Failing to power up

[randomone]

Hi,
I'm having an issue with my PCS machine that I bought a good 7 years ago now and was wondering if anyone here would be able to offer assistance or suggestions as to what might be going wrong..

Basically whenever I push the power button on my PC the system appears to try and boot up and then immediately turns itself off again after roughly 2 seconds. If I leave it alone it continually does this for roughly 20 cycles.

I haven't changed anything in my computer for a long time and it hasn't been moved etc. recently in any way that I would think has caused this, so from my point of view it's fairly random. The only abnormality I experienced before this started happening was the system cut out randomly one night however after a reboot it was working fine again.

I've done a little research and I believe this behaviour is called "power cycling"? There's also a wide range of suggestions to check to see what could potentially be causing it. I am planning to open up my machine and have a look inside to see if there's any obvious issues however I thought I'd ask what you guys think could be causing it and potentially what I should be checking to solve the issue.

My PC specs are as follows:

CASE: Coolermaster CM Storm Trooper (Gaming Enthusiast Case)
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
MB: ASUS Z97-A: ATX, UBS3.0, SATA 6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
RAM: G.Skill F3-2400C11D-16GSR 16GB (2x8GB) 2400MHz CL11 DDR3-RAM 1.65v Memory Kit
GPU: MSI NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 2060 SUPER GAMING X Graphics Card '8GB GDDR6, 1695Hz
HDD1: 250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s
HDD2: 1TB WD Caviar Black WD1003FZEX, SATA 6Gb/s, 64 MB cache (7200rpm)
PSU: Corsair 850W RM series modular 80 plus gold

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers

 

[SimonPeters116]

Maybe a silly question but, when was the last time you opened your case?

My computer sits on the carpet in my living room. I open it up and de-fluff it roughly quarterly.
I just did it again today, the amount of fluff in cooling fins, fan blades, etc 😮
The previous de-fluff was only a couple of months ago, if that. But, I've been playing a fairly graphics intensive game recently, which has obviously had a bearing on airflow, so cooling air flow-through, so dust and fluff ingestion.
My keyboard inputs were lagging occasionally, and that game was stuttering more. So I decided to check, I'm glad I did

I've read that many people never clean out the fluff and dust. A lad told me recently that "it's a laptop, it doesn't need it" 😧
The number of 'problems' caused by a bit of fluff is amazing, but that option is never mentioned. It's always the technical stuff being analysed first.

 

[sck451]

I agree with @SimonPeters116 that the first step is to open the machine up and clean it, but to me it does sound like a fairly significant problem, most likely with the motherboard.

 

[randomone]

Yeah I did have a bit of dust in there but tonight I've gone through everything I could think of to try get it working again and still no luck

I've tried:

Switched the power lead
Complete de-dust of the inside
Cleaned all fans using compressed air
Cleaned all dust protectors using compressed air
Visual inspection of all connections to the motherboard to check for any obvious issues
Removed RAM and reseated it
Removed GPU and reseated it
Removed all fans
Removed all USB connections
Removed all disk drive connections
Removed CPU cooler and de-dusted it (this was heavily dusty)

Finally removed the CMOS battery, waited 5 minutes and reseated it. After doing this it now no longer powers on at all (hoping I've not made it worse)
I'm waiting on some thermal paste to arrive from Amazon tomorrow to reattach the CPU cooler although I think I may now also need a new CMOS battery.

Other than the battery and reapplying thermal paste I'm all out of ideas.

 

[randomone]

I guess replacing the PSU completely would be the next step after this. I was kinda hoping it wouldn't come to that though..

 

[SpyderTracks]

I guess replacing the PSU completely would be the next step after this. I was kinda hoping it wouldn't come to that though..

At that point, the PC is at the age where it's not worth fixing parts, better to put that cash into a new build.

 

[randomone]

Yeah maybe it is just the computer Gods telling me it's time to upgrade. I was looking to order a new one next month once all the new hardware has been reviewed, benchmarked etc.

Perhaps it's time to start looking at what I could spec out

 

[SpyderTracks]

Yeah maybe it is just the computer Gods telling me it's time to upgrade. I was looking to order a new one next month once all the new hardware has been reviewed, benchmarked etc.

Perhaps it's time to start looking at what I could spec out

Mines around the same age and I'm doing exactly the same and just waiting for as many reviews to come through before I start getting components.

I'm of the opinion that even though new stuff is looking pricey now, I have a feeling prices are only going to go up in the coming years due to worldwide economics.

I think now is a really good time to upgrade if you've been holding off. Obviously this is pure conjecture.

 

[SimonPeters116]

Hopefully it's just the CMOS battery. They're 10 a penny
A new PSU, not quite so cheap

 

[SpyderTracks]

The other thing that could possible attribute to it is the RAM

Clear any CPU overclock you may have just for testing, and remove any XMP which will be applied to raise it to 2400MHz which is quite high an overclock on that chipset (mine's running at 1600MHz).

Then try booting with just one stick in a slot.

If that fails try in another slot again just with that one stick.

If that fails, try the other stick in a slot.

If that's still failing, it does suggest something more serious.

If it boots, then try the second stick in the opposite DIMM slot (slots are normally paired, manual will tell you which slots to use), and try to boot again without XMP overclock.

If that succeeds, it may well be that the RAM or even the board itself is just unstable at that particular XMP profile, try lowering it step by step and see if you can get it stable.

 

[B4zookaw]

Yeah I did have a bit of dust in there but tonight I've gone through everything I could think of to try get it working again and still no luck

I've tried:

Switched the power lead
Complete de-dust of the inside
Cleaned all fans using compressed air
Cleaned all dust protectors using compressed air
Visual inspection of all connections to the motherboard to check for any obvious issues
Removed RAM and reseated it
Removed GPU and reseated it
Removed all fans
Removed all USB connections
Removed all disk drive connections
Removed CPU cooler and de-dusted it (this was heavily dusty)

Finally removed the CMOS battery, waited 5 minutes and reseated it. After doing this it now no longer powers on at all (hoping I've not made it worse)
I'm waiting on some thermal paste to arrive from Amazon tomorrow to reattach the CPU cooler although I think I may now also need a new CMOS battery.

Other than the battery and reapplying thermal paste I'm all out of ideas.

If you've tried powering it on with nothing but the CPU and MB power connected and 1 stick of RAM (no drives, no GPU, etc), and nothing happens, I'd say either PSU or MB is toast.