Addiction to Gaming

OK, a little dramatic of a title. But maybe not.

Computer is the desktop in my sig. Haven't done anything to it but use it since I built it 18 months ago, no hardware changes or anything.

A couple weeks ago my computer got stuck in a reboot loop (it would reboot when I hit "shut down"). So I flipped the switch on the PSU as it was about to do another reboot. It hasn't started up since (yes I turned the PSU back on). Push the case power button, nothing happens whatsoever. I shorted the pins on the mobo for the switch in case the switch died. Nope. Plugged in a different PSU, same result. Also tested the old PSU with the paper clip trick, works fine. There are no lights coming on on the mobo, no fans spin, etc.

So I sent in the mobo for RMA service, noticed today on the status: "No trouble found after tests with multiple configurations". I kinda doubt they tried that hard, since they recorded receiving it a mere 30 minutes before this entry, but idk, maybe it is actually fine and I wasted 2 weeks (plus another before I get it back) and $15 in shipping.

So, if the mobo is infact fine, I guess it is the CPU? I never overclocked it for the record, though I planned to at some point. I thought I had a board once (not this one) that would at least power up without a CPU, but I might be mis-remembering, or the newer boards can't do squat without one (seems plausible). Or Gigabyte lies, who knows. Their techs on the phone are idiots, which seems to be the norm for all companies these days...

Time to RMA the CPU? If it was an older system I'd just upgrade the CPU/mobo, but there is no reason to. The system has been awesome up until 2 weeks ago, plenty of power for my needs.

Yeah, even crappy mobos typically start in some way even if the cpu or hdd is disconnected.

Not sure about ram though.

Hearing stories like this make me really grateful my mobo checks itself every time it turns on and has warning lights next to faulty parts.

SanVich wrote:If it is the cpu, and it's doing something funny, maybe unpower the cpu itself and see if the psu turns on when you flip the switch?

The PSU is fine, powers other systems fine. No PSU works with this computer though. Can't hurt to give that a shot though.

Murbuto, actually this mobo has a lot of warning lights, and even a 7-segment LED for error codes. But its buried inside the case where I don't look at it normally, and doesn't matter when nothing lights up anymore

It's possible, but rather unlikely it is the RAM. I did try one stick in the primary slot, though I didn't try the 16 combinations of each of the 4 sticks in each of the 4 slots individually. Might try that for kicks when the mobo comes back, but I've had RAM errors with other systems and they would at least attempt to POST, even if POST did fail.

mobos will power on if cpu is dead, till it does cpu check then it haults (you wont see bios though)

ive had stick of ram completely hault a mobo from booting at all (most likely some kind of short in ram).

ram is pretty well the most sensitive part in computer, a tiny tiny shock can damage it and wont become a problem till later on. dell and apple heavly stress the precaustions of handling it.


im also now apple certified if anyones needs any repair manuals or anything lol

Stephen, that's what I thought about the CPU. I had initially excluded a CPU issue figuring a POST would simply fail, but at least attempt.

I'd be thrilled if it was just a stick of RAM, that's an easy and fairly cheap fix. Certainly worth trying all 4 sticks when the mobo comes back. It went 18+ months between times being touched though...

did you also disconnect all headers from the board (front panel audio usb and such)

Stephen wrote:did you also disconnect all headers from the board (front panel audio usb and such)

Yeah I would try this, On your first run, simply plug in the bare minimum. and see if that works. It could be a short preventing the PSU from powering up.

Stephen wrote:did you also disconnect all headers from the board (front panel audio usb and such)

I honestly don't remember. I think so, but who knows. I finally get my board back tomorrow so I'm hoping to somehow get it running. I have another Ivy CPU in another computer that I can use to eliminate the CPU as an issue too. A full cycle of RAM testing (each stick one at a time in each slot, instead of just testing 1-2 sticks in one slot). All stuff I should have done before losing the system for a month...my own fault there if I find the issue that way.

FYI, Gigabyte RMA SUCKS. Even if the board is fine, I might have to start using a different manufacturer. Gigabyte has nice boards with good options for decent cost (same for their GPUs), but I don't want to deal with their RMA department ever again. They took 2 days after they got my board to finish their testing and to "fix" it. No issue there, perfectly fair turn-around time. They then took a FULL WEEK after that to actually ship the blasted thing back. I called and yelled at them (I knew it wouldn't do anything, but sometimes you have to smack people upside their heads anyway), because that's just unacceptable. If I took a week to ship something where I work, I'd be fired.

Well that was an obnoxious waste of a month. Turned out it was some sort of weird short out in the USB 3 ports of a hard drive bay/USB 3 combo I put in the computer a year ago or so. I thought I had removed that (and all USB header cables) when testing initially since a USB issue was what started this all (was rebooting to fix what might have been a driver issue, guess it wasn't), but apparently not. Grrrrrrr......

Oh well, all is well again.

SanVich wrote:Classic Matt.

Hey, who told you ab....er, never mind. Your avatar is appropriate here.