PC Fault Help

[offspring86]

Hoping for a couple of suggestions on things I may have missed in diagnosing why my PC isn't booting.

The background is it's a home built PC with the following:

MBD: MSI X570-A Pro
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: 16GB (2x8gb) Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB
Boot SSD: WD Blue SN550 500GB
Storage: WD Blue SN550 2TB & 2TB HDD.
GPU: 3060 TI

The PC was built last year, and other than a GPU upgrade a month ago has had no changes made to it. Last week while playing, the game randomly closed. I tried to restart the game but it wasn't responding. I noticed that the machine had lost it's connection to the internet and refused to pick up any WiFi connections. I restarted the machine and completely lost display capabilities.

LED debugs are displaying 'Boot' and 'VGA' as an issue. So far I have tried the following to locate the issue:

Changed GPU
Checked all motherboard connections
Removed all but one stick of RAM, disconnected unnecessary drives and removed all USB connections.
Removed, cleaned, re-pasted and re-inserted the CPU (no pins appear to be out of place)
Replaced the Boot SSD with a spare 250GB SSD
Flashed BIOS using the M-Flash function on the rear IO
Tried different monitor and cable

None of these have produced different results; always no display output and the LEDs sitting on 'Boot' and 'VGA'

Beyond obtaining another CPU and/or motherboard, is there anything else I can do before spending money?

[colin79666]

Check/swap out the monitor cable.

[offspring86]

colin79666 said:

Check/swap out the monitor cable.

Tried that along with a different monitor. Same result. Does it when not plugged into any display at all too.

[xeny]

Pull all the memory and see if the motherboard manages any beep codes?

My guess would be dying PCIe bus, but hard to know if that is the controller on the CPU or the motherboard. You might be able to confirm which if the motherboard manual has a block diagram as to what functionality disappeared in what order if the motherboard or the CPU is the more common factor.

Is the boot SSD NVMe or SATA - depending on how that is hooked up may give you a clue as presumably that was still accessible or the machine would have immediately bluescreened.

[Miserablegit]

I had a very similar boot issue when the x570 came out.
There was a conflict with the basic windows drivers causing it to fail to boot- a very helpful PHer told me what to do which involved loading a new video driver.
I’ll see if I can find the thread.
I know your machine was working but I wonder if the crash has damaged the video drivers.

[Miserablegit]

Jinx was the guy- here is the thread
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[speedyman]

Check the PSU voltages are all there.

[Griffith4ever]

I'd have reseated graphics and ram, and if that failed, new mobo. They are cheap enough , and so vital to every other component, that changing them first saves a !of of guesswork.

[BlueMR2]

You didn’t mention your psu.

Did it try to pull too much power through the rails? Check what your psu can give out and what your gfx card can pull.

[deckster]

BlueMR2 said:

You didn’t mention your psu.

Did it try to pull too much power through the rails? Check what your psu can give out and what your gfx card can pull.

+1

The fact that it failed after you installed a 3060ti is a big clue in my book. 30xx GPUs are notoriously power hungry and it's very common for even decently specced machines to need a PSU upgrade to cope.

[offspring86]

BlueMR2 said:

You didn’t mention your psu.

Did it try to pull too much power through the rails? Check what your psu can give out and what your gfx card can pull.

deckster said:

+1

The fact that it failed after you installed a 3060ti is a big clue in my book. 30xx GPUs are notoriously power hungry and it's very common for even decently specced machines to need a PSU upgrade to cope.

PSU is a Corsair RM650 which according to what I read before buying the 3060TI is more than adequate.

xeny said:

Pull all the memory and see if the motherboard manages any beep codes?

My guess would be dying PCIe bus, but hard to know if that is the controller on the CPU or the motherboard. You might be able to confirm which if the motherboard manual has a block diagram as to what functionality disappeared in what order if the motherboard or the CPU is the more common factor.

Is the boot SSD NVMe or SATA - depending on how that is hooked up may give you a clue as presumably that was still accessible or the machine would have immediately bluescreened.

I pulled all the RAM and although it did detect DRAM as an issue, there were no beeps. Boot is NVME.

Griffith4ever said:

I'd have reseated graphics and ram, and if that failed, new mobo. They are cheap enough , and so vital to every other component, that changing them first saves a !of of guesswork.

I've gone down this route, ordered a new MBD today along with a SATA SSD to replace the HDD.. Going to use it as a chance to clean the machine too as it's got a little dusty. Will report back on whether or not I end up forking out for a new CPU too!