Power supply issue or dead gpu?

[boratemporal]

Hi all,

 

I have been googling for a good day now and cannot find the answer to this issue. 

System rundown:

• CPU: Ryzen 7 3700x (wraith spire prism)
• Motherboard: MSI B550 tomahawk
• RAM: G. Skill Ripjaws V 16GB 3200MHz
• GPU: Gigabyte GTX 970 windforce
• PSU: Cooler master v650 80 plus Gold  (old version, the semi modular one)
• Connected to an online UPS

Symptoms:

1. Fans all spin (system, gpu, cpu etc)
2. Black screen with flashing _ in the top left corner.
3. vga LED is lit at this point and the screen turns off

Now, I live in south africa and there was a power supply two nights ago while I was gaming and the system was working perfectly. I saved and quit out before switching off the pc then after it was done I switched off the UPS because it beeps. The next day while I was working the power went off (I use a work laptop not my personal rig) and I left everything on during the power outage in order to work. When I tried to switch on my pc later that night I ran into the above mentioned issues. My question really is whether it could be my gpu or psu that is dead? I have bought a second hand gtx 1080 that is confirmed working and will maybe be here tomorrow evening so I can test with that but I don't have ready access to a power supply. 

[Pandur]

Most times a broken PSU either won't boot or it releases the magic smoke. So spinning fans is a good thing for now. Not saying it is not the PSU, but I would do other troubleshooting steps first. Like testing with that 1080 when it arrives. Although the blinking cursor tells us that the GPU is not entirely dead either.

 

Have you done the basic step of clearing CMOS? Then check if it boots with default settings. If it does you then have to configure your bios again. Such as enabling XMP.

[191x7]

A blinking underscore usually means the storage can't be accessed or the OS can't be loaded (the same thing).

 

Just to make sure, you can enter the Bios, right?

Try booting with all unnecessary USB devices disconnected.

[boratemporal]

15 minutes ago, Pandur said:

Most times a broken PSU either won't boot or it releases the magic smoke. So spinning fans is a good thing for now. Not saying it is not the PSU, but I would do other troubleshooting steps first. Like testing with that 1080 when it arrives. Although the blinking cursor tells us that the GPU is not entirely dead either.

 

Have you done the basic step of clearing CMOS? Then check if it boots with default settings. If it does you then have to configure your bios again. Such as enabling XMP.

I haven't tried to clear CMOS yet, I will double check if it is my storage. My OS is on a fairly new samsung sata ssd. I cannot get into the bios screen.

[boratemporal]

9 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

A blinking underscore usually means the storage can't be accessed or the OS can't be loaded (the same thing).

 

Just to make sure, you can enter the Bios, right?

Try booting with all unnecessary USB devices disconnected.

I cannot enter the BIOS

[Pandur]

Just now, boratemporal said:

I cannot enter the BIOS

Stop messing around and clear CMOS. You do not have to enter BIOS to do this.

[boratemporal]

7 minutes ago, Pandur said:

Stop messing around and clear CMOS. You do not have to enter BIOS to do this.

Thanks, I will try that during lunch and see if I come right. I didn't think it would be necessary since the motherboard was indicating the gpu was at fault

[Pandur]

1 minute ago, boratemporal said:

Thanks, I will try that during lunch and see if I come right. I didn't think it would be necessary since the motherboard was indicating the gpu was at fault

Clearing CMOS is almost always one of the first steps of troubleshooting. A bios setting can cause your computer to not boot. And show symptoms that look like CPU/RAM/GPU/storage/other faults. Resetting it to default give you the best chance for a successful POST. If that still fail, you need to dig deeper.

[boratemporal]

1 hour ago, Pandur said:

Clearing CMOS is almost always one of the first steps of troubleshooting. A bios setting can cause your computer to not boot. And show symptoms that look like CPU/RAM/GPU/storage/other faults. Resetting it to default give you the best chance for a successful POST. If that still fail, you need to dig deeper.

Okay, I tried it and the same issue and series of events happened. I also tried running with the power cables for the gpu disconnected and I got a screen saying "PLUG POWER CABLES INTO THE GRAPHICS CARD" which likely wouldn't happen if no power is being detected in the first place right?

[boratemporal]

11 hours ago, Pandur said:

Clearing CMOS is almost always one of the first steps of troubleshooting. A bios setting can cause your computer to not boot. And show symptoms that look like CPU/RAM/GPU/storage/other faults. Resetting it to default give you the best chance for a successful POST. If that still fail, you need to dig deeper.

I finished work and tried it two more times and it worked on the third try, I don't know if it will continue working but I have it booted for now which is nice. Thanks for the help Pandur.

 

Edit: new problem. System takes ten minutes to start up and the bios is hectic laggy(think twenty seconds between keypress and action). I think it may be because I used my boot drive from my old intel system instead of reinstalling windows entirely. I am first going to reflash the bios to the newest version. This is all weird man, sketching me out. 

[boratemporal]

Solution was to update the BIOS of the motherboard, I think there may have been some software issue with the board chipset.

Steps taken:

1. Clear cmos
2. unplug all drives except boot drive
3. boot to windows and install latest amd chipset firmware
4. download and flash latest motherboard bios (This took four hours to install for me, the progress bar was basically not moving)
5. System should be functional now

I will be reinstalling windows and seeing if that makes any difference but I have time since it is a very long weekend so I don't mind. I will also be upgrading to a GTX 1080 that I just got in the mail and see if it makes any more drama. Next paycheck I will also be getting a corsair icue 220t and a new power supply, don't know which I will be getting since 650w seems to be enough but I may jump to 750 just in case. Later this year I will be moving my boot to an nvme ssd and replacing my drives with some iron wolfs from seagate of a much higher capacity, maybe 4TB each.