Brother's computer only boots sometimes...

[harrisonjr98]

Hey all! So I helped my brother build a computer about a half a year ago, all went smooth and the machine has hummed away ever since. Now, however, I'm encountering a bizarre problem I've never seen on any machine before.

 

If you turn on the computer from a shut down state, nothing appears on the display (uninstalled the GPU, same thing straight from the motherboard.) However, *occasionally* about 15-30 mins later the monitor will come on with the mobo splash screen, asking to choose a boot device.

I assumed at this point the computer simply forgot the default boot device, and that's the issue. I can't get into the UEFI to change it, however, because the machine doesn't display anything from the output when it's first turned on...

 

Resuming from sleep works fine, so it's definitely something with the boot sequence.

 

Does anyone know what could be causing this? The motherboard is brand new as of 4 months ago.

[BleakMaker]

2 minutes ago, harrisonjr98 said:

Hey all! So I helped my brother build a computer about a half a year ago, all went smooth and the machine has hummed away ever since. Now, however, I'm encountering a bizarre problem I've never seen on any machine before.

 

If you turn on the computer from a shut down state, nothing appears on the display (uninstalled the GPU, same thing straight from the motherboard.) However, *occasionally* about 15-30 mins later the monitor will come on with the mobo splash screen, asking to choose a boot device.

I assumed at this point the computer simply forgot the default boot device, and that's the issue. I can't get into the UEFI to change it, however, because the machine doesn't display anything from the output when it's first turned on...

 

Resuming from sleep works fine, so it's definitely something with the boot sequence.

 

Does anyone know what could be causing this? The motherboard is brand new as of 4 months ago.

I have heard of issues like this before and it was mostly just the monitor not waking up properly have you checked with another screen?

[harrisonjr98]

8 minutes ago, Mark17 said:

I have heard of issues like this before and it was mostly just the monitor not waking up properly have you checked with another screen?

I thought it was this as well, but didn't have another screen to test with at the time... I'll take one of my monitors over and try it.

[harrisonjr98]

Lo and behold, was his monitor. Sort of humiliated that it was this "grand mystery" that I spent several hours trying to diagnose. lol

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, harrisonjr98 said:

Lo and behold, was his monitor. Sort of humiliated that it was this "grand mystery" that I spent several hours trying to diagnose. lol

Sometimes it can be Windows just forgetting that some monitors "exist". A way to test is to plug in the suspect monitor with the monitor that works at the same time and then check the Display Settings and see if the monitor is being detected.

[BleakMaker]

11 hours ago, harrisonjr98 said:

Lo and behold, was his monitor. Sort of humiliated that it was this "grand mystery" that I spent several hours trying to diagnose. lol

Happy that you found the problem!