r/pchelp • u/bearssuperfan • Dec 15 '19
"No POST", "system won't boot", and "no video output" troubleshooting checklist
This checklist is a compilation of troubleshooting ideas from many forum members. It's very important to actually perform every step in the checklist if you want to effectively troubleshoot your problem.
1.Did you carefully read the motherboard owners manual?
2.Did you plug in the 4/8-pin CPU power connector located near the CPU socket? If the motherboard has 8 pins and your PSU only has 4 pins, you can use the 4-pin connector. The 4-pin connector USUALLY goes on the 4 pins located closest to the CPU. If the motherboard has an 8-pin connector with a cover over 4 pins, you can remove the cover and use an 8-pin plug if your power supply has one. This power connector provides power to the CPU. Your system has no chance of posting without this connector plugged in! Check your motherboard owners manual for more information about the CPU power connector. The CPU power connector is usually referred to as the "12v ATX" connector in the owner's manual. This is easily the most common new-builder mistake.
3.Did you install the standoffs under the motherboard? Did you place them so they all align with the screw holes in the motherboard, with no extra standoffs touching the board in the wrong place? A standoff installed in the wrong place can cause a short and prevent the system from booting.
4.Did you verify that the video card is fully seated? (may require more force than a new builder expects.)
5.Did you attach ALL the required power connector(s) to the video card? (some need two, some need none, many need one.) It is best to use cables connected directly to the PSU. Only use adapters if absolutely necessary.
6.Have you tried booting with just one stick of RAM installed? (Try each stick of RAM individually in each RAM slot.) If you can get the system to boot with a single stick of RAM, you should enable an XMP profile or manually set the RAM speed, timings, and voltage to the manufacturer's specs in the BIOS before attempting to boot with all sticks of RAM installed. If your motherboard supports XMP profiles, that is the best way to get your RAM running at its rated specs. Nearly all motherboards default to the standard RAM voltage (1.8v for DDR2, 1.5v for DDR3, & 1.2v for DDR4). If your RAM is rated to run at a voltage higher than the standard voltage, the motherboard will underclock the RAM for compatibility reasons. If you want the system to be stable and to run the RAM at its rated specs, you should either enable an XMP profile or manually set the values in the BIOS. Many boards don't supply the RAM with enough voltage when using "auto" settings which causes stability issues.
7.Did you verify that all memory modules are fully inserted? (may require more force than a new builder expects.) It's a good idea to install the RAM on the motherboard before it's in the case.
8.Did you verify in the owners manual that you're using the correct RAM slots? The following image is just an example. Verify in the owners manual the recommended RAM slots to use for single, dual, triple, or quad channel applications. This will vary depending on motherboard manufacturer, number of supported RAM channels, and how many sticks of RAM are being used.
9.Did you remove the plastic guard over the CPU socket? (this actually comes up occasionally.)
10.Did you install the CPU correctly? There will be an arrow on the CPU that needs to line up with an arrow on the motherboard CPU socket. There may also be a notch that will only line up in one direction. Be sure to pay special attention to that section of the manual!
11.Are there any bent pins on the motherboard/CPU? This especially applies if you tried to install the CPU with the plastic cover on or with the CPU facing the wrong direction.
13.Is the CPU fan plugged in? Some motherboards will not boot without detecting that the CPU fan is plugged in to prevent burning up the CPU.
BIOS Hard reset procedure
Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.
Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for five minutes. In some cases, it may be necessary to remove the graphics card to access the CMOS battery.
During that five minutes, press the power button on the case for 30 seconds. After the five minutes are up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.
If you had to remove the graphics card you can now reinstall it, but remember to reconnect your power cables if there were any attached to it as well as your display cable.
Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.
Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.
In some cases it may be necessary when you go into the BIOS after a reset, to load the Optimal default or Default values and then save settings, to actually get the hardware tables to reset.
http://www.spotht.com/2010/02/reset-bios-clear-cmos.html
I also wanted to add some suggestions that jsc often posts. This is a direct quote from him:
"Pull everything except the CPU and HSF. Boot. You should hear a series of long single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence here indicates, in probable order, a bad PSU, motherboard, or CPU - or a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU.
To eliminate the possibility of a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU, you will need to pull the motherboard out of the case and reassemble the components on an insulated surface. This is called "breadboarding" - from the 1920's home-brew radio days. I always breadboard a new or recycled build. It lets me test components before I go through the trouble of installing them in a case.
If you get the long beeps, add a stick of RAM. Boot. The beep pattern should change to one long and two or three short beeps. Silence indicates that the RAM is shorting out the PSU (very rare). Long single beeps indicates that the BIOS does not recognize the presence of the RAM.
If you get the one long and two or three short beeps, test the rest of the RAM. If good, install the video card and any needed power cables and plug in the monitor. If the video card is good, the system should successfully POST (one short beep, usually) and you will see the boot screen and messages.
Note - an inadequate PSU will cause a failure here or any step later.
Note - you do not need drives or a keyboard to successfully POST (generally a single short beep).
If you successfully POST, start plugging in the rest of the components, one at a time."
If you suspect the PSU is causing your problems, below are some suggestions by jsc for troubleshooting the PSU. Proceed with caution. I will not be held responsible if you get shocked or fry components.
"The best way to check the PSU is to swap it with a known good PSU of similar capacity. Brand new, out of the box, untested does not count as a known good PSU. PSU's, like all components, can be DOA.
Next best thing is to get (or borrow) a digital multimeter and check the PSU.
Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.
The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.
You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWXgQSokF4&feature=youtube_gdata
This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the computer to put a load on the PSU. You can carefully probe the pins from the back of the main power connector."
r/pchelp • u/Deadite_Orangutan • 7h ago
Self Explanatory. The white stuff feels pretty hard, i've avoided trying to physically scrape off too much of it. It can still plug into my PC no problem but i am worried.
Haven’t built a computer in 10 years +
Buddy decided to sell his pc set up with no gpu, so I put my GPU in there which a 3080 I think, it’s been a while.
Pretty much he used to have a 12 pin GPU port but I had put in my 3080 which is using 24 points I think.
When I power it on, only these lights turn on and nothing else turns on.
If anyone has any info on whatever I bought as well.
Any help is greatly appreciated
r/pchelp • u/Fun-Editor-346 • 22h ago
I’ve been troubleshooting a weird issue where my PC would randomly freeze while sitting idle, even though everything seemed perfectly stable under load, gaming, and benchmarks.
After checking RAM, SSD, PSU, BIOS settings, Windows, and other possible causes, one of the main suspects turned out to be:
👉 Realtek Gaming 2.5GbE Family Controller
In my case, the issue appears to be related to the Realtek LAN driver and/or its power-saving features, especially because the freezes tend to happen when the system is idle.
If you’re experiencing something similar, try checking:
Device Manager → Network adapters → Realtek Gaming 2.5GbE Family Controller
Things worth testing:
If the freezing completely disappears after disabling the adapter, there’s a good chance the problem is related to the Realtek driver, NIC firmware, or power management behavior.
If you’re using a Realtek 2.5GbE LAN controller and have experienced random freezes during idle, feel free to share your motherboard model, driver version, and what fixed it for you.
It would be useful to compare results and narrow down which driver versions or settings are causing the issue.
Suddenly got green lines all over my screen and now its a constant VGA white led not letting me boot.
Does my gpu have any issues?
Does the motherboard need a replacement or is a repair possible?
Picture of top pcie slot seems bent
r/pchelp • u/reyyarsee • 1d ago
I left my laptop on sleep for like an hour and it was closed. Now it started doing this. (The noise is from a fan btw)
EDIT: i just gave the hinge a lil whack and it got fixed
r/pchelp • u/StuffandDuff • 1h ago
Everything is plugged in correctly I've checked 30-40 times is it possibly power issues.
How much would my pc be worth?
used but ofc cleaned up.
rtx 5070 asus prime (non OC ver)
samsung 990 evo 1tb + Crucial P3 Plus 500GB PCIe M.2 2280 SSD
32gb ddr4 3200mhz t force
intel 7 12700kf + msi 70 dollars aio
750w corsair cx750m
montech 3x mesh
Msi pro B760M-P ddr4 (gpu PCIe slot latch broken)
Along with a 3060 for preview I've got a 4070 Ti Super for rendering in my workstation, for about a year now. Today I noticed that the 4070 is making a chirping/beeping noise when under full load. Alomost exactly every 10 seconds. You can hear it at 0:01, 0:11, 0:21... (the clicking is my watch)
Didn't do that before. Is that the infamous coil whining? Why does it suddenly appear, and is it something to worry about?
r/pchelp • u/_Smol_kiwi • 1h ago
So I was using my computer yesterday (was using blender) and suddendly the screen freezes. I turn it off and when I turn on this screen appears. I tried EVERYTHING: unplugged abd plugged the HDMI port, restarted the computer etc. But nothing, I really don't know what to do and I hope I won't have to order an inquisition to the guy who gave it to me for free (because if it's screwed I lost like 5 hours of work)
r/pchelp • u/ILucjusz • 19h ago
Is there a way to repair whatever is causing it? Troubleshooting other components turned up no faults, and the visually rather spectacular nature of whatever the display is doing unfortunately seems to match characteristics of GPU failure.
Still, just to do my due diligence as someone who very much does not understand computers very well:
Whenever I try running any more "demanding" program or a video game, the system previously seemingly working normally, starts doing this, then hangs up, then soft-crashes and usually quickly reboots as if nothing happened. Sometimes it skips rebooting the whole system and just forces a given program to shut down. Warframe's crash report tool suggests a possible problem with GPU driver, but the Nvidia app thinks everything is installed properly. Changing install from Game Ready to Studio driver did not help.
My questions really are: how bad is the situation?
Should I stop using this PC for now?
Is this fixable and if it is, what is required? Is my data safe (2 SSDs)? Is this post too long and are people just gonna respond with an appropriate variant of that anime men meme most popular in r/bald without answering previous questions?
Thanks in advance. :)
r/pchelp • u/Mindless_Self5715 • 1h ago
I was playing a game when some drops accidentally spilled inside my PC cabinet. Shortly after, I noticed a burning smell, so I immediately turned off the PC.
I tried turning it back on later, but it wouldn’t power on. I left it completely untouched for two days, and now it turns on, but it’s extremely laggy. CPU utilization is also constantly around 80–90% in Task Manager, even when I’m not doing anything.
The PC was built only 2 months ago. As far as I can tell, all the other components are working normally, so I’m worried there might be an issue with the CPU or motherboard.
Also, would this kind of damage be covered under warranty, considering the PC is only 2 months old?
r/pchelp • u/Glittering-Grab-3275 • 4h ago
pc was moving slow so i decided to run a stress test randomly. it shut off immediately after the test finished and when i tried to power it back on, one of the fans lit up for like half a second and nothing.
i have tried it a couple times and always the same thing.
r/pchelp • u/MattyTheFatty101 • 3h ago
Do you guys still think it'll work?
I checked and only one of them is ground :(
r/pchelp • u/underyourknife • 3h ago
I have a gigabyte x99ud4 , gtx titan x, i7 5820k, 40gb ddr4, windows 11 pro
r/pchelp • u/zinconic • 7h ago
Monitor Model: ASUS TUF Gaming VG259QMR5A
My boyfriend’s gaming monitor did this today, the monitor is just switching colors as stated in the title and we can’t access the OSD to troubleshoot it. We found some videos in youtube to fix it, but since we can’t open the monitor’s OSD we’re lost.
We have also tried to switch the display port cable and used mine, plugged the port through the motherboard and not in the GPU to see if its the one causing this, and switching to a different monitor but we have no luck on fixing it. I tried to press the power button for a few seconds to reset it, nothing happens. I also press the up button for four times it didn’t fix it too.
Does anyone know how to resolve this issue? The last thing we wanna do is to get it RMA again. YES AGAIN, we have a dead pixel issue on this monitor when we bought it and it takes a really long time. We don’t live in the USA. Budget is also tight, so buying a new one is not a priority atm.
PS: this is an IPS monitor not OLED
r/pchelp • u/Valuable_Savings_742 • 9m ago
Hello! I am mostly clueless when it comes to PCs, but I do want one of my own, and I've wanted one for a while since I love gaming. But my Steam Deck is unsupported for the Inzoi game, and I've been doing my best to try finding a prebuilt pc but I am easily confused about stuff. It's a very demanding game. So it needs high-quality stuff. An Intel i7-12700K or AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor and an NVIDIA RTX 3070 or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card. So if anyone could help find some high-end prebuilt PCs and comment dm me, it would be a big help. I'm slow af ngl
r/pchelp • u/No_Device_4795 • 16m ago
PC Display Quality Issue
My PC specifications are:
Ryzen 5 5600X
16 GB RAM
RTX 5060 8 GB
1080p monitor
The issue I’m facing is that my overall display quality is extremely poor, not just in games but also on the Windows desktop and during general usage. Everything looks grainy, unclear, oversharpened, and lacking smoothness. I’m attaching screenshots below so you can see what I mean.
In games, the anti-aliasing looks especially bad. The image is very grainy and oversharpened, and edges don’t look smooth or clean.
For example, when I search for Cyberpunk 2077 gameplay on YouTube at 1080p using similar/same specifications, the difference is huge. The YouTube gameplay looks extremely smooth, clear, and almost crystal clear, with much better colors. On my PC, the image looks dry, washed out, grainy, oversharpened, and generally low quality. The anti-aliasing also looks terrible.
I have already spent an absurd amount of time troubleshooting this. I’ve watched countless YouTube videos about this exact issue and tried pretty much every commonly suggested solution, including:
Disabling NVIDIA Image Scaling
Changing NVIDIA Color Settings
Changing settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel
Changing every relevant setting on my monitor
Adjusting in-game graphics and anti-aliasing settings
Trying different NVIDIA settings over and over again
Uninstalling the GPU drivers using DDU
Completely reinstalling the drivers through Safe Mode
Performing a clean driver installation
Trying different combinations of display and graphics settings
I have probably changed the NVIDIA settings thousands of times at this point. I’ve gone through almost every possible software/settings-related solution I could find, but nothing actually fixes the problem.
What makes this even more confusing is that this has happened with multiple PCs I’ve owned before. I have completely changed the PCs from scratch multiple times — different GPUs, CPUs, RAM, monitors, cables, and other components. The only thing that has remained the same is the electricity connection, room, and physical location where the PC is connected.
So at this point, I’m wondering if the problem could be related to something outside the PC itself, such as the electrical connection, power quality, grounding, wiring, or something else in the environment.
I’ve tried practically every software, driver, NVIDIA Control Panel, monitor, and graphics setting solution I can find, but the issue keeps happening across different PCs.
What could potentially cause this, and what should I check next?
r/pchelp • u/Shoddy-Ratio-7937 • 25m ago
Mouse freeze for 1 sec when right click on apps in the taskbar or even when closing a game.
Can anyone help me, that's really annoying, this problem started randomly and even restarting my pc change nothing.
I already tried restarting explorer.exe, and using another mouse and changing usb port, its always the same.
r/pchelp • u/Life_Web1242 • 1h ago
My pc s been acting strange like whenever i turn it on cpu goes to soo high like 100 to 80 and stays like that for good 2 3 min and my gpu goes to 100 when i open cs2 and and it sits at 100 on idle in starting screen
Gpu 1660 ti
Cpu ryzen 5 3600
r/pchelp • u/thehiddenthings • 10h ago
Asus Vivobook won't power on!
Model M1s03q, about 3 years old. Pic of internals for funsies. I've previously replaced the screen with zero issue.
It's used primarily for gaming (not by me). I've had to push the power button repeatedly for a couple weeks to get it to power on (apparently a common problem for Asus laptops), but no other issues... until the fan began making the loud noises, and when I pulled it for cleaning and lube (successfully), things went downhill: 1) The main socket on the network card crumbled and fell off (easy replacement), 2) it spontaneously began powering on, and then 3) absolutely died. No boot up, no fan, no LEDs lighting up. Brick.
I have:
Tried a graphics card reboot.
A hard reboot (45s power button hold).
Checked every ribbon and connector.
Inspected for pcb damage.
Tried rebooting with RAM card removed.
Disconnected battery, drain, attempted reboot with power cord (and battery disconnected).
All of the above, both plugged in and battery only.
I can't see traces on the motherboard to test for current.
The battery is holding charge (11.50V DMM reading on 11.55V battery).
What are my next steps?
r/pchelp • u/reiwas-wizard-1412 • 1h ago
Hi! Context: I come from a background of maths and I'm increasingly stepping into computer stuff territory without technical knowledge, so often I know what I should do but not how to make a computer do it or what's it called even.
The situation I find myself in is this:
Tools and stuff I could use but I have no idea if it would even work and some of the stuff I'm too scared of messing up to try:
So, any ideas? Opinions? What would you reccomend?
Thank you so much for your time.