector at the time.

My most probable next step would be to buy a new card and board, but in which order? Lol
 
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Update

Just had a freeze with onboard graphics, just sitting on the desktop, although it seems to be ok for now

Ill be bringing back the other GT520 tonight to see if the freezing issues are still there, as well as the second CPU if I can find it

If none of the above work then I'll be ordering a new board whilst I wait for the M-ITX one to be RMA'd.
 
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