Not happy at all - Not booting

[Zack Valentine]

Got my system delivered this afternoon and it booted up fine. Came back to turn it on again after a few hours and it doesn't even boot up. The system starts to boot then a red light appears inside the machine somewhere, I don't know whether it's the mobo or the GPU then it just cuts out. Definitley not overheating and it's very frustrating. I bought from PCS on the basis of all the 5* reviews i've seen but this is just ridiculous for a new system! I've just noticed this is happening to a lot of other people too. And ALSO my computer was supposed to have gone through testing and 'quality control'?

I don't want to mess about with it incase it voids my warranty. But if anyone has any advice I would be very VERY grateful. I sold my Sony Vaio laptop in favour of a desktop and now I have nothing until I can get this sorted out. Spec is as follows:


Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 400R MID TOWER CASE
Overclocked CPU
OVERCLOCKED AMD FX-8120 (3.10GHz @ max 4.0GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH 990FX - TUF SERIES MILITARY GRADE MOTHERBOARD
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SATA-II 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB (Special Offer)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
10x LG BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£59)
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£87)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II A.L.C ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER (£59)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Keyboard & Mouse
Razer® Black Widow Ultimate Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (£102)
Webcam
Logitech® HD Webcam C910 - 1080p HD Video & 10 Megapixel Photos (£69)
Maximum Required Power
659W


If no one can provide me a solution to this how do I go about returning this?

Thank you

[mantadog]

Firstly, i realise this is frustrating but i would say this could happen with any PC bought from anywhere. PCS will get this fixed as soon as is possible, so no need to worry about it will get fixed.

Now, do you get any beeps?

The red light could mean something isn't seated properly, my money would go to the GPU. This often happens during delivery and is caused during transit, so nothing PCS can do about it when they are testing the system.

Going inside your system will not void your PCS warranty. If you feel up to it you could try re seating your GPU, which is really very simple, youtube has many videos on how to do it if your not sure. If you want to be 100% safe, you can call up the PCS callcentre and they will walk you through troubleshooting the system step by step.

It could also be RAM thats not seated properly. Possibly you have been shafted with a faulty board and it's just decided to go bang.

To return the system to PCS you would first have to call them up, at which time they will try to fix your PC on the phone so you don't have to return the whole system if at all possible. So for example if it turns out to be a faulty GPU you will probably just sent the GPU back and they will send out a replacment next day for you.

[Fear]

Had you installed all the windows updates and service pack 1 and then the extra updates before you switched it off and left it for a few hours ?

[vanthus]

You will be ok under warranty to open the case,just make sure you touch a metal part
of the case before doing anything.Is it the mem ok light showing red?If so try Pressing & hold the mem ok switch until the led starts blinking then release,
this should begin automatic memory tuning.
Failing that try reseating the ram sticks,If the mem ok light is still showing red repeat the process of pressing the mem ok switch.

[El Wayneo]

Mem OK on ASUS board would be my guess too, surely the GPU is screwed in so no chance it can come out.

[Fear]

Mem OK on ASUS board would be my guess too, surely the GPU is screwed in so no chance it can come out.

They are only screwed in at 1 end so yes it is possible they can come out of the slot slightly and the only way to put them back in place is to remove completely and then slot it back in.

[El Wayneo]

Going off topic a bit the Sabertooth boards have clips at the other end you have to move to get the other end of the card out.

[Fear]

All motherboards clip the card in at the other end but if the PC takes a knock it can easily come out of place.

[Zack Valentine]

Just wanna say thank you for some of the advice. It came on again last night and was fine until today, it booted up ok this morning again then had a few maps of BF3. Quit the game, and went to shut down and it installed about 66 updates then doesn't boot. I get one beep at the beggining then after about 7-10 seconds a red light and then power cuts out.

I'll give the RAM ok thing a go...

[Zack Valentine]

I must stress I hardly know ANYTHING about computers. But this is what happened...

Managed to find the mem ok button that you guys said and pressed it (there's a small one with a small mem ok and acorss the side another with Large mem ok! written on it) The LED flashed, I released, then stopped flashing.

Started to boot up, did one beep then black screen with about 70k+ updates. Then started windows (enter password screen). Keyboard was lit up but wasn't typing so clicked on shut down which went onto install 1 of 1 update

Update finished and it shut off. Turned sysyem on and I got one beep with a constant green light and a constant red one underneath processor then it started windows as normal with everything working.

So far it's started up ok about 5 or 6 times since i've received it and had problems starting about 3 times but it may be ok now after doing it.

Thanks again for your help! I appreciate it. Just hope it works from now on as it's the best system I have ever had (i'm going to post some pictures of the setup in action and the actual system itself if all goes well from here) and the customer service and speed of production I experienced with PCS was fantastic to the point of me banging on about them all week.

Cheers guys