Having trouble, PC won't boot.

[Rosenkjaer]

Hi, I'm having trouble with a PC from a friend of mine. He have said that it started recently, his PC won't boot and when it finally does he have had to clear cmos "a million times". So, first he got another mate to help him, he told him it was his motherboard that was dead (i7 4970k Gigabyte z97 SOC Force), so he got a new one (Asrock Extreme 4 z97), same problem, then he thought it was the PSU, I checked with mine (Corsair HX1200i), still same problem. So I took all his gear with me home for some extra troubleshooting, change the GPU, nothing changed, tried with a GPU nothing changed, RAM nothing changed, PSU nothing changed, same problem occur of two separate motherboards with the only constant part being the CPU. Let me describe the problem.

 

Using the Asrock board here. Everything it connected and plugged in, power off PSU, clear cmos, power on PSU, click start button. Sometimes it read loading codes (when it does it goes through them all and blanks out afterwards, from 00-97), some it doesn't. Sometimes the red power buttons on the motherboard light up, sometimes they don't. Anyway, when it boots (blank screen) it does so for roughly 10-15 seconds, reboot and just idles. Nothing else happens. I can of course reboot, clear cmos and all that stuff, only to sometimes get loading codes (that's the name?). At his place it still sometimes show loading screen before either restarting or not recognizing bootdrive, he tells me sometimes it works and actually boots up. 

 

Thanks in advance, Oscar.

[bgibbz]

Well you answered your own question. If the only constant part is the CPU, that is most likely the issue. If you don't have a CPU to test and don't want to risk a replacement, you can pick up a cheap celeron that will fit the socket.

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/PTdqqs/intel-cpu-bx80646g1840