PC Caught in boot loop - Please Help!

[theharmonicsalmon]

Hi All,

 

So my PC has been acting odd recently. After installing a new SSD and doing a fresh upgrade to windows 10, it started not being able to turn back on after a night of being shut down. This started about a month and a half ago. It powers up, no "Beep" from the mobo, no HDMI output/ splash screen, and then shut down after about five seconds. After a further 5 seconds, it would start back up, "Beep", the mouse and the keyboard would light up, the monitor would turn on, a single underscore displays in the top left of the screen, then turn off again. It then restarts this whole process again, on an infinite loop.

 

Initially, simply unplugging a lot of things and plugging them back in again would get it to boot. After that, I would not shut it down, but instead put it in sleep mode, from which it had no trouble loading back up from. I've been able to do this a few times over the last month when it has shut down for whatever reason - but unfortunately, last night's shut down was the last straw, and I cant get it back on, with it being stuck in the continuous loop.

 

Things I have tried:

• Reset the CMOS with a screw driver (this worked once before but not this time)
• Removed the CMOS battery for 3 mins then put it back in
• Unplug and plug everything attached to the motherboard back in again
• Remove the GPU and use the mobo hdmi output
• Remove all things plugged into the mobo one by one and trying to start it up with each removed in an attempt to pinpoint what might be doing it
• Ensure that the mobo is appropriately raised off of the case with those special screws/ make sure that it is not too tightly screwed in (flush but not really really tight)

My specs:

 

OS: Windows 10 64bit

Processor: i5 4960K

PSU: G7 Power Extreme 780W

GPU: EVGA GTX 1070

RAM: 2x Corsair Vengeance 8gb

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX

SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 1 TB SATA 2.5"

 

Anyone got any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I don't really want to have to get a new motherboard (as I would then have to get a new processor and RAM as any new MOBO i get would be LGA 1151)!

[Radium_Angel]

4 minutes ago, theharmonicsalmon said:

I don't really want to have to get a new motherboard

I see three possible problems:

(1) PSU failing.

(2) Mobo going south

(3) Short in case causing this.

 

(1) and (3) easy to diagnose (2) more of a trick.

 

I'd start with (3) if I were you. Pull everything out of case, set mobo on phonebook (or something equally large and non-conductive) plug in *only* the things needed to power to windows, then power it up and see what happens.

 

Report back.

[theharmonicsalmon]

Right, I was in the process of doing as you suggested Radium, and my brother texts me to suggest attempting one stick of RAM instead of two. So i try that - and it turns on without shutting itself off, but no video output. I then try putting the ram into the free slots (slots 3 and 4 as opposed to 1 and 2) because I thought I've tried everything else, so why not try this, and it only goes and fully boots up.

 

Why in the world would that work?!

 

Thank you very much for your advice! I feel like this will perhaps only be a temporary fix, so I may post again soon, but in the mean time thanks again.

[Fruit Dubious]

7 minutes ago, theharmonicsalmon said:

Right, I was in the process of doing as you suggested Radium, and my brother texts me to suggest attempting one stick of RAM instead of two. So i try that - and it turns on without shutting itself off, but no video output. I then try putting the ram into the free slots (slots 3 and 4 as opposed to 1 and 2) because I thought I've tried everything else, so why not try this, and it only goes and fully boots up.

 

Why in the world would that work?!

 

Thank you very much for your advice! I feel like this will perhaps only be a temporary fix, so I may post again soon, but in the mean time thanks again.

You may have [a] dead or dying RAM slot(s) on your motherboard.

[theharmonicsalmon]

Interesting, I shall avoid those slots from now on!

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, theharmonicsalmon said:

Interesting, I shall avoid those slots from now on!

Yeah, bad RAM slots, or the RAM you have is going south and the mobo doesn't like it.

Either way, probably time for a new mobo