PC shut down spontaneously, no reaction when trying to power it up

mentosman8

Commendable
Mar 13, 2016
2
0
1,510
Specs: Mobo- MSI Z170A Gaming M5 ATX LGA1151
CPU- i7 6700K(no overclock)
MSI GTX 970(also no overclock)
EVGA NEX650 PSU.

Built this PC about a month ago, and tonight while gaming, my PC shut off suddenly, and has since(for a few hours now) been unable to boot. There's a small LED light next to the power connector for the mobo which stays lit up red(just indicates there's some power, not tied to system being on), but other than that pressing the power button yields no results, not even a nudge of the fans.

I've found no loose cables, and neither the CPU nor the GPU were running at any unusual temperature prior to the shutdown, so I'm on the assumption that the PSU failed out on me(since presumably it wouldn't take very much getting through it to keep one small LED running) and I have set up for an RMA for it.

That said, with it being at least a couple days until a replacement could arrive, I figured I would ask here if anyone has any alternate possibilities that could be causing this complete lack of anything happening that I can test in the meantime. The sooner I can get it back up the better, so if it's not the PSU making headway on trying alternative solutions would be beneficial.
 
Solution
It sounds like it is psu related. You may have gotten a bad part. To try to get it to start unplug the psu, then flip the switch on the psu, wait about 30 seconds or so and then plug the cord back in, flip the switch and see if it will power on. If that works then the only 2 things I can think of is you either have a defective psu (and it will crap out on you again at some point) or you may have had a surge of power strong enough to knock out your psu (and may never have any trouble again). I would fist start by trying the unplug flip the switch then plug it back in flip the switch and see if it will start.

If that doesn't work the best place to start would be with RMA the the psu at it is the most likely culprit.
It sounds like it is psu related. You may have gotten a bad part. To try to get it to start unplug the psu, then flip the switch on the psu, wait about 30 seconds or so and then plug the cord back in, flip the switch and see if it will power on. If that works then the only 2 things I can think of is you either have a defective psu (and it will crap out on you again at some point) or you may have had a surge of power strong enough to knock out your psu (and may never have any trouble again). I would fist start by trying the unplug flip the switch then plug it back in flip the switch and see if it will start.

If that doesn't work the best place to start would be with RMA the the psu at it is the most likely culprit.
 
Solution

mentosman8

Commendable
Mar 13, 2016
2
0
1,510
So, update: did a barrage of testing(including the two suggestions above), paper clip test(managed to get a fan to spin up, not that that guarantees anything), taking out/unplugging video card, disconnecting CPU power, manually bridging power cable pins, as well as(just to be thorough) unplugging both my HDD and SSD, all of which to no avail.

At this point I'm not sure if it's the power supply or motherboard. It seems much more odd to me the idea that the motherboard would just spontaneously die with no warning signs, so is my best bet to contact MSI about getting an RMA on the motherboard, wait to go through with it until I get the power supply replacement to test with, or is it more likely the power supply simply not providing enough power out of itself to let the motherboard communicate?
 


I would start with the psu, much more likely culprit.