PC Boots straight to bios

Was anything overheating before hand? Something might of burnt..

Do you actually get to bios settings? Is so thats good because that means your cpu works.

Maybe your copy of windows is corrupt the HDD died? Try putting the windows install disk and see what happens.

If you think any of your parts died I would just a boot disk to test the parts. one I used is Ultimate Boot Disk

Come to think of this. It has happened to me before and Re-installing windows solved my problem. If your windows dvd isn't OEM genuine, then maybe it is your install disk (faulty burn).

Does this motherboard have an LCD error code display? If so, boot the computer and view the error code(s) shown at startup. This will tell you if there is a bad piece of hardware.

My first instinct is to a) Make sure the CPU fan is actually running (even a good heatsink will keep it cool w/out a fan when not under load, so just because there's no smoke doesn't mean it's working) and b) Try moving the CPU 3/4 pin plug to a different fan header on the motherboard - use CPU2 if you have one.

This issue is commonly caused by one of three things:

1) CPU fan has stopped for some reason.
2) CPU fan works fine, but the connector or the header is not making contact or is bad and the motherboard *thinks* it isn't running.
3) The sensor on the motherboard isn't working to detect fan speed, resulting in the BIOS thinking the fan is not working and as a result it doesn't speed up the fan based on temp. This can result in a hot CPU and bad performance, sometimes CPU damage.

The line flashing may be due to the motherboard doing its normal boot tests and detecting an issue. While issue is being detected, it may flash a cursor. The BIOS will attempt to either reboot or redetect sensors, etc. that are not working correctly.

It means the bios thinks the fan is running too slow and you should fix it. Most bioses only allow fans to run down to 600 rpm.

Check the motherboard manual (or download it from the Asus website) for this error code. From a Google search, it appears this code means the system has handed control to the OS, but that may not be correct.

I would also ask if you installed by booting into the Windows installer using UEFI on the drive you installed from. The BIOS will give this option, but you should not use UEFI boot until the OS is installed as this can cause a corrupt OS install while the system is doing the whole install/reboot during initial setup.

Based on everything so far, I think the primary issue is a bad CPU fan header, but keep troubleshooting.

UEFI is a different type of boot. It's only supported by Win 7 and up and results in a much faster boot to Windows. If you installed from a USB drive, it may have defaulted to a UEFI boot because it detected Windows 8, and this may also explain your boot code.

I would still strongly recommend reinstalling Windows 8. If you install from a USB drive, you'll want to first boot to the BIOS, check your boot options and make sure the USB is the boot device and that it is NOT set to a UEFI option and is instead set to either ACPI or AHCI (one or the other will be the only option other than UEFI).

Install Win 8 to your SSD, then once installed, make sure the SSD is set as the first boot device (again, in BIOS) and that the UEFI option *IS* selected for this drive.

The problem occurs during Win8 installation if the drive being installed *from* is a USB set to UEFI because the MBR does not get correctly written to the main (SSD) drive and as a result your system will sometimes (or always) hang on boot and never reach Windows.




I think there are two things going on here: the fan or fan header for the CPU is bad.. I think it's the header as the new fan had the same issue. Either that, or your CPU fan profile in the BIOS is not set to AUTO.

In addition, at some point probably while something else was not functioning correctly (like a HOT CPU or UEFI/boot issue) either the BIOS became corrupt or the MBR became corrupt and as a result the system hung while trying to boot one of your PCI devices (sound or vid card).

My suggestion would be to:
1) Wipe the SSD. Start from scratch.
2) Flash the BIOS with a fresh BIOS.
3) Reinstall Win8 using the method described above.
4) Reinstall each of the cards having an issue *ONE* at a time, each time booting into BIOS to check for issues and keeping a close eye on MB error codes.
5) Once you rule out a card with an issue (or not, as I still think they're fine) move your CPU fan back to the correct header and see if it's working right, making sure the fan speed in BIOS is set to AUTO.

Please report back.

Sounds good. Good luck with the RMA.