New PC Went From Screen Powering Off To Not Booting

Dr_Jebus · February 1, 2023

I've been having about a month of issues trying to get my new PC working. Specs are:

GPU Gigabyte NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 16GB EAGLE OC Graphics Card – Ada Lovelace GPU

MB ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming Wifi

CPU Intel Core I7 13700K CPU Raptor Lake 16 Cores 5.4Ghz Processor

PSU Corsair RM1000x 1000W PSU Modular 80+ Gold Power Supply

Cooler Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX 75 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler

Case Corsair iCUE 5000X RGB Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX Smart Case

OS Windows 11 Pro

RAM Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 5600 (PC5-44800) C36 1.25V - Black, CMK32GX5M2B5600C36

Primary SSD WD Black SN850X 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive

Secondary SSD 1x SAMSUNG - 970 Evo Plus M.2 Internal SSD - 2 TB

Old Motherboard Gigabyte Z690 AORUS PRO Intel Socket 1700 DDR5 ATX Motherboard

Originally, the PC booted fine, Windows installed, all worked fine until the NVIDIA drivers were installed, at which point the screen lost power. I had to flash the BIOS to a new version to be compatible with the CPU, but that was expected. About 1 boot in 5 would work fine, and it would continue to work fine until reset, at which point once again, after BIOS the screen would lose power. It worked fine with an older GPU (Both the 1070 and 1080GTX worked fine). But oddly the GPU worked fine on an older Windows 10 PC. Running windows in safe mode worked fine. After trying:

Reinstalling Windows 11
Reinstalling Windows 11 with newly created USB
Installing Windows 10
Using PSU from the older PC (850W)
Reseating all internal connectors
Replacing the NVIDIA 12V adaptor with a Corsair one
Reseating CPU, RAM, GPU repeatedly
Using just a single RAM stick (tried with all 4 sticks)
Using an older version of the BIOS

I found that the PCI port was reporting hundreds of WHEA errors. After some searching it seemed that this was likely due to a faulty PCIe x16 connector, so I returned the MOBO to the seller. Unfortunately it was damaged on the way, warranty void, in the bin. Fine, I got a new, different MOBO, one that should be out-of-the-box compatible with everything. At first, very much the same story: It booted fine, windows installed, screen goes black on NVIDIA driver install. But then it got worse. Now it won't get to the BIOS. The power cuts almost immediately, normally when the MOBO LED shows the CPU is loading, though it will immediately reset several times, sometimes getting to the VRAM light before resetting, occasionally getting to the VGA light. Twice (after many attempts) it got to the BIOS, at which point the BIOS reports that a new CPU was detected. It resets after going through the BIOS settings screen, and we're back to it not powering up. On the new MOBO I have tried:

Putting in the 1070 in place of the 4080
Using an 850W PSU that I know works from my old PC
Again, using only one stick
Again, reseating the CPU
Resetting the CMOS

I'm lost. Completely lost. My only thought at this point is that it's a CPU fault. I don't understand why it was working until NVIDIA drivers were updated, or why it suddenly got worse. I can try to RMA the CPU, but I don't have huge faith that it won't simply be damaged on shipping (I don't have all of the original packaging, because I was very stupid). Does anyone have any ideas?

johnno23 · February 1, 2023

Have you tried basic things as simply remove the GPU and place in a different PCI slot. ?

you have a modern MB and a high end Card and the abiltiy to saturate 16PCI gen 4 lanes lanes is already questionable. your board I believe is more than capable of running that GPU in a different PCI slot. it might not solve you problem but at this point when completely lost no harm in at least trying.

Dr_Jebus · February 1, 2023

20 minutes ago, johnno23 said:

Have you tried basic things as simply remove the GPU and place in a different PCI slot. ?

you have a modern MB and a high end Card and the abiltiy to saturate 16PCI gen 4 lanes lanes is already questionable. your board I believe is more than capable of running that GPU in a different PCI slot. it might not solve you problem but at this point when completely lost no harm in at least trying.

The PC won't boot with a 1070. I can move that to one of the other slots, but at this point it's not even getting to the VGA startup most of the time.

The 4080 physically won't fit in any other slot (the power unit gets in the way.

johnno23 · February 1, 2023

thats a shame..no worries. it seems you purchased the items online so I can only suggest that you find a local PC shop and take your cpu there and ask if they would be so kind as to test it for you in a working PC. asking nice can get you a long way these days and even if they ask a small charge it might be worth the effort to at least find out if your CPU is fine. I really am at a loss also as to why everything worked and Nvidea drivers borked everything ???

johnno23 · February 1, 2023

Anyways if getting to a local store is not possible one thing you can attempt is to rebuild...painful I know but carefully take the pc apart. remove the cmos battery and leave the pc alone for a few hours. preferably overnight. then slowly build back up. once you have replaced the cmos battery cpu ram and GPU etc enter bios and select default settings. ensure you select the correct pci slot under graphics options and try to get into windows. if this does not work then I shall assume it is a hardware issue and nothing to do with the Nvidea drivers. if your alternative GPU is known to be working and also does not work then you might be facing an RMA on the CPU. Contacting intel is maybe a good step as the CPU i believe has a code which they can identify and as long as the CPU is not physically damaged they would replace it. use a small piece of foam. ripping that yellow foam off a kitchen scotch cleaner pad with the green on top would work. cut it thin fold carefully over the cpu and then add bubble wrap. place in a box and send by post just make sure that extra bubble wrap keeps the CPU firmly in the box and not moving around. the postage part is only after contacting intel if the supplier refuses to help without original packaging.