PC won't boot unless it's unplugged (help!)

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12InchesOfWax

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So basically a month or so ago my pc wouldn't boot.. i didn't do anything out of the ordinary, just casual gaming. So over a few days I came to realise that if I turned it off and then unplugged it from the wall for about 10 minutes, it would turn back on (sometimes after second try)

And as of today (21st of march 2017) it just won't turn on. The mobo lights are on as usual, but when i go through the same process and press the power button (both case and mobo) nothing has happened.

I've tried removing all non-essentials too and still nothing. The issue must be between the PSU or mobo. But I just can't understand why it's been doing this and all of a sudden given up? I haven't seen any issues at all when it's running.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!
 
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T
Your parts list does not include a hard drive or SSD.

When you say it wouldn't start up, do you mean that nothing worked at all? Or did the USB devices receive power? Also, were the fans working? And did the screen work (I.E. did the pre-boot info appear on the screen and then go dark, or was the screen completely blank as though it were unplugged?)

If the pre-boot info appears, but Windows won't boot, it's almost certainly a software or driver issue.

If the screen shows nothing at all, but the USB devices and fans are on when it won't start up, you either have an aggressive and unstable OC on the GPU, or the GPU is dying. This could also be caused by a fan on the GPU failing. There's a less likely possibility that a CPU overclock...
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the nerd 389

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I'm a bit confused about your situation. Please clarify what happened, because the way you describe it doesn't really make sense. You said it wouldn't boot, and then that you could turn it off and unplug it to get it to boot. In order to turn it off, it would have to be on, but it wouldn't boot and thus couldn't be on. What did you mean?
 
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12InchesOfWax

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It's quite the confusing situation to be honest haha.

But basically when I unplugged the computer from the socket for 10 minutes (or so) when I plugged it back in it would turn on (sometimes after a few attempts of said solution) and that was working up until yesterday when it just wouldn't budge the whole day.

I hope that's clearer for you!
 
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the nerd 389

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I understood that part perfectly. The confusing part was this:



So your computer wouldn't turn on at all, correct? Nothing on the screen at all? But then you say:



So you realized that if you turned off the computer, which was totally unable to boot at all, you could get it to boot by unplugging it? How did you realize that?

You say you turned it off, which means the computer was on despite not booting. Did you get it to boot? Was it locked in BIOS? Were fans spinning? When trying to troubleshoot these things, the details matter.

Also, please post your build. It will help regardless of the specific problem.
 
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12InchesOfWax

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So yeah i went to turn it on one day and the power button did nothing. The LED lights were still on, on the mobo and all USBs had power (keyboard, mouse were lighten up & external HDD was on)

I discovered that unplugging it from the wall for 10 or so minutes would occasionally allow it to turn on through trial and error amongst other things.

No the computer wasn't on, it just had power to it. Obviously i had it on when i tried the unplugging method but i did not look in bios. When it was running everything was absolutely fine performance wise (hardware and software)

My build is
I7 6700k CPU
AX750 PSU
MSI 980ti GPU
MSI gaming m7 mobo
Corsair vengeance DDR4 ram (8x2gb)
Corsair h110i gtx water cooler
H440 case

PS. I took the PC apart today to examine all parts and cables. I tested the PSU on its own by putting wire in the pins and it ran fine. I reassembled the PC and it ran fine. Went into BIOS, had a look, restarted it a few times and it was all okay. THEN i shut it off and surprise surprise, it wouldn't start up.
 
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the nerd 389

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Nov 20, 2012
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Your parts list does not include a hard drive or SSD.

When you say it wouldn't start up, do you mean that nothing worked at all? Or did the USB devices receive power? Also, were the fans working? And did the screen work (I.E. did the pre-boot info appear on the screen and then go dark, or was the screen completely blank as though it were unplugged?)

If the pre-boot info appears, but Windows won't boot, it's almost certainly a software or driver issue.

If the screen shows nothing at all, but the USB devices and fans are on when it won't start up, you either have an aggressive and unstable OC on the GPU, or the GPU is dying. This could also be caused by a fan on the GPU failing. There's a less likely possibility that a CPU overclock could cause this, but in order to cause the symptoms you're describing, it would have to be a fairly aggressive OC with a fairly high voltage.

If the screen shows nothing at all, and the USB devices and fans are off, the PSU may be dying. This isn't very likely with that PSU unless it's at least 5-8 years old. Even then, it's not as likely as problems related to overclocking.

If the problem only occurs when you do a soft-shutdown through the Windows menus, and not when you do a soft-restart through those same menus, then this is going to be pretty difficult to troubleshoot.

If the problem only occurs when you do a hard-shutdown by holding the power button or cutting power, but not when you do a soft-shutdown or soft-reboot, it's almost certainly a software or driver problem.

If the problem does not occur when you put the computer to sleep through the Windows menus, but does occur when you perform a soft-shutdown or soft-reboot, you may have a virus that's worked it's way into the boot loader.

You should also see if there are any errors or critical events in the event log at the time that you encounter the problems.
 
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