Help: PC Worked Awesome for a Month Now Won't Boot

[Hunter_]

Hey everyone,

I built a mid range PC a little over a month ago and everything went awesome...got a post on my first boot up, installed the OS no prob, etc. There have been no problems at all until yesterday.

I usually, when I'm not using it, leave my PC in the "sleep" mode so I just turn it back on with a key press. I came home from work last night and after a while go to boot up my PC. Everything seems fine, I load up steam and go to start a game...and steam freezes. So I restart my PC, get back into Windows, and go into the game again. I'm about 2 minutes into Battlefield Bad Company 2 and the screen freezes and I am forced to reboot again. I go to reboot and don't even get a post. So I wait a minute more, then reboot again, and get a post and windows start to load. Then nothing. So I reboot again and the last time I got a really faint BSOD (I Think) except that it was really faded on the screen and lasted only a second before the PC shut down.

Now, I turn the power on and the lights come on and the fan spins but no post. No beeps, nothing.

So I'm stumped. I know you guys most likely can't diagnose my issue over the net, but where do I start? I didn't do the homebuilt NOPOST troubleshoot only because it seemed geared towards brand new builds and mine has been working so well for over a month.

I'm thinking it is a hardware issue but don't know what to do...any thoughts?

I should mention that it was hot in my room last night (no AC) but the temp on the 5850 was only 45 when I booted...a bit high for ambient I know but not enough to cause an overheat (or so I thought). I also tried to boot this morning when the room was much cooler to no avail.

Here are the specs:

Liancool k-92 case
AMD 955BE
Sapphire 5850
G,Skill Ripjaw 1300 RAM (4gb)
Gigabyte 890gx motherboard
Corsair 650W PSU

Any help would be appreciated guys...thanks in advance.

 

[Hunter_]

Nobody has any advice? I would love to know at least where to start...

I also want to add that I didn't do any overclocking or anthing.

 

[Hunter_]

ok so I tried it by taking out all my parts and re-installing them, like I took out the video card, memory, and network card. I tried the memory in other slots, tried single memory sticks, no memory sticks...still nothing. Tried without my 5850, tried clearing the cmos, still nothing. Did my motherboard die? What do you guys think? I'm trying not to be impatient but any type of advice would be helpful.

 

[shortstuff_mt]

You won't really find any advice that isn't already in the troubleshooting sticky. The sticky is not just for new builds. It's designed to troubleshoot hardware issues with all systems. Perform EVERY step in the checklist and let us know how it goes.

 

[Hunter_]

All right, thanks. I could eliminate about 90% of that post only because the PC had been working so well for so long. I think I've got it narrowed down to either a bad mobo or CPU. Is there a way to tell which one it is? I'm leaning towards a bad Mobo but if there is an easy way to tell I would love to know.

Thanks!

 

[shortstuff_mt]

Once you've narrowed it down to a couple specific pieces of hardware there isn't really a good way to tell which one it is without swapping parts.

CPU's very rarely go bad unless your HSF wasn't properly installed. Did you ever monitor the CPU temps when it was working?

 

[Hunter_]

Yeah I did monitor them in the beginning...everything was in order. It seems unlikely to me that it would have worked perfectly for 6 weeks if the HSF wasn't right though.

I've sent an RMA request for a new MOBO. Thanks for all the help guys. I guess I just wanted to know that it wasn't something stupid or negligent that I did and I did indeed have a part that went bad.

Hopefully a new MOBO won't take forever to come.

Thanks again everyone.