- May 4, 2016
- 12
- 0
- 1,520
Hey guys,
I'm in a real pickle here. Whenever I boot up my PC, nothing is displaying. Windows doesn't come up, the BIOS splash doesn't present itself, nothing. Just a black screen. I want to give as many details as possible, but I understand that it may be a little long-winded, so I'll break my post up into three parts: the story of what I was doing that lead to the problem, the problem itself, and the troubleshooting I have tried. Any help or advice you can give would be GREATLY appreciated. Let's get started with what happened:
THE STORY:
So yesterday I had some spare time, and decided to fully backup my important files and restore my PC to like new, and also use the opportunity to install a few extra harddrives. Here's my setup:
Windows 10 Professional 64-bit
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI (rev 1.2) motherboard
16GB Vengeance DDR RAM (1600MHz)
Intel i7 4790K @ 4.0Ghz
EVGA GTX 980 SC
256GB SSD (OS drive)
3TB HDD (game drive)
3x 2TB HDD in RAID5 (music/picture/video/documents drive)
Corsair H60 liquid cooling
Corsair 850-watt PSU
Dual BenQ 2420Z monitors through Display Port.
So at first I backed up all my important files, and then restored Windows 10 Pro. It all went fine. Windows booted back up just fine. I added in the new 3x 2TB HDD, and installed AOMEI Partition Assistant (just personal preference), and formatted and wiped the new HDDs and my old 3TB drive. I just wanted to start fresh and wipe the drives before creating the RAID. That all went fine as well.
I then used the opportunity to update my BIOS. I noticed that I had been running version "F7", and the latest BIOS version on the Gigabyte website is "F10b", which was a beta BIOS, but it was the most recent revision, and was put up 3/3/2016, and I figured if nothing newer has come out in a year, it's probably stable. So I used Q-Flash in the BIOS and updated the BIOS. That all went fine, and I noted that the BIOS did in fact list the new BIOS revision. I spent some time looking around in the BIOS just to see if there was anything I wanted to change while looking for the RAID configuration settings (hadn't really messed around in this mobo's BIOS before). While poking around, I decided to disable the Intel graphics. I didn't think this would hurt, as I use my EVGA GTX 980 SC for my video output. I'm not sure if having it enabled reserves some of the processor's resources even when not in use, so I figured I would just disable it.
I then changed the HDD settings from AHCI to RAID. I then found the RAID configuration utility, and tried setting up the RAID5 of the three 2TB HDDs. When setting up the RAID, I had a Smart event/alert/activity/whatever on one of the drives. Now, this didn't startle me as I was actually re-purposing these drives from a 4-drive NAS unit where they were previously in use (I just figured I would throw the drives in my PC rather than use my NAS at all), and I knew one of the drives had failed, but I wasn't sure which one. That's why I was using 3 drives instead of 4. So I shut down the PC, and swapped out the bad drive with the other spare drive.
I then booted on the PC again to finally set up the RAID, when I noticed a couple of my fans weren't spinning. I figured I must have accidentally unplugged the fans while swapping out the HDD. So with the PC being on, I took off the back side panel, and noticed that I indeed did not connect the bottom and front air intake fans. So I plugged them into my PC case's speed controller (which also powers them), and they lit up and spun up just fine. I know it was bad practice to plug the fans in with the PC being on, but I figured with the power going through the chassis's speed controller, which gets IDE power from the PSU itself, I didn't really run a risk of shorting anything. Now, something you should know about my case. I have the RAIDMAX Scorpio V mid-tower case. At the time I thought it was cheap yet stylish, but let me tell you, it is a nightmare for cable management. There is nearly zero space in the back for extra cable storage, and that makes putting on the back side panel a nightmare of squeezing and pushing. So, while my PC was still on I kept trying to slide the panel on, but I just couldn't do it. So I shutdown the PC, and flipped it on it's side (the would-be glass panel side, but I had that side panel also off). With gravity working with me, I was able to push the back side panel on. I flipped the PC back upright, and turned it on, which leads me to...
THE PROBLEM:
So now that everything was connected just fine, and everything had previously been working, I then turned on my PC. However, nothing was displaying on the monitor. All I receive is a "no signal" message. No BIOS splash screen, no Windows, nothing. I notice that my top fans (air outake) which are linked to my CPU fan header speed up and slow back down every 20 seconds or so, almost like it keeps trying to boot. I was very concerned that NOTHING was displaying.
The motherboard has some decorative red LEDs which all lit up. The GTX 980 lit up. The hard drives spun up. Just nothing was displaying.
So I tried a few things to get it working...
MY TROUBLESHOOTING:
Well first thing I did was a power cycle. I powered down the PC, flipped off the PSU switch, and unplugged the power cord from the PSU. Plugged it all back in, turned it on, but nothing.
I then tried replugging in the Display Port cables on the video card and the monitor. Nothing.
I tried unplugging the new HDDs I installed, as well as ALL HDDs (including my SSD with Windows) in hopes that it would force the mobo to just boot to BIOS, but nothing.
I tried disconnecting the video card, RAM, and all cables running to the motherboard (CPU power, mobo power, front USB, etc) and reconnecting it all, but still nothing.
I tried taking out the GTX 980 video card, and connecting an HDMI cable to the motherboard's HDMI out, but still nothing.
I figured maybe the video wasn't coming out of the on-board HDMI port because I disabled the intel graphics in the BIOS, so I figured resetting the BIOS config through clearing the CMOS would fix that. So I powered down the PC, and taking out the motherboard's battery to clear the CMOS. I kept the battery out for nearly an hour and then put it back in. That didn't work. So I read in the mobo's manual that touching these two prongs on the mobo with a screwdriver shorts the battery and clears the CMOS. So I tried that, but nothing.
I also tried multiple monitors, and multiple video cords (both Display Port and HDMI).
CONCLUSION:
I feel like I've tried literally everything I can think of aside from requesting an RMA with Gigabyte. I bought the PC from CyberPowerPC back in spring of 2015 (they had a sale at the time, and the price difference between buying the parts individually vs their pre-built was a matter of $20). So I'm not sure how Warranty would go... I'm not sure if I should contact Gigabyte directly, or go through CyberPowerPC. Through CyberPowerPC, I have a 3-year labor, 1-year parts warranty. I really do not want to ship off my whole PC if it's just an issue with my motherboard. I'm not sure of the warranty I have on the motherboard, but I believe Gigabyte offers 3 years on their mobos.
Any advice, help, or suggestions you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
I'm in a real pickle here. Whenever I boot up my PC, nothing is displaying. Windows doesn't come up, the BIOS splash doesn't present itself, nothing. Just a black screen. I want to give as many details as possible, but I understand that it may be a little long-winded, so I'll break my post up into three parts: the story of what I was doing that lead to the problem, the problem itself, and the troubleshooting I have tried. Any help or advice you can give would be GREATLY appreciated. Let's get started with what happened:
THE STORY:
So yesterday I had some spare time, and decided to fully backup my important files and restore my PC to like new, and also use the opportunity to install a few extra harddrives. Here's my setup:
Windows 10 Professional 64-bit
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI (rev 1.2) motherboard
16GB Vengeance DDR RAM (1600MHz)
Intel i7 4790K @ 4.0Ghz
EVGA GTX 980 SC
256GB SSD (OS drive)
3TB HDD (game drive)
3x 2TB HDD in RAID5 (music/picture/video/documents drive)
Corsair H60 liquid cooling
Corsair 850-watt PSU
Dual BenQ 2420Z monitors through Display Port.
So at first I backed up all my important files, and then restored Windows 10 Pro. It all went fine. Windows booted back up just fine. I added in the new 3x 2TB HDD, and installed AOMEI Partition Assistant (just personal preference), and formatted and wiped the new HDDs and my old 3TB drive. I just wanted to start fresh and wipe the drives before creating the RAID. That all went fine as well.
I then used the opportunity to update my BIOS. I noticed that I had been running version "F7", and the latest BIOS version on the Gigabyte website is "F10b", which was a beta BIOS, but it was the most recent revision, and was put up 3/3/2016, and I figured if nothing newer has come out in a year, it's probably stable. So I used Q-Flash in the BIOS and updated the BIOS. That all went fine, and I noted that the BIOS did in fact list the new BIOS revision. I spent some time looking around in the BIOS just to see if there was anything I wanted to change while looking for the RAID configuration settings (hadn't really messed around in this mobo's BIOS before). While poking around, I decided to disable the Intel graphics. I didn't think this would hurt, as I use my EVGA GTX 980 SC for my video output. I'm not sure if having it enabled reserves some of the processor's resources even when not in use, so I figured I would just disable it.
I then changed the HDD settings from AHCI to RAID. I then found the RAID configuration utility, and tried setting up the RAID5 of the three 2TB HDDs. When setting up the RAID, I had a Smart event/alert/activity/whatever on one of the drives. Now, this didn't startle me as I was actually re-purposing these drives from a 4-drive NAS unit where they were previously in use (I just figured I would throw the drives in my PC rather than use my NAS at all), and I knew one of the drives had failed, but I wasn't sure which one. That's why I was using 3 drives instead of 4. So I shut down the PC, and swapped out the bad drive with the other spare drive.
I then booted on the PC again to finally set up the RAID, when I noticed a couple of my fans weren't spinning. I figured I must have accidentally unplugged the fans while swapping out the HDD. So with the PC being on, I took off the back side panel, and noticed that I indeed did not connect the bottom and front air intake fans. So I plugged them into my PC case's speed controller (which also powers them), and they lit up and spun up just fine. I know it was bad practice to plug the fans in with the PC being on, but I figured with the power going through the chassis's speed controller, which gets IDE power from the PSU itself, I didn't really run a risk of shorting anything. Now, something you should know about my case. I have the RAIDMAX Scorpio V mid-tower case. At the time I thought it was cheap yet stylish, but let me tell you, it is a nightmare for cable management. There is nearly zero space in the back for extra cable storage, and that makes putting on the back side panel a nightmare of squeezing and pushing. So, while my PC was still on I kept trying to slide the panel on, but I just couldn't do it. So I shutdown the PC, and flipped it on it's side (the would-be glass panel side, but I had that side panel also off). With gravity working with me, I was able to push the back side panel on. I flipped the PC back upright, and turned it on, which leads me to...
THE PROBLEM:
So now that everything was connected just fine, and everything had previously been working, I then turned on my PC. However, nothing was displaying on the monitor. All I receive is a "no signal" message. No BIOS splash screen, no Windows, nothing. I notice that my top fans (air outake) which are linked to my CPU fan header speed up and slow back down every 20 seconds or so, almost like it keeps trying to boot. I was very concerned that NOTHING was displaying.
The motherboard has some decorative red LEDs which all lit up. The GTX 980 lit up. The hard drives spun up. Just nothing was displaying.
So I tried a few things to get it working...
MY TROUBLESHOOTING:
Well first thing I did was a power cycle. I powered down the PC, flipped off the PSU switch, and unplugged the power cord from the PSU. Plugged it all back in, turned it on, but nothing.
I then tried replugging in the Display Port cables on the video card and the monitor. Nothing.
I tried unplugging the new HDDs I installed, as well as ALL HDDs (including my SSD with Windows) in hopes that it would force the mobo to just boot to BIOS, but nothing.
I tried disconnecting the video card, RAM, and all cables running to the motherboard (CPU power, mobo power, front USB, etc) and reconnecting it all, but still nothing.
I tried taking out the GTX 980 video card, and connecting an HDMI cable to the motherboard's HDMI out, but still nothing.
I figured maybe the video wasn't coming out of the on-board HDMI port because I disabled the intel graphics in the BIOS, so I figured resetting the BIOS config through clearing the CMOS would fix that. So I powered down the PC, and taking out the motherboard's battery to clear the CMOS. I kept the battery out for nearly an hour and then put it back in. That didn't work. So I read in the mobo's manual that touching these two prongs on the mobo with a screwdriver shorts the battery and clears the CMOS. So I tried that, but nothing.
I also tried multiple monitors, and multiple video cords (both Display Port and HDMI).
CONCLUSION:
I feel like I've tried literally everything I can think of aside from requesting an RMA with Gigabyte. I bought the PC from CyberPowerPC back in spring of 2015 (they had a sale at the time, and the price difference between buying the parts individually vs their pre-built was a matter of $20). So I'm not sure how Warranty would go... I'm not sure if I should contact Gigabyte directly, or go through CyberPowerPC. Through CyberPowerPC, I have a 3-year labor, 1-year parts warranty. I really do not want to ship off my whole PC if it's just an issue with my motherboard. I'm not sure of the warranty I have on the motherboard, but I believe Gigabyte offers 3 years on their mobos.
Any advice, help, or suggestions you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
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