PC suddenly freezes and won't turn on at all - no POST!

Kamome · March 17, 2019

I was using following rig for 3~4 years.

- AMD A8-7600 (With 45W TDP configuration)

- Samsung PC3-12800U 16GB (8G x 2 Sticks)

- Asrock FM2A88M-HD+ Rev 2.01 (AMI UEFI BIOS)

- Thermolab TRINITY Cooler (This one is made by Korean local cooler maker. Here's detail. Homepage doesn't support English. http://thermolab.co.kr/cooler/13520)

- MSI Radeon R9 360

- WD Blue SSD 250GB (Not 3D NAND version)

It runs quite well for few years and I was satisfied. But recently, it freezes and doesn't boot - even cannot do POST, no screen - several times.

Change RAM, change VGA, disconnect all storage, disconnect sound card, etc... I did several tests and all fails to boot.

So, I bought motherboard tester and POST stucks at code 32.

I tested with 1 stick of 8G RAM into motherboard's Slot A.

After that, I put RAM into Slot B, and it boots!

It refuses to boot again when I put RAM back into slot A.

I think that it might be motherborad issue according to symptoms, but is there any chance to CPU might cause this kind of problem?

PS. I changed CPU/Motherboard/RAM and keep my old VGA/SSD/HDDs, and there was no problem.

TetraSky · March 17, 2019

7 minutes ago, Kamome said:

I think that it might be motherborad issue according to symptoms, but is there any chance to CPU might cause this kind of problem?

It could be CPU related, since the memory controller is baked in the CPU.
But, it is also likely to be the motherboard.

RAM slots "dying out" can happen and isn't that rare of a thing. If you have a way to get another compatible CPU that you can try out for free, try it and see if the slot works with it. If it does work, then the CPU was faulty, if it doesn't, it was the motherboard all along.

8 minutes ago, Kamome said:

PS. I changed CPU/Motherboard/RAM and keep my old VGA/SSD/HDDs, and there was no problem.

Of course there weren't.
-You've removed the CPU, meaning it got rid of a potentially faulty memory controller.
-You've removed the motherboard, meaning it got rid of a potentially faulty RAM slot.
-You've removed the RAM, meaning a potentially faulty stick is taken out of the equation.(though this is unlikely to be the reason of the issue)

Everything else is unlikely to cause boot issues like what you've described.