Start up/booth problems.

[Treize]

When I start my pc the lights go on and the fans start spinning but nothing else happens. Usually after the second or third reset it works fine but now I had to press reset like 15 times, after that it froze at the very first booth screen (I have a RoG mobo, I got to see a line of text but the RoG logo did not load), after another 4 or 5 resets it froze at loading windows and after another reset I got the Windows Repair option, but it did not see any drives and I don't know how it works anyway but after a final restart I was able to start it up.

I have had this problem for the last week or so, sometimes I have to press reset 1 time, sometimes more like 10 times and on few occasions it works fine.

What is going on? Also, and I don't know if it is related, I am having short freezes when using the PC far more often than normal, often GPU driver issues or something.

[PoleCat]

You haven't given us much to work with. Please answer a few questions. What flavor of computer is it - Laptop or desktop? Do you have an anti-virus program running? Did you build it yourself or is it out-of-the-box? How old is it? Good luck!

[Treize]

Desktop, relatively new, mobo and cpu are like 1.5 years old but recent ly bought secondhand. No antivirus just the Microsoft one. Build from parts.

[irishron]

Ever have any heat problems?

[Treize]

Not that I am aware of.
This new motherboard makes my cpu fans spin slower but that's because it is fully automated, my previous ASRock just had 10 speed levels to pick from.

SpeedFan says my CPU is 38 degrees C with the 2 CPU fans spinning at 1100 rpm or so (they can do up to 2000 rpm afaik). And that's without heavy stuff going on, just internet and streaming some music. I do have a room that gets very hot on a sunny day.

[irishron]

How about postng a pic of Speedfan?

[Stildawn]

When it fails to start does it POST (make a short beep then continue past the BIOS loading screen)?

If it doesn't POST, does it beep randomly? If so can you please count the number and pattern of the beeps?

If its failing before or during POST then its a hardware issue, I would start by removing all unneeded components (remove graphics card (if you have an onboard graphics to use), HDD, ROMs, Any PCI cards, Even ram).

Test to see if it gets to POST (obviously without ram it won't get any further but it should come up with something telling you that).

Then put back each component one at a time (starting with RAM). Test each time.

Eventually one component will cause the issue. Though sometimes it doesn't as often just reinstalling the components can fix an issue.

If none of that works then reset the BIOS, you can do this using the motherboards jumper, or alternatively removing the CMOS battery for a couple of minutes.

If none of that works try a different PSU. You have narrowed it down to Motherboard, CPU or PSU, I highly doubt its the CPU, it will most likely be the Mobo, and perhaps the PSU (although it sounds like the PSU is working).

If it starts the problem when you put the RAM back in, try putting just one stick in at a time and test, try different slots etc, as I've often seen faulty ram slots.

If the one stick/slots doesn't work, then it might be the RAM itself, put one stick in at a time and see if you can run memtest, try to narrow it down to the exact stick that's causing the issue.

Any questions let me know, the problem with hardware issues is that its a long drawn out process to find the culprit. Although if the computer beeps then it will be fairly simple to fix out.

[Treize]

When it fails the screen usually remains black, sometimes it freezes during start up, sometimes on the very first screen or sometimes during starting windows (before the coloured orbs pop up to form the windows logo). Also I get random internt connection problems (Local Area Connection 2, no IP stuff, that cannot be solved with CMD: ipconfig /renew) that require a restart.

EDIT:

It might be worth noting that a week or so ago it did not boot at all, or very rarely. We discovered that there was a bit of thermal paste on the CPU, the wrong side that it. We cleaned that with alcohol and after that it started, but now it is having these issues. When I just got this mobo and CPU (bought second hand from a friend) everything worked fine and in his PC it worked fine as well so I do not believe it is a hardware problem.

EDIT2:

SpeedFan reading included.

[PoleCat]

...It might be worth noting that a week or so ago it did not boot at all, or very rarely. We discovered that there was a bit of thermal paste on the CPU, the wrong side that it. We cleaned that with alcohol and after that it started, but now it is having these issues. When I just got this mobo and CPU (bought second hand from a friend) everything worked fine and in his PC it worked fine as well so I do not believe it is a hardware problem....

Actually this makes me think of hardware problems. When you put the system back together are you absolutely sure everything was connected correctly? It's suspicious that it worked flawlessly up to that point but started to fail afterwards.

As an aside - why is one of your temp sensors slowing working its way to absolute zero? Less than 100C to go....

[irishron]

Power supply reading are good and so are the temps. There goes my first impulse.

BIOS up to date?

[Treize]

I do not know, maybe I should stop pouring liquid nitrogen into my case?
No for serious, I do not know.

[PoleCat]

I read your post in haste the first time and just now reread it. So it wasn't booting at all until clearing the thermal paste? But it worked fine before in your friends machine? Are you sure that your successfully removed all the paste and that there is none in the socket?

[Treize]

I am quite sure it was cleaned. Might need to check the socket. Anyway in a few days my tech savvy friend will check it out. He believes it might be Windows or the RAID drivers (wrong ones maybe). If it is the hardware, he still has warranty fortunatly.

[Stildawn]

If its happening before or during post then it aint software.

[Treize]

Yea I sent back the mobo to the seller and they tested it and it is broken. Now it has been sent to asus for a replacement.

Once it is up and running again I might celebrate it by buying a nzxt phantom case.

[Stildawn]

You should have demanded a replacement then and there from the seller. More often than not they will flick you a new one no questions asked lol.

[Treize]

Well that's not how it works. But last time when my PSU was dead I received a new one in three days.