Power cycling, no display, post codes useless, please help...

[atomiku]

So, I'm in a bit of a pickle. I've exhausted about all the troubleshooting tips and tricks I know, and am hoping someone could help me. 

 

My computer has the following specs: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fmW9Hx

 

I've been displeased with the performance of my liquid cooler since I upgraded to my 4790k and decided it was finally time to try a reseat, and see if my thermalpaste coverage was subpar. Upon removing the cooler, I saw that I had about 75% covered, but that the bottom two corners were pretty bare. Makes sense, nothing that can't be solved with a better application. I cleaned everything off, reapplied thermalpaste, put the cooler back in place, and closed it all up. (This is where I went wrong, I'm sure of it. You never put the sidepanels back on until you're sure it'll boot). I plugged it back in, hooked up my monitors and peripherals, and pressed the power button, and it fired up, only to have it shutdown unexpectedly, and then repeat this process over and over again.

 

I first checked the post codes, which came back sometimes as 5d and other times as C0, both of which are listed in my motheboard manual as "reserved" and I have no idea what that means. But I usually don't know what post codes are referring to anyways, and I've made it this far, usually by clearing CMOS. I unplugged the computer, and depressed the Clr CMOS button for a solid 30 seconds, plugged it back in, gave it another shot, and the problem persisted. I then started to eliminate parts as the culprit. I first removed the graphics card (and plugged a single monitor into my motherboard's DVI port). Still won't boot. I unplugged all my drives, still no boot, not even to BIOS. I went down to a single, known to work stick of ram, still no dice.

 

I was starting to get desperate when I noticed that the reboots appeared to happen when switching between BIOS (my motherboard has a dual BIOS setup, and indicator lights to show which one is being used). The light for the primary BIOS would be lit, and then it would jump to the secondary BIOS light, and immediately shut down and reboot, this time starting on secondary, and then bouncing to primary before shutting down immediately. I set the switch on my motherboard to only allow booting to one BIOS, and another switch to lock it to the primary BIOS. Now it boots and stays on indefinitely, but I get no display. I tried locking it to just the secondary BIOS and got the same result, it stays on now, but doesn't even get to BIOS. 

 

My current theory is that I somehow managed to corrupt both BIOS in one fell swoop, although I can't imagine how. I followed all the normal precautions, grounded myself and so on. I'm about to start doing research into reflashing the BIOS (a new world to me) but I was hoping for some input from you guys, does that seem like a likely culprit for my issue, or am I missing something obvious? Please help...

[jameshumphries47]

So, I'm in a bit of a pickle. I've exhausted about all the troubleshooting tips and tricks I know, and am hoping someone could help me. 

 

My computer has the following specs: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fmW9Hx

 

I've been displeased with the performance of my liquid cooler since I upgraded to my 4790k and decided it was finally time to try a reseat, and see if my thermalpaste coverage was subpar. Upon removing the cooler, I saw that I had about 75% covered, but that the bottom two corners were pretty bare. Makes sense, nothing that can't be solved with a better application. I cleaned everything off, reapplied thermalpaste, put the cooler back in place, and closed it all up. (This is where I went wrong, I'm sure of it. You never put the sidepanels back on until you're sure it'll boot). I plugged it back in, hooked up my monitors and peripherals, and pressed the power button, and it fired up, only to have it shutdown unexpectedly, and then repeat this process over and over again.

 

I first checked the post codes, which came back sometimes as 5d and other times as C0, both of which are listed in my motheboard manual as "reserved" and I have no idea what that means. But I usually don't know what post codes are referring to anyways, and I've made it this far, usually by clearing CMOS. I unplugged the computer, and depressed the Clr CMOS button for a solid 30 seconds, plugged it back in, gave it another shot, and the problem persisted. I then started to eliminate parts as the culprit. I first removed the graphics card (and plugged a single monitor into my motherboard's DVI port). Still won't boot. I unplugged all my drives, still no boot, not even to BIOS. I went down to a single, known to work stick of ram, still no dice.

 

I was starting to get desperate when I noticed that the reboots appeared to happen when switching between BIOS (my motherboard has a dual BIOS setup, and indicator lights to show which one is being used). The light for the primary BIOS would be lit, and then it would jump to the secondary BIOS light, and immediately shut down and reboot, this time starting on secondary, and then bouncing to primary before shutting down immediately. I set the switch on my motherboard to only allow booting to one BIOS, and another switch to lock it to the primary BIOS. Now it boots and stays on indefinitely, but I get no display. I tried locking it to just the secondary BIOS and got the same result, it stays on now, but doesn't even get to BIOS. 

 

My current theory is that I somehow managed to corrupt both BIOS in one fell swoop, although I can't imagine how. I followed all the normal precautions, grounded myself and so on. I'm about to start doing research into reflashing the BIOS (a new world to me) but I was hoping for some input from you guys, does that seem like a likely culprit for my issue, or am I missing something obvious? Please help...

i would check all the connections are in properly and i would flash the bios if i were you

[Matt420740]

Lots of things can cause a PC to shut down on its own, but not a whole lot can make it turn back on by itself.   Power cycling is usually an indicator of a faulty or failing PSU.

[atomiku]

i would check all the connections are in properly and i would flash the bios if i were you

 

Yeah, I forgot the mention that I reseated all the power connectors, both to the PSU and various devices. I just read my MoBo manual, and it seems BIOS flashing is pretty simple, I'm about to attempt it now.

 

 

Lots of things can cause a PC to shut down on its own, but not a whole lot can make it turn back on by itself.   Power cycling is usually an indicator of a faulty or failing PSU.

 

Really? I thought it was kind of common. My old setup was an i7-950 in an ASRock X58 Extreme and every time I booted it would shut down after a second and then reboot itself, straight into windows. It did this with two different power supplies, including the one I have now.

 

Edit: Also, the powercycling issue has been fixed. I think the motherboard was responsible, as it was doing to switch between the dual BIOS.

 

Edit 2: So I just attempted to reflash the BIOS, and I can't even get into the utility for BIOS updates, or if I am, it's not displaying. I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm thinking I'll have to try and contact Gigabyte tomorrow to get their opinion on it.

[Matt420740]

Really? I thought it was kind of common. My old setup was an i7-950 in an ASRock X58 Extreme and every time I booted it would shut down after a second and then reboot itself, straight into windows. It did this with two different power supplies, including the one I have now.

That just sounds like a wonky error there or something since it booted straight into windows the second time.

 

But yeah just about every PC I've serviced that was really power cycling ended up being the PSU.  Keep in mind there is a difference between a PC re-starting itself and the PC literally powering on and off all on its own, which is what I'm talking about.

[atomiku]

That just sounds like a wonky error there or something since it booted straight into windows the second time.

 

But yeah just about every PC I've serviced that was really power cycling ended up being the PSU.  Keep in mind there is a difference between a PC re-starting itself and the PC literally powering on and off all on its own, which is what I'm talking about.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "really power cycling" but the fans are all spinning up, it even gets to the point where my GPU fans stop spinning (they have that 0RPM features) and then all fans shut off, and it starts the process over.

[Matt420740]

I'm not sure what you mean by "really power cycling" but the fans are all spinning up, it even gets to the point where my GPU fans stop spinning (they have that 0RPM features) and then all fans shut off, and it starts the process over.

Are you dead sure you got the CPU cooler seated back down fully on the chip?

[atomiku]

Are you dead sure you got the CPU cooler seated back down fully on the chip?

 

If you are concerned about temps, it's happening way to quickly for that to be an issue. I just dealt with my friends PC this morning (His H100i had a pump failure, so he put his stock cooler back on in the meantime, only it wasn't even touching the CPU) and his computer was running for a good 90 seconds before shutting down due to temps. Also, if it was a temp failure, why would it stay on indefinitely with a single BIOS set.

 

On a side note, I managed to get it to boot, by unplugging all the devices hooked up to my internal USB 2.0 headers, which is very strange. The only things I have hooked up are my H100i, my Commander Mini, and my front USB 2 ports, so now it's time to figure out which one isn't playing nice, and why...

 

Edit: And so after plugging them back on one by one, they are all now working, and I can boot into Windows with no issues. It's just my luck that the moment I come running to you guys for help, that's when it all ends up being okay. Not sure what I did to fix it, but I'm convinced you guys were instrumental, thank you for helping me at this ungodly hour, I really do appreciate it.

[jameshumphries47]

If you are concerned about temps, it's happening way to quickly for that to be an issue. I just dealt with my friends PC this morning (His H100i had a pump failure, so he put his stock cooler back on in the meantime, only it wasn't even touching the CPU) and his computer was running for a good 90 seconds before shutting down due to temps. Also, if it was a temp failure, why would it stay on indefinitely with a single BIOS set.

 

On a side note, I managed to get it to boot, by unplugging all the devices hooked up to my internal USB 2.0 headers, which is very strange. The only things I have hooked up are my H100i, my Commander Mini, and my front USB 2 ports, so now it's time to figure out which one isn't playing nice, and why...

 

Edit: And so after plugging them back on one by one, they are all now working, and I can boot into Windows with no issues. It's just my luck that the moment I come running to you guys for help, that's when it all ends up being okay. Not sure what I did to fix it, but I'm convinced you guys were instrumental, thank you for helping me at this ungodly hour, I really do appreciate it.

may have been a mixture of things probably a clash with the drivers and the bios