HELP! FPS Loss, Bios Update, System Crash, Won't Boot

[Artemiis]

I need some help in simple layman's terms, this is my first serious build so everything up till now has been my first time setting things up. Pretty much my computer has run great for about 5 months now.  My complete system specs are in my signature but I have:

i5-6600k OC @ 4.4ghz

Asus STRIX GTX 980ti OC @1405mhz & VRAM @7600mhz 

Asus Z170-A mobo 

Ripjaws V Series DDR4 3200 RAM 2 x 8GB 

Corsair GT100i

Thermaltake 850W PSU Bronze Cert.

OS Windows 10 on Samsung EVO 250GB SSD

 

So yesterday I was having massive FPS drops playing Overwatch, in fact I couldn't even get my fps to go above 30 and usually I'm running at 125-165fps with ultra/epic settings. I was away for the past couple days and I know overwatch had a patch but I asked the people on my friends list and they didn't have fps issues at all. One of the things they added in the patch was a VRAM tracker in the top left hand side of your screen where they already had your gpu temps, ping, roundtrip ping, and fps. I noticed my VRAM said it was hitting 1500-2000mhz. Also when I windowed out while I was still in the menus to check my gpu monitoring software it said I was using 75% of my VRAM while just sitting in the menus. Since this was a new thing they just added to the screen I never really took notice to check it before so I wasn't sure if those numbers were normal but it sounded high to me. So I tried to look online to try to find some answers as to why this was happening and if it were patch or VRAM related but I couldn't find any definate answers, some people were saying their VRAM was too high after the patch, others were saying as long as its not above 2500-3000 that its normal.

 

Since I couldn't find any definitive answers about if it was just my computer or the patch I decided to just start going through some troubleshooting steps, like checking my ping to blizzard servers, network adapters, drivers, gpu clock and temps (I thought maybe my GPU was throttling but it was running at 73C when the target temp is 83C), doing this I noticed my BIOS was out of date. So I went on the Asus website, downloaded the .CAP file and put it on a USB and used Asus's EZ Flash utility in the BIOS. Everything seemed to go fine, I watched the download slowly progress then my computer restarted and booted fine.

 

When it was done I logged back on and tried to go back on Overwatch to see if updating the BIOS fixed the problem, unfortunately I still had 30fps even in the menus. So I figured I better try a different game just to make sure its me and not the servers as Battle.net was having DDOS problems as well (although I didn't think thats what caused it because it was primarily on the AUS servers and again none of my friends were having problems, also my ping and network connection to their servers seemed fine so I was just being thorough just in case). So I go onto Steam and start up Witcher 3, I start walking around and everything seems fine until all of a sudden my computer just crashes. No error or anything it just kind of lost power and the screen went black. There were still a few lights on on my mobo but the fans had stopped and my CPU pump as well stopped and all the case lights turned off. Pressing the power button did nothing, I flicked the switch in the back of the PSU off then on then hit power again and the fans and lights all turn on for 1-2 seconds before going dead again. I've tried uninstalling my RAM and putting it back in and taking out the CMOS battery.

 

Any kind of suggestions can help guys, I'm scared shittless because this is like a brand new computer only a couple months old and I saved up for a super long time to be able to afford it. I might actually cry if something is seriously wrong lol. I really hope nothing is fried or unfixable, I wouldn't even know where to start for checking for that.. So anybody who has expertise in this I would greatly appreciate your help!! Please only post suggestions if you know what you're doing (no offense), I admit I'm totally over my head and that's why I need to ask for help from people who have experience with this sort of thing or have an idea of what has  gone wrong. Also please remember that I'm not a pro with the technical hardware side of things, this was my first build having to plan and order everything by myself but even though I finished it it took me a long time and I had to ask a lot of super helpful people in the community for help along the way.. So  if you can explain any solutions you may have for me in simpler terms it'd be greatly appreciated! Otherwise I'll be stuck trying to wrap my head what you're trying to tell me lol. Any help though is very very appreciated!!

 

 

 

 

 

[Artemiis]

7 minutes ago, McHox said:

 @ixi_your_face

Thank you! I appreciate you calling reinforcements =P

[vanished]

10 minutes ago, Artemiis said:

Thank you! I appreciate you calling reinforcements =P

I've merged your topics and relocated the original to troubleshooting.

[LabRat]

could be the power supply......... new or not.

you should run the pump without power to anything else to see if it's working....... and listen for air/bubbles.

you have the rad in the roof or mounted so the hoses are down>?

[Artemiis]

On 8/4/2016 at 0:33 PM, LabRat said:

could be the power supply......... new or not.

you should run the pump without power to anything else to see if it's working....... and listen for air/bubbles.

you have the rad in the roof or mounted so the hoses are down>?

How do I run the pump without power? sorry I'm new to this. My rad is mounted on the roof of a NZXT H440 case

[Artemiis]

 

On 8/4/2016 at 0:33 PM, LabRat said:

could be the power supply......... new or not.

you should run the pump without power to anything else to see if it's working....... and listen for air/bubbles.

you have the rad in the roof or mounted so the hoses are down>?

Also I've had the computer for several months now, wouldn't air bubbles have worked themselves out by now?

[LabRat]

here, watch Waj. he shows how to disconnect stuff and run the pump.

 

[Artemiis]

On 8/6/2016 at 9:40 PM, LabRat said:

here, watch Waj. he shows how to disconnect stuff and run the pump.

 

He says in the video that he only lets it bleed for 24 hours for the bubbles to make their way out and he also says the bubbles just cause inconsistency in cooling, my temps were normal before crashing and my cooler has been running for over 5 months so I think the air would be out by now. Just in case I looked up air bubbles in liquid cooling systems and most people seem to think that the air bubbles make their way out after a few days or at the most a week so itèss very unlikely they would only start to cause a problem where it would shut down my entire system after 5 months of use. 

[LabRat]

there's always air in there. sometimes it's under pressure when the liquid heats up and expands. especially AiO's.

the idea for posting the vid was to show you how to run the loop without running anything else. I believe he did show that didn't he? I think it was something you asked about  a little earlier.

I'll go out on a limb and blame Windows 10 for the problem. It's good at collecting information but really bad as an operating system.

[Artemiis]

 

6 hours ago, LabRat said:

 

there's always air in there. sometimes it's under pressure when the liquid heats up and expands. especially AiO's.

the idea for posting the vid was to show you how to run the loop without running anything else. I believe he did show that didn't he? I think it was something you asked about  a little earlier.

I'll go out on a limb and blame Windows 10 for the problem. It's good at collecting information but really bad as an operating system.

 

 

It ended up being the power supply, its what I originally thought but couldn't really prove it without a spare psu to sub in. I tried doing the paper clip tip to short pins 16/17 and the power won't even go on. Thank you for your suggestions though

[LabRat]

yeah, not having the right spare parts stops me once in a while too. glad it's working. keep your eyes on it.