Why won't my PC boot?
Okay, so before you even begin troubleshooting your PC,
I recommend drinking a cup of coffee, have an energy drink something along those lines now
This isn't a sponsored spot on being dead serious
Drink something like this before you begin troubleshooting because
you could be doing this for quite a long time
Hey
everyone welcome to another video on the how to
Playlist this one hits close to home because I've been following the channel for quite a while
You know that every now, and then I do have something go wrong at
some point somehow with one of my PC's this one
Right here is no exception. This is an itx PCs boarding an
I-5 7600 K
16 gigs of Ram GTX
1060 and a fractal I think it's a
400 450 watt sfx power supply all packed into the fractal node 202
This is a classic example of a PC that will not post now that word is actually an acronym
It's not just something we float around it means power on self test
It's a checklist of sorts at the PC run sir when
you first power it on to make sure all the components are functioning properly
Before you boot into your operating system this
video will focus primarily on the post issue though, I will briefly mention
What you should do if your monitor isn't receiving any signal from your PC
Especially if the computer appears to be functioning properly these are just scenarios
I imagine a few first-time builders will find themselves in at some point
Maybe you receive a do a part or you just didn't wire something correctly
I also recommend checking out the link in this video's description
Tied to a Tom's hardware forum post
It's a beautiful breakdown of what you should do
if your PC is not posting or if your system won't boot in general no power
Or if you're not receiving any video output to your monitor
right so for the sake of time the length of this video because it
Could be hours long if I want to address every possible scenario
I'm going to assume that you kind of already know what you're doing
So you plugged everything in correctly maybe this isn't your first rodeo or
you've used a Youtube channel like my own or website to help
Help you along the way as you build your PC
I'm going to assume that you've wired everything correctly
And that you're receiving power from the wall that you haven't tripped a break or anything like that
So the basics you got that so in most troubleshooting cases
Especially if you do know to some extent what you're doing
The specs themselves aren't going to matter as long as
you're using the proper cPU for the motherboard
The proper Ram it's DDr
3 or DDR4
Videocard that's plugged in correctly and a power supply's delivering enough
power to even boot the computer in the first place
which usually isn't going to require a lot of
power then the specs really don't matter now it just comes down to
What component if it's a hardware issue is?
Causing the PC to either boot loop or just not
turn on period In the case of this PC here the computer will turn on
For about five seconds turn back off
And then cycle again and again and again repeat
the exact same thing the first thing that I recommend you do
Ultimately depends on whether or not this is the first time you've booted up this PC
So if your pCs been running for days months
years it doesn't matter and now all of a sudden won't turn on
the first thing I recommend you do is clear your cmos what that will
do is reset all of your bios settings back to the
stock configurations that your motherboard had when it came
out of the box let's say you had an overclock of
4.3 gigahertz on your cPU and a V core of 1.3 that might have been good a year ago
But now thanks to the degradation of technology is just what happens over time?
Let's see if you might require a bit more voltage
It's not receiving that required voltage when you first turn your PC
on it will continue cycling and if your motherboards are considerably old board
Then the bios won't reset itself newer boards will typically warn you after a few cycles and say hey
We just reset to default settings because something in your bios was
forcing this PC to trip and turn off and on again
But older motherboards aren't usually going to do that for you, so I recommend clearing your cMos
You'll find some kind of jumper at the bottom your board
Your motherboard manual will tell you how to do that
Some newer boards will have just a button you can
click to clear the cmos and reset the bios now assuming the opposite case
So this is the first time you've ever turned
your PC on and you're getting a boot loop or your system will not post in
general I recommend starting first with system ram
Remove one Dim change the slots don't occupy all
the slots just put one stick around in if it still doesn't work try each slot
You might have one two three
Dead slots if you have four slots on your board or if you have an x2 9 9 x 99 your x 79 board you
Could have seven dead slots in one good slot
It is possible for peace of mind sake I recommend taking one stick trying it in each of those slots
and kind of narrowing down the possibility of a
System ram error remember it could be the dimm
itself or the slot itself on the motherboard either as possible
I'll tell you right now the reason why this
you see wooden post is because one of the ram slots on this board the asrock
Fatalities II to 70 gaming board which I reviewed
right here by the way died on me randomly just a fluke thing now
So I had both of these modules
installed and all of a sudden just one time after
Benchmarking the PC
Wouldn't turn back on I decided to remove one of the modules kept one
in try each slot I found out that the outside slot
Was Dead and the way that I confirm that it wasn't the module itself that was bad
Was I tried a whole nother stick of Ram?
Just a completely different stick from a different manufacturer and
that would also not work on the outside slot
But it worked perfectly fine on the inside slot so through the process of elimination
You can figure out which slot is that if that is the case alright?
So if we assume a system ram is not the issue. We're getting the exact same errors on our PC
then the second thing I recommend you swap out
or remove to just test for the sake of testing is the graphics card remove the
Graphics card if you have an ig p you plug the HDMI cable into the motherboard
Directly to remove the graphics card as a
potential issue if you get the exact same error again
then you know that it's not the graphics card and
If you get a post or even if you don't have an eye gPU that you
just turn the computer on anyway and the computer
Doesn't give you some kind of error code or doesn't boot loop
then chances are the graphics card is the problem if you've deduced that
The graphics card is what is causing the boot loop
you can either try moving that graphics card to a different slot on the board
Maybe it's just the PCI slot that's giving you an issue
You could also check to see if you have the cables from the
power supply plugged in correctly either six or eight pin or both
If you're not getting enough power to the graphics card and
that can be a reason why you're not getting any signal to your monitor?
and if both of those fail
then it might just be a
Pcb issue in which case just return the thing and buy another
cart because you're not going to be able to fix these really tiny
things on the board itself now at this point if you're still getting a PC boot error,
or you're not getting a post period
Then be prepared to get your hands dirty because you're going
to have to virtually disassemble what you've already assembled in your case
This is why we recommend
building your PC outside the case first to make sure that your components are
working because if you have to start dissecting everything and
Troubleshooting individual components. It's going to
be a lot easier to do if everything is not already assembled in your case now
I recommend verifying that your cPU is seated properly
I've actually run into this issue a few times myself especially with Ex
9 x 299 cpus those are pretty large sockets the cPUs themselves are large as well
And if you get any sort of improper pin contact then your PC will likely not post
So remove the cPU cooler from your build
Also remove the cPU from the socket depending on to give an LG or pg a layout most
Amd boards will have a pGa layout so you can check the pins
physically on the cPU make sure that none of those are bent you
want proper contact remember if you have an lGA board usually with
Intel then you can check the pins
Physically in the motherboard make sure that none of those
are bent if they are I have a video right here
That should kind of help you out. I guess I mean you can try your best worst case
You can go ahead and rMA it, but if you can fix it yourself
I mean to save you save you time long run
You want to wait as long to have that bright and shiny new PC up and running?
Once you've ensured that the pins are not bent.
Go ahead and reseat the cPU into the motherboard socket
Reseat the cPU cooler atop the cPU and then try booting again
It could just be as simple as removing the see-through from
the socket and reinserting it may be that tiny little movement change
Is the difference between a post and no post and that is actually something?
I've experienced as well literally removing the cPU
Inserting it back into the socket for whatever reason fixes the post issue now at this point
There's really only three or four other components in the system
We can try testing and troubleshooting from just a general hardware standpoint
To determine which of these is preventing our PC
from posting I don't recommend starting with the power supply
I'll discuss that later
and also
You can kind of narrow down if it's a drive issue or not because if your ssd is there's dead
Let's just say it. Just died randomly most of the time
it's not going to write your PC from turning on you're going to get a post and your
Bios's either going to tell you that hey we can't read this drive
Or it's going to tell you that there is no boot drive present
And it's just going to keep cycling to your bios over and over and over, so if it's a drive issue
That's usually what will happen if it's a hard drive, and you have your os on a hard drive
Oftentimes it'll happen if your hard drive starts failing is it'll boot up
Maybe for 10-15 seconds you might even get into windows or whatever operating system
You're running
And then maybe it'll crash after that it with a blue screen of death
That could just be because your disk is spinning fast enough
or it's just not spending period So dry of
Troubleshooting is a bit different most of the time a drive is not
going to prevent your PC from turning on in the first place
You could check again to make sure that
you've put an adequate amount of thermal paste between your seat
It's cooler
though even if you don't put any cooler at all atop the cPU and
you just try to turn the thing on usually I'll get
a post
And your PC might even stay on for a while if
it's just going to throw a throttle hardcore down to like you know 200
Megahertz or so that shouldn't alton utley prevent
the PC from posting in general even if you hit t junction and pass t junction?
You'll still get a post and it should still run for a few seconds at least
So I wouldn't recommend going through the whole trouble like swapping cPU coolers
I really don't think that's necessary for scenario like this at this point
We've narrowed it down to just our motherboard and our power, so remember this this PC here
There was just a dead ram slot, but if you're still having issues,
and you've run through the previous mention steps
And you've also have been kind of running through the checklist on the Tom's hardware forum
Then all you have left are the motherboard and the
power supply as potential hardware causes I recommend starting with a power supply first
Because it's just more
Straightforward you can either take a voltmeter and test each of your
connection to all your peripherals make sure that proper power is being delivered
To each of these peripherals that could take a lot of time though
And you have to verify you know which voltage reading is on which pin
It just gets complicated what I recommend doing is
removing this power supply and going to Best buy Micro Center
Just buying another power supply online if you have to and testing
that power supply in the system if your PC boots
Then you've basically concluded that the power supply you had in there was
already dead not delivering enough power to one of your peripherals
But if your PC is posting but not sending any signal to your monitor
Then you can assume in most cases that your power supply is ok you can still swap it out
Just for peace of mind sake but if you're getting a post and no
signal then your power supply is more than likely
Ok the last thing in our checklist, then is the motherboard and at this point
All I can really say is best of luck troubleshooting this
thing you've already narrowed down the fact that your ram slots are
Functioning properly and that if you have an lGA board,
you don't have any bent pins in the motherboard socket
Then you're really not gonna be able to troubleshoot much else on this board
You can verify that the PCI slots aren't dead
But that's why I told you to move the video cord from the top slot maybe to the next 16x lot
But that's really it you could try removing the hD audio cable you could try removing the uSB 3.0
Cable most of the time those aren't going to
trip your entire PC and prevent it from turning on it's difficult to
And trying a new motherboard because that you can't just buy anywhere you
can buy those at Micro Sun or few other stores
but for the most part in your city
You're not going to have just a store you could go to to buy another Motherboard to try
troubleshooting with which means that you're going to have to order one online more than likely and
Completely rebuild your PC some other board is like underneath
Everything else in your build now that if you've never devery thing else down
and you're confident that it's not your graphics card you've plugged
All these components into other PCs verify that they all work properly then yeah
It's probably going to be a motherboard issue and even if it's not worst case
You swap everything out,
and you still get an issue at least you know that it's not the motherboard
So the old one you had is good. Just return the newer one at this point
There are a plethora of reasons why your PC couldn't be turning
on just reasons that I would say are kind of stupid for most
Of us especially if we've been building PCs for
quite a while it could just be as simple as your power supply switch
Not being turned on and wondering why you're not
getting any power period It could be as simple as maybe you plug the power
Led header into the power switch header something simple like that,
so you're pushing the power button on your case
And you're not getting any power because you wire that lead into the wrong header on the motherboard
It could be as simple as maybe you plug the
vGa cable and upside down or you plug the vGa cable into the EPs 8
pin cable up top and the Motherboard it could be
as simple as maybe you didn't see the graphics card properly into the
Pcie slot it could be as simple as you didn't
push the ram module all the way into the slot on the motherboard
I've done that personally so check all the simple things as well
You can check those before you run to any of the
serious troubleshooting steps up front again if you're confident
That's why I move on to the bigger troubleshooting measures
but check the simple stuff to you know keep it simple and
and don't work harder than you need to so the most common issues are the simplest ones most often and
I would say that you know checking all
your connections up front is a good thing to do again though
If you've checked all of your connections cleared your cmos made sure that all of these
components work outside of this PC and other pieces
But they don't work in this one. It could be I don't know maybe you just have a standoff
That's like shorting out something on your motherboard
if the list goes on
I do recommend checking out the link in this video's description
of the Tom's hardware forum post it is a very informative I would say
It's way more detailed in this video
This one is just kind of me talking about some
personal issues that I've run into when it when I build PCs
Some super simple things maybe you have something that's more complicated like a dead ram slot
but start with ram and start with your graphics cards the two easiest
things to remove also remember clear cmos first and foremost if you're
not getting a post and
Check your basic
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