So pretty much 6 months ago to the day, I put together my first computer ever. I was kind of intimidated at first, but I had a lot of fun and everything was working perfectly. Then suddenly, while playing a match of Dota 2 yesterday, my computer just up and freezes on me. Keyboard's locked, no access to the Task Manager, etc. Just a complete, hard freeze. Even the speakers were locked in their last audible tones. I figured the game just crashed, since it is still in beta, but I found it weird that I couldn't manage to get out of the game at all. So I do a hard reset and log back in. Continue playing for a couple more hours, and then just as I hit the windows button to close Skype... boom. Another freeze. At this point I'm starting to associate the freezing with Dota, so I scan for potential problems, run some fixes on Steam just in case, and call it an evening.
The next morning, I wake up and decide to run a Disk Defragment, as I had read that doing so could fix my problems with Dota 2. Only when I initiate the Analyze process of my C: drive, my computer freezes again, almost instantly. I decide to kind of sit there and wait a bit, just in case it's trying to push past some minor lockdown, but then my computer blacks out and resets itself. Only this time, it doesn't boot Windows back up, and has failed to do so since. In fact that the only thing that happens now when I try to start my computer is that my motherboard with display some LED codes, beeps 48 times, and then restarts itself, only to repeat the process. At first I thought that it must be the hard drive (SSD), since the problem only got worse when I tried to run a Disk Defrag. But then I realized that even if it was the hard drive, I should still be getting some sort of BIOS readings, shouldn't I? Does this mean that my motherboard/processor is actually the culprit, then? Because I'm currently getting nothing but beeps and black screens.
I'm really at a loss here. I consider myself pretty handy with computer troubleshooting, and I honestly don't even know where to begin. I'd go out and get new parts right this second if I knew what was actually causing trouble. I'm just honestly dumbfounded by how my computer would be absolutely fine for 6 months, show no signs of trouble, and then just suddenly stop functioning. Please help! I'll try to provide the community with as much information as I can.
Computer Specs:
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU - Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K
RAM - CORSAIR XMS3 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX16GX3M2A1600C11
Hard Drive - OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
PSU - CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX750 (CMPSU-750AX) 750W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
GPU - EVGA 02G-P4-2680-KR GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
OS - Windows 7 Home Edition
Things I've Tried:
Running a Disk Defragment (caused computer to freeze and stop booting correctly)
Reseting the BIOS Manually (hasn't done anything)
BIOS LED Error Codes:
My machines shows two LED error codes before booting up. The first one is a "15," which according to my BIOS manual is in reference to "Pre-memory North-Bridge initialization is started." I'm pretty sure this one was displaying first, even when my computer was functioning correctly. The second LED code is, sadly, unintelligible. The first character appears to be a backwards question mark, minus the dot at the bottom (for display reasons, obviously) and the second character is the number 1. I could find no reference to this character in my User Manual.
This computer is vital to my school work, and I desperately need to fix it as fast as possible, but I just don't... know... where... to start... I absolutely hate buying hardware components and then realizing that a certain replacement part wasn't actually the problem and then having to return it and buy yet another part. Does anyone have any idea what I can do to end this nightmare?
The next morning, I wake up and decide to run a Disk Defragment, as I had read that doing so could fix my problems with Dota 2. Only when I initiate the Analyze process of my C: drive, my computer freezes again, almost instantly. I decide to kind of sit there and wait a bit, just in case it's trying to push past some minor lockdown, but then my computer blacks out and resets itself. Only this time, it doesn't boot Windows back up, and has failed to do so since. In fact that the only thing that happens now when I try to start my computer is that my motherboard with display some LED codes, beeps 48 times, and then restarts itself, only to repeat the process. At first I thought that it must be the hard drive (SSD), since the problem only got worse when I tried to run a Disk Defrag. But then I realized that even if it was the hard drive, I should still be getting some sort of BIOS readings, shouldn't I? Does this mean that my motherboard/processor is actually the culprit, then? Because I'm currently getting nothing but beeps and black screens.
I'm really at a loss here. I consider myself pretty handy with computer troubleshooting, and I honestly don't even know where to begin. I'd go out and get new parts right this second if I knew what was actually causing trouble. I'm just honestly dumbfounded by how my computer would be absolutely fine for 6 months, show no signs of trouble, and then just suddenly stop functioning. Please help! I'll try to provide the community with as much information as I can.
Computer Specs:
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU - Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K
RAM - CORSAIR XMS3 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX16GX3M2A1600C11
Hard Drive - OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
PSU - CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX750 (CMPSU-750AX) 750W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
GPU - EVGA 02G-P4-2680-KR GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
OS - Windows 7 Home Edition
Things I've Tried:
Running a Disk Defragment (caused computer to freeze and stop booting correctly)
Reseting the BIOS Manually (hasn't done anything)
BIOS LED Error Codes:
My machines shows two LED error codes before booting up. The first one is a "15," which according to my BIOS manual is in reference to "Pre-memory North-Bridge initialization is started." I'm pretty sure this one was displaying first, even when my computer was functioning correctly. The second LED code is, sadly, unintelligible. The first character appears to be a backwards question mark, minus the dot at the bottom (for display reasons, obviously) and the second character is the number 1. I could find no reference to this character in my User Manual.
This computer is vital to my school work, and I desperately need to fix it as fast as possible, but I just don't... know... where... to start... I absolutely hate buying hardware components and then realizing that a certain replacement part wasn't actually the problem and then having to return it and buy yet another part. Does anyone have any idea what I can do to end this nightmare?
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