Black screen boot loop after BIOS splash screen

[Toxiic]

PC Specs:

CPU: i7 6700k (No overclocking)

Mobo: Gigabyte Z170N-WiFi (ITX)

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB C16 @ 3200Mhz

PSU: 500w SFX (Don't know brand)

GPU: GTX 1070Ti

SSD: Samsung EVO 960 250GB + 850 Evo 500GB

OS: Windows 10 64 bit

Hey Folks, so around a month ago a friends PC black screened a few times in Windows (no blue screens, just immediate black screen and restart) over a few days and then ended up in a constant restart loop with it getting to the BIOS splash screen, the spinning dots sometimes appearing and then the PC screen goes black, fans stop for half a second and then it powers back on - then it repeats till you pull the power. Turning off XMP, lowering memory clock speeds and BIOS/CMOS resets seemed to have no effect. Tried aida 64 stability test, crashed as soon as memory was tested and used memtest to specifically focus on the memory, with the system becoming unstable seemingly after hitting 8GBs with both sticks installed (before it started not getting into windows). However, after taking one stick out if the right channel it appeared to go stable, so I took some spare sticks down a few days later, popped them both in the system and all seemed fine. So I assumed it was a RAM stick issue.

 

About a month later now, and yesterday the exact same issue has occurred again but this time the black screening also occurs now within the actual BIOS itself (which it didn't before), taking out the stick in the right channel again appears to now let it boot and be usable for a while but still seems to hit the black screen eventually. I don't have the ability to check either the CPU or motherboard to specifically pinpoint the issue but I'm assuming the right memory channel (or something related) is on it's way out, given the board is at least over 4-5 years old I'm not too surprised. 

 

I believe that replacing the motherboard should fix the issues we're facing, but hoping to get some confirmation of my suspicion from some folks on here as well before pulling the trigger and buying a new motherboard. So if anyone has some extra troubleshooting tips that don't rely on replacing a component then feel free to fire away. Thanks in advance.

[Frizz]

26 minutes ago, Toxiic said:

PC Specs:

CPU: i7 6700k (No overclocking)

Mobo: Gigabyte Z170N-WiFi (ITX)

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB C16 @ 3200Mhz

PSU: 500w SFX (Don't know brand)

GPU: GTX 1070Ti

SSD: Samsung EVO 960 250GB + 850 Evo 500GB

OS: Windows 10 64 bit

Hey Folks, so around a month ago a friends PC black screened a few times in Windows (no blue screens, just immediate black screen and restart) over a few days and then ended up in a constant restart loop with it getting to the BIOS splash screen, the spinning dots sometimes appearing and then the PC screen goes black, fans stop for half a second and then it powers back on - then it repeats till you pull the power. Turning off XMP, lowering memory clock speeds and BIOS/CMOS resets seemed to have no effect. Tried aida 64 stability test, crashed as soon as memory was tested and used memtest to specifically focus on the memory, with the system becoming unstable seemingly after hitting 8GBs with both sticks installed (before it started not getting into windows). However, after taking one stick out if the right channel it appeared to go stable, so I took some spare sticks down a few days later, popped them both in the system and all seemed fine. So I assumed it was a RAM stick issue.

 

About a month later now, and yesterday the exact same issue has occurred again but this time the black screening also occurs now within the actual BIOS itself (which it didn't before), taking out the stick in the right channel again appears to now let it boot and be usable for a while but still seems to hit the black screen eventually. I don't have the ability to check either the CPU or motherboard to specifically pinpoint the issue but I'm assuming the right memory channel (or something related) is on it's way out, given the board is at least over 4-5 years old I'm not too surprised. 

 

I believe that replacing the motherboard should fix the issues we're facing, but hoping to get some confirmation of my suspicion from some folks on here as well before pulling the trigger and buying a new motherboard. So if anyone has some extra troubleshooting tips that don't rely on replacing a component then feel free to fire away. Thanks in advance.

Mmm I might be more inclined to say the CPU memory controller is the issue.

What happens when you take that one stick out, but put it in the main RAM slot? Does it have the same behavior?

Just want to be sure it isn't that main stick even if you tried different RAM.

 

You can then try kind of wiggling the DIMMs once they are in to help the DIMM slots make good contact, sometimes the DIMM pins are not making the best connection.

Then reseat your cpu to see if it changes anything. If you had a spare CPU laying around that would verify MB or CPU memory controller 

[Toxiic]

Sorry for the slow reply. 

 

17 hours ago, Frizz said:

What happens when you take that one stick out, but put it in the main RAM slot? Does it have the same behavior?

Still got the same behaviour after trying this sadly.

 

17 hours ago, Frizz said:

You can then try kind of wiggling the DIMMs once they are in to help the DIMM slots make good contact, sometimes the DIMM pins are not making the best connection.

Thought this could have been an issue so we tried this a few times during our original troubleshooting and didn't seem to help. Even gave the slots a blow with compressed air and didn't see any improvements.

 

17 hours ago, Frizz said:

Then reseat your cpu to see if it changes anything. If you had a spare CPU laying around that would verify MB or CPU memory controller 

Sadly got no spare CPU's lying around so can't try swapping it, but it has been a few years since that CPU was reseated so will see if my friend is comfortable giving it a go and then will report back. Although they're now considering just grabbing a new cheap cpu and motherboard as both the 6700k and the motherboard are over 5-6 years old.

 

Will keep this posted with results of cpu reseating.