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Started by personofblah | | 3 answers
Hello people if Tom's Hardware. I have come here in search of a potential solution to my problem. Essentially, occasionally my computer stops running.
Let me define stops running: my screen goes black (enters HDMI Power saving mode), audio cuts out. The LEDs in my case are still on, and the fans are still running. If you were only looking at the case, you'd think the computer was on.
Sometimes when this happens it reboots a couple of seconds afterwards. Other times, it does not, and I can press the power button once, and it will shut down in about 10 seconds. Then I can turn it on and hope it doesn't happen again.
And sometimes, I can switch the HDMI output from the graphics card to the motherboard and it works. This rarely works.
I'll post I link to my build later, but I'll post this for now because I'm on my phone and I don't want to retype this again.
Any help is appreciated.
-----EDIT-------
Here is a link to my build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RFNhvK
I am using Windows 8.1 on the SSD.
-----EDIT 2-----------
So yesterday it was happening again, so I plugged my HDMI cord into the motherboard output, and it worked just fine. I shutdown my computer for the night, and this morning when I turned it on there was no output. So before doing anything else, I changed the HDMI cord back into the graphics card output,, and BAM, Windows 8 login screen.
------EDIT 3-----------
So some events have transpired.
Sunday morning it happened again, so turned the computer off, opened up the case, and replugged in four outputs from the power supply (Graphics card, 3 SETA cables for 2 hard drives and disk drive) after turning of the external switch on the power supply. When I did, and tried to turn on my computer (and even tried directly pressing a power button on the motherboard) nothing happened. I replugged in all the cables several times to no avail. The next day, I try it one more time and magically it turns on. This happened yesterday. I was playing hearthstone, and it happened again (appeared to be just a power cycle kuz it booted up right away). My friend suggested taking out my graphics card and trying to boot without it. So I took out the graphics card and removed the power supply cable from the graphics card (but not the power supply) and tried to turn on the computer. Nothing happened. I remove the power supply cord for the graphics card from the power supply, and tried it again. Nothing.
So now I've got a computer with no graphics card installed that won't turn on. Any suggestions?
-----EDIT 4-----------
OK BAD THINGS. Today when I tried to turn on my computer (with no graphics card) and it didn't work, I opened up my case and noticed something was hot on my motherboard. I think it's just a heat sync, but I am not sure (my friend thinks this is a bad thing, and I think so too). The thing I am referring to is the big blue block on the bottom left of this picture.
http://i.imgur.com/DVRa7tZ.jpg
Let me define stops running: my screen goes black (enters HDMI Power saving mode), audio cuts out. The LEDs in my case are still on, and the fans are still running. If you were only looking at the case, you'd think the computer was on.
Sometimes when this happens it reboots a couple of seconds afterwards. Other times, it does not, and I can press the power button once, and it will shut down in about 10 seconds. Then I can turn it on and hope it doesn't happen again.
And sometimes, I can switch the HDMI output from the graphics card to the motherboard and it works. This rarely works.
I'll post I link to my build later, but I'll post this for now because I'm on my phone and I don't want to retype this again.
Any help is appreciated.
-----EDIT-------
Here is a link to my build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RFNhvK
I am using Windows 8.1 on the SSD.
-----EDIT 2-----------
So yesterday it was happening again, so I plugged my HDMI cord into the motherboard output, and it worked just fine. I shutdown my computer for the night, and this morning when I turned it on there was no output. So before doing anything else, I changed the HDMI cord back into the graphics card output,, and BAM, Windows 8 login screen.
------EDIT 3-----------
So some events have transpired.
Sunday morning it happened again, so turned the computer off, opened up the case, and replugged in four outputs from the power supply (Graphics card, 3 SETA cables for 2 hard drives and disk drive) after turning of the external switch on the power supply. When I did, and tried to turn on my computer (and even tried directly pressing a power button on the motherboard) nothing happened. I replugged in all the cables several times to no avail. The next day, I try it one more time and magically it turns on. This happened yesterday. I was playing hearthstone, and it happened again (appeared to be just a power cycle kuz it booted up right away). My friend suggested taking out my graphics card and trying to boot without it. So I took out the graphics card and removed the power supply cable from the graphics card (but not the power supply) and tried to turn on the computer. Nothing happened. I remove the power supply cord for the graphics card from the power supply, and tried it again. Nothing.
So now I've got a computer with no graphics card installed that won't turn on. Any suggestions?
-----EDIT 4-----------
OK BAD THINGS. Today when I tried to turn on my computer (with no graphics card) and it didn't work, I opened up my case and noticed something was hot on my motherboard. I think it's just a heat sync, but I am not sure (my friend thinks this is a bad thing, and I think so too). The thing I am referring to is the big blue block on the bottom left of this picture.
http://i.imgur.com/DVRa7tZ.jpg
You did say you turned off the power supply with a switch on the back, did you turn it back to the on position? Did you make sure the 110-240 switch on the back is set correctly?
Having a hot heatsink is normal, although that also depends excactly how hot the chip gets underneath it.
Since the system does not turn on even without the video card, it is either the power supply or the motherboard.
Having a hot heatsink is normal, although that also depends excactly how hot the chip gets underneath it.
Since the system does not turn on even without the video card, it is either the power supply or the motherboard.
personofblah
October 14, 2014 1:16:18 PM
Two primary things to check, power supply and video card. Remove the video card fully from the system, it will likely run just fine like that. If it does that rules out everything except the PSU and video card. Test the video card in another system, if it works fine there, test the PSU in another system. One of those is 90% likely to fail when tested.
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