PC Dead after Power Outage, what parts are most likely affected?

[Alizarin]

At the start of the year there was a power outage at my home. I was using my PC at the time, but after the power came back, it didn't want to boot back up.

All the fans and lights were working, however there was no beep sound, and the Debug LED on the Motherboard kept cycling through seemingly all of the available error categories and codes.

 

I tried resetting CMOS, taking the CMOS battery out and keeping my PC without power for like two days just to be sure (tried that multiple times, with varying amount of time), switching to the backup bios via a switch on the Motherboard, removing hard drives, removing GPUs, switching to a different PSU, and unplugging power connectors for Motherboard and CPU and leaving the PC like that for a while before reconnecting them.

All with no effect, except that the error codes on the LED slightly changed depending on what devices were connected.

 

The monitor never turned on during any of my tests.

The debug LED seems to be working correctly, because when I tried to start without a keyboard connected, it immediately stopped at the error code for keyboard not connected.

There was no weird smell when I tried to turn the PC back on, but I also wasn't in the room for a while after when the power came back.

 

What I didn't try yet is to remove the CPU or the RAM.

 

Parts:

MOBO: ASRock Z97 Extreme4 (latest BIOS update)
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K (OC to 4.4GHz, but never had any issues)
PSU: Seasonic FOCUS PLUS 850 GOLD 850fx (about a year old)
RAM: HyperX Fury Series DDR3
SSD: Samsung 860 EVO
HDD: Toshiba N300

GPU 1: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 WindForce
GPU 2: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 OC WindForce 3X

 

Using Windows 10

 

Is there any chance that I can still fix this problem, or is it a lost cause?

What parts are most likely affected / damaged?

Can I safely re-use parts in a different PC to test them in isolation / salvage them for a different build?

 

Thank you for your help

Kind Regards

[AngryBeaver]

3 minutes ago, Alizarin said:

At the start of the year there was a power outage at my home. I was using my PC at the time, but after the power came back, it didn't want to boot back up.

All the fans and lights were working, however there was no beep sound, and the Debug LED on the Motherboard kept cycling through seemingly all of the available error categories and codes.

 

I tried resetting CMOS, taking the CMOS battery out and keeping my PC without power for like two days just to be sure (tried that multiple times, with varying amount of time), switching to the backup bios via a switch on the Motherboard, removing hard drives, removing GPUs, switching to a different PSU, and unplugging power connectors for Motherboard and CPU and leaving the PC like that for a while before reconnecting them.

All with no effect, except that the error codes on the LED slightly changed depending on what devices were connected.

 

The monitor never turned on during any of my tests.

The debug LED seems to be working correctly, because when I tried to start without a keyboard connected, it immediately stopped at the error code for keyboard not connected.

There was no weird smell when I tried to turn the PC back on, but I also wasn't in the room for a while after when the power came back.

 

What I didn't try yet is to remove the CPU or the RAM.

 

Parts:

MOBO: ASRock Z97 Extreme4 (latest BIOS update)
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K (OC to 4.4GHz, but never had any issues)
PSU: Seasonic FOCUS PLUS 850 GOLD 850fx (about a year old)
RAM: HyperX Fury Series DDR3
SSD: Samsung 860 EVO
HDD: Toshiba N300

GPU 1: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 WindForce
GPU 2: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 OC WindForce 3X

 

Using Windows 10

 

Is there any chance that I can still fix this problem, or is it a lost cause?

What parts are most likely affected / damaged?

Can I safely re-use parts in a different PC to test them in isolation / salvage them for a different build?

 

Thank you for your help

Kind Regards

Have you tried plugging your video into the motherboard and see if it is getting the post screen.

[Alizarin]

Yes, I have tried that as well.

[xdos]

what debug LED code it stops at?

[Alizarin]

1 minute ago, xdos said:

what debug LED code it stops at?

It stops at "A2", most of the time.

[xdos]

enter bios boot and see if there is window boot manger enter and see if it boots.

[Nology]

A2 means one of your drives has a problem. Does it show any other error codes? 

[Craptastic]

Have you tried a different monitor. Or just a different port on the graphics card? I had cards with dead outputs in the past while other connectors on the same card worked just fine

[Alizarin]

5 minutes ago, xdos said:

enter bios boot and see if there is window boot manger enter and see if it boots.

Sorry, I didn't mention this clearly I think; I never get a chance to enter the BIOS.

Normally I expect there to be a beep shortly after I press the power button, followed by the monitor turning on and the boot process starting, during which I could try to enter the BIOS.

My PC currently doesn't even get to the first step of the beep.

[PotatoDave]

You've tried just plain motherboard with no hard drives, no SSD's, no GPU's, just one stick of known working RAM and nothing else? 

 

From other forums code A2 can even be caused by a poorly seated stick of RAM.  The goal is to remove everything not necessary to get into the BIOS and once you get there start adding things back until it breaks again, then you know what to troubleshoot.

[Alizarin]

9 minutes ago, Nology said:

A2 means one of your drives has a problem. Does it show any other error codes? 

It shows almost all of the error codes...

15, 00, 27, 35, 3A, 40, 55, 36, 4F, 67, 78, 69, 98, 63, 10, 19, ... Those are only part of the ones that I was able to spot.

[Alizarin]

7 minutes ago, Craptastic said:

Have you tried a different monitor. Or just a different port on the graphics card? I had cards with dead outputs in the past while other connectors on the same card worked just fine

I have tried different ports, cable types, GPUs, and even plugging it into the MOBO directly, but always with the same monitor.

The monitor itself works though, I'm using it with my laptop right now.

[Alizarin]

5 minutes ago, PotatoDave said:

You've tried just plain motherboard with no hard drives, no SSD's, no GPU's, just one stick of known working RAM and nothing else? 

 

From other forums code A2 can even be caused by a poorly seated stick of RAM.  The goal is to remove everything not necessary to get into the BIOS and once you get there start adding things back until it breaks again, then you know what to troubleshoot.

I have removed basically everything. The only thing I haven't removed is the CPU and the RAM. I'm still using the same 4 RAM sticks, because I'd have to remove the CPU cooler before I can access them. Do you think I should remove even those, and try again?

[Letgomyleghoe]

Your mobo is probably dead if it’s flashing all of the error codes

[Nology]

12 minutes ago, scuff gang said:

Your mobo is probably dead if it’s flashing all of the error codes

I'd bet on that too. Were you running a good surge protector or UPS?

[PotatoDave]

7 hours ago, Alizarin said:

I have removed basically everything. The only thing I haven't removed is the CPU and the RAM. I'm still using the same 4 RAM sticks, because I'd have to remove the CPU cooler before I can access them. Do you think I should remove even those, and try again?

I would.  And if you have some RAM you know is good, or if you can test the RAM you're using in another computer to see if it works that's even better. 

 

It's no fun to remove the cooler, and you introduce a new possible problem of the CPU becoming seated improperly, but you need to test it.  You have 4 sticks of RAM and 4 slots they're in, that's 8 possible points of failure.  I would try 1 stick of known good RAM in each of the 4 slots with no hard drives, gpu's, etc. connected.  Just absolute bare-bones system with the minimum possible requirements to POST and get into your BIOS.

[PotatoDave]

And before you remove your cooler you can just wiggle/reseat all 4 sticks the best you can just in case there's some seating issue.  It's worth the 30 seconds to try.

[Alizarin]

21 minutes ago, scuff gang said:

Your mobo is probably dead

That's what I was afraid of^^

6 minutes ago, Nology said:

I'd bet on that too. Were you running a good surge protector or UPS?

I did use a power strip with surge protection, looks like it didn't work though... Gonna invest in a reputable UPS for next time.

 

9 minutes ago, PotatoDave said:

I would.  And if you have some RAM you know is good, or if you can test the RAM you're using in another computer to see if it works that's even better. 

I guess I'll try that and hope for the best.

If it doesn't work, do you think the PSU could be affected? I'm afraid of trying to use it in a different build and wrecking all of those parts as well.

[PotatoDave]

7 hours ago, Alizarin said:

I guess I'll try that and hope for the best.

Good luck!

 

7 hours ago, Alizarin said:

If it doesn't work, do you think the PSU could be affected? I'm afraid of trying to use it in a different build and wrecking all of those parts as well.

I'm not sure how you test a PSU.  If your motherboard was literally burnt from overvoltage near the power connector I'd be very worried, if you lost a single stick of RAM I'd be less worried.

[xdos]

if MB not stay on one debug code, then its the mobo.

[Robchil]

4 hours ago, xdos said:

if MB not stay on one debug code, then its the mobo.

could be cpu too.. but wanyway .. 

if you have home insurance.. contact them. about sending a claim. they usualy handle this alot. depending on where you live. 

 

 

 

[xdos]

4 hours ago, Robchil said:

could be cpu too.. but wanyway .. 

if you have home insurance.. contact them. about sending a claim. they usualy handle this alot. depending on where you live. 

 

 

 

In my pc building career I never see cpu died by surge but MB did.

[Robchil]

16 hours ago, xdos said:

In my pc building career I never see cpu died by surge but MB did.

I don't know when you started.. but i started ca 1995.. and have seen that too.. also mainboard frying ram and cpu so they would fry the mainboard if you change it. 

 

[xdos]

I'm in my fifties, so you can count on when would I started, I didn't see any cpu running default system specs can just fry......

 

MB are the one easily get fried from lightening,surge etc

[Alizarin]

Here's a little update:

 

I've removed the board from the case to have easier access, and to make sure that nothing besides the CPU and RAM is connected.

Then I tried each of the RAM sticks, one at a time, to see if it made any difference. I also used a PSU that I know is working.

It still didn't work, but there were less error codes now: 4F, 62, 69, 78, A2 and then it stops at 99.

4F is for memory. This only showed for a fraction of a second.

62, 69 and 78 are all for a "Chipset initialization error". 78 especially stayed on for a good 2 seconds.

A2 is a "Problem related to IDE or SATA devices".

99 is a "Problem related to PCI-E devices".

I'm pretty sure now that the motherboard is affected, but I still have some hope for all the other parts.

I've ordered some new parts and will post another update once I've tested everything.

On 3/16/2020 at 12:05 PM, Robchil said:

if you have home insurance.. contact them

I've actually contacted my energy provider and asked them for compensation.

They did decline with a lot of legal stuff saying they couldn't be held responsible, however after asking a few more times and not making any concessions, they referred me to a third party that handles disputes between energy providers and consumers, and told me that, should I still not agree that they weren't liable, then I should talk to the third party mediators. I did that, and am currently waiting for an answer.

 

EDIT:

The PSU, Hard drives, and GPU seem to be working fine in the new rig, so it probably really was the MOBO. Thanks for your help!