Machine flashing on and off

[Renvaar]

Hey all, 

 

This started a while back, I'd turn on my comp and the case lights and fans would start for half a second before turning back off, this would then happen every few seconds until I turned the back of the comp off. A few attempts like this, usually turning it off at back and holding power button down a while (read somewhere drains any remaining power) before trying again and it'd come on eventually. Switched the then 800W cooler master to a cheaper 600W PSU and it was working fine for a while, until this started happening again after a month or so of being fine. So now I'm doubtful it was the PSU causing the issue... 

 

Can anyone suggest any troubleshooting steps, or suggestions of what part to consider is the problem first? I was thinking the next thing would be the motherboard? Couldn't be BOTH PSU's are on the fritz right? The 800W one was brand new... 

[SaviorSix]

I had a similar issue.

First, I have to ask if you're using an AMD Ryzen and if you have, if you installed the latest BIOs updates. People have had a lot of problems with it. If you're using an Intel platform, you can start taking out non-vital components first, one by one, and testing after each it's removed. Take out one RAM stick and try to post it. If it doesn't work, replace it with the other. After all non-vitals components and neither RAM stick work, take out both and see if the motherboard beeps. If it does, it's an issue with the CPU. If it doesn't it's an an issue with the motherboard. 

[Renvaar]

So I'm using Intel, so just started removing parts, got all the way down to just having the motherboard and CPU... HDD's, GPU, RAM etc all removed. I was still having the issue though. There was actually a moment... Right after switching the power cable for another one and plugging into another socket (wanted to be thorough... and thought maybe plug socket wasn't supplying power properly or cable was bad) that it worked for a little while, so I put everything back turned on again and it worked fine for a few switch ons... Next day I tried to turn it on and exactly the same issue. 

 

I had been considering switching to ITX... Perhaps it's time to bite the bullet and switch out the board? Before doing so I might totally take it apart and try turning on outside of case... Just incase something is touching... 

 

Have I missed anything?  P.S. My board never beeps... I mean... It doesn't even have a speaker. It's in Chinese, but this is the Z170 board I'm using... https://item.jd.com/2037802.html

 

Edit: Oh, I just realized the board has an LED screen for post errors... I always wondered what that was... I'll check what it says when I get home from work... 

[Magitsos]

Did you move you GPU ? Try to keep pushing it in the PCI slot (gently) and then boot

[Renvaar]

So I tried absolutely everything I could think off, and ended up just taking everything out and rebuilding outside of the case, and it worked fine... I figured I'd just get a new case rather than spend ages trying to figure out what the case's issue is... Now it turns on fine and everything works inside new case... Only problem I have is despite putting everything back the exactly way it was, HDD's don't spin, or get recognized in bios.... 

 

Edit: I should note, using same sata power and data cables, no matter which sata socket I use, my SSD with OS on it is always recognized... But both my HDD's doesn't even spin with just power plugged in. No way I killed 2 HDD's just by moving them across.... I did a bios reset while trying to fix previous problem, maybe that did something...