Possibly bricked MB

[WarrenPeace]

So I woke up this morning, rolled out of bed and tried to start up my computer. I hit the power button and it spent approximately 2 seconds with all the fans going before shutting down for about 4 seconds. It then tried to boot again, shut down, booted again, shut down, etc., until I held down the power button and got it to stop cycling.

I have disconnected all of the power, tried removing all of the RAM and testing it in isolation, removed all extra disk drives and devices, but I feel like these are not the problem because it happens so rapidly.

The motherboard I'm using is a MSI Z97 Gaming 7. When it boots, I can read the postcodes 10 and 5 before it shuts down. If anyone could help me figure out why my gaming PC suddenly decided to kick the bucket, I would be hella grateful.

 

[AntiSqueaker]

Might be the PSU? I had something similar happen when I got a new (unknowingly DOA) PSU and hooked it up. Fans would pop on for a second and then the mobo (MSI 970 AM3+) would just click at me angrily.

I hope it is the PSU, because I'd rather replace the PSU than a mobo to be honest.

 

[WarrenPeace]

I'll have to check. We have had some pretty gnarly thunderstorms in the last few days. It was working fine last night when I put it to sleep, but I have my fingers crossed.

 

[WarrenPeace]

OR I could go and do some errands and have the damn thing boot up on the third round of boot cycling. What was that thing attributed to Einstein? If you keep doing the same thing and getting different results, you're insane?

Now I'm dealing with a ...teal screen? It keeps throwing me into Windows automatic repair. Better than boot cycling I guess, but still a PITA.

 

[SeungRyul]

Be sure to try powering it on with the power plug disconnected to completely drain the capacitors and go out for lunch and come back and try again.

 

[Devil Doge]

clear allllll the cmos

 

[Knax]

ill arrange all of my old ram into a circle and sacrifice a cpu. let me know if it changes anything,

 

[Devil Doge]

ill arrange all of my old ram into a circle and sacrifice a cpu. let me know if it changes anything,

thats not just how you run star citizen without crashes?

 

[WarrenPeace]

I managed to boot in safe mode. Uninstalled the Nvidia graphic drivers, rebooted, and the system came up clean. No clue how my graphic drivers managed to fail so hard I couldn't even boot to bias, but all's well now.

EDIT: On a related note, plugging in the second video card to the PSU dramatically increases SLI performance.

 

[Azmodeth]

remove the RAM, and see what happens when you turn power on. Does it cycle right away or stay on beeping. If it cycles, put the RAM back, it's your connection to the PSU or the PSu it's self. Literally could be something shorting the green wire (wire 15) even on the motherboard, like if something changed the resistance, it could cycle endlessly... but RAM can also cause a cycling issue, as it has a certain degree of capacitance and it gets power right at POST, other things could be the motherboard, but less likely and even less likely the CPU

 

[thanatos73]

Having an MSI board myself (990FXA Gaming) I'm gonna lean toward the clear the CMOS. some of the OC settings can get corrupted on a sudden power loss, it just happened to me, yesterday. I don't have anything overclocked, but some of the settings were not right after the blizzard we had knocked out the power. The stupid thing crashed right in the middle of playing Ark.

 

[Grimbli]

I'll have to check. We have had some pretty gnarly thunderstorms in the last few days. It was working fine last night when I put it to sleep, but I have my fingers crossed.

Always shut down and click off surge protector. At least I do...

 

[DontTouchMyHoHos]

Sound like a cpu issue to me. This is what happened to me. I would check the cpu and check the pins on it. That could also be a cause to it.

 

[FireEmblem6]

Hopefully it is back up and running for you as usual! I keep mine plugged into a battery backup just to be on the safe side. Prevents unnecessary headaches most of the time.

 

[WarrenPeace]

I can bring this tale to a happy end; my computer is back to full operation, all drivers reinstalled and both videocards in SLI again. This calls for a drink!

 

[Azmodeth]

I can bring this tale to a happy end; my computer is back to full operation, all drivers reinstalled and both videocards in SLI again. This calls for a drink!

what fixed it

 

[Blind Owl]

what fixed it

Alcohol!

I have a great imagination.

 

[WarrenPeace]

what fixed it

Like I said, unplugged it and let it sit for a while as I ran errands, then managed to boot it into safe mode after getting some errors relating to the Nvidia drivers. I uninstalled and reinstalled them, and now it's running perfectly.

 

[mromutt]

This sounds like the psu to me as well. Do you have a paper clip or a psu tester? :p

Edit: Its worth picking up a $5 or $10 psu tester to have on hand, but I would also still check it even though its working now :)

 

[DeepDrum]

Good to see the problem got solved. If memory serves they did release a bad driver around that time and then corrected within a day or two. You'll be fine now I suspect.
I chuckled when reading all the surgery recommendations for your machine.

Always shut down and click off surge protector. At least I do...

I found that if I shut off my surge protector, I have to replace the CMOS battery every 3 months.
I confirmed this on 4 different computers running windows.
If a laptop has a dead or near dead main battery, the CMOS battery will continually die quickly if it there is no constant power.
I've got 6 months in since I stopped turning off the surge protectors doing that and all is well. I expect I will get much more life out of the CMOS battery now.
This is consistently reproducable.