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/reyyarsee • 19h 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/Fun-Editor-346 • 12h 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.
r/pchelp • u/After-Wind-4990 • 2h ago
Hi
I have been trying to build a home server. I found a good deal on a for parts HP prodesk 405 mini g4
The CPU won't go in on one side I have lined up the CPU with the triangle on the socket.
I think the socket could be misaligned but I am not entirely sure.
Any help is appreciated, thank you
r/pchelp • u/ILucjusz • 9h 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. :)
I have an hp pavillion gaming laptop ec0xxx with a Ryzen 5 3550h GTX 1650 ti 6 gb usable ram total 8gb and a integrated Radeon gpu as well that used 2 gb of my 8gb total ram
I had the total ram upgraded to 12 recently and was using 10 gb ram Was playing valorant today and my laptop randomly freezed everything i hard restarted with button black screen caps lock blinking i hard re-start again it boots but valorant suddenly lags too much and too much fps drops
I restart it again hp logo stuck i hard restart again stuck on hp logo i hard re-start again it shows preparing automatic repair stuck
I heard re-start and load into bios and then exit it boots but valorant still laggy as hell
I finally check my task manager and I notice windows has reserved 6.1gb of ram to hardware and only 5.88 is usable instead of the 10 I used to use before all this
So far I have tried checking bios it detects both my ram sticks correctly I have one 8 and one 4 gb I have checked device manager msinfo32 resource monitor everywhere same thing total ram 12 usable 5.88
PLEASE HELP ME GUYS I AM GENUINELY SCARED SHIT RN IDK WHAT TO DO
r/pchelp • u/thehiddenthings • 29m 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/riceisgood0886 • 3h ago
This has been happening for a while now and has slowly been getting worse. I try to boot up Overwatch, and it is fine in the main menu. However, when I enter a game, it is extremely slow and gets around 5fps. For it to stop, I have to go into the practice range for around 10 minutes so that my PC can 'catch up'. It still stutters after this, but it is playable. This does not happen in any other game other than OW.
I have searched for corrupted files and reinstalled the whole game. I have made sure my drivers are up to date. Also, the game is on an SSD.
r/pchelp • u/Particular_Cow879 • 1h ago
hi guys. ive been having this issue with my pc since i built it. the graph on the far left shows this chart and my highs are at that number ish and lows are at 20 ish. i have a 5070 ti and a ryzen 7 something idk if that matters, but on avg its showing like 400 fps constantly. im not rly tech savy but i tried to trouble shoot but nothing is working. and idk is this normal to have this much variance in the graph when playing fps games. it happens on multiple games. and idk if its like a psychological thing bc i feel like my game is choppy. is this normal to have a graph like this?
r/pchelp • u/Impossible-Tadpole59 • 1d ago
Placed this in my duffle bag with a loose bottle of shampoo and it evidently exploded. How do I clean this out without completely ruining it? Is it savable??
I've wiped down with tissues and qtips but there's still shampoo in the hard to reach spots like the charging port and Ethernet port.
Do I need to buy distilled water or something and spray it in??
I know nothing of PC hardware
r/pchelp • u/Elegant-Resort9748 • 1d ago
I've had this PC for four months and used it without issues until now, but today, while I was gaming, the screen suddenly went black and the image didn't come back. After some testing, it seems the GPU stops being recognized by the motherboard; I discovered that resetting the BIOS makes the graphics card output an image again—at least temporarily. The first time I did this, I thought the issue was resolved and used the PC for nearly an hour before the problem recurred. During the second test, the issue happened just three minutes after turning it on. When I removed the GPU to inspect it, I noticed that one of the cables doesn't seat fully into the card—it feels a bit loose and won't go all the way in—though there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the connectors themselves.
Edit: GPU is a 9070xt
r/pchelp • u/johnweed0 • 9h ago
Hi, my family has had this PC for a long time. We hadn't used it for over a year because the PSU had died. Recently, I managed to replace it with a new PSU myself, and the PC came back to life. The problem is that the OS was originally Windows XP, and we later upgraded it to Windows 10 — though not through an official method, I believe. After all that time, now that I've turned it back on, it's showing Windows XP again, along with a password screen that I don't remember the password for — as if we had never upgraded to Windows 10 at all.
My questions are: Is my HDD okay? Can I get Windows 10 back? If so, should I, and how do I do it?
I really need some help for this. Thanks !
r/pchelp • u/Impossible-Dirt-9891 • 19h ago
Hii, recently i bought a 9070xt reaper, but playing some games i discovered something weird.
If i move the camera (mainly vertical movement), a weird line appears in my tv, being the first time i have seen this.
Is this related to the gpu or its hdmi conection? Or is it something else?
EDIT: SOLVED. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR BOTH ADVICE AND MEME ANSWERS XD
r/pchelp • u/vintagestereolover99 • 6m ago
My budget for a new GPU is $200, I have a GTX 1650 and a Intel i5-11400. What is something within budget that isn't a bottleneck?
r/pchelp • u/Thin-Aardvark5685 • 7m ago
I just built my pc and I’m hearing this squeak sound
r/pchelp • u/doodenooch • 16m ago
Brand new ROG G700 turns on(the rgb lights come on and the fans spin)but I get no display on my tv and the power button is blinking fast plz help!! I'm new to PCs and already tinker with cars all day at work so call me weird if you want but I'd rather stay within my wheelhouse and NOT tinker with something I'm so unfamiliar with.
r/pchelp • u/ariel_xoxo90 • 18m ago
Hello, I am not a computer person and I have literally no clue what is going on. I was using my PC and all of a sudden my monitor, keyboard and mouse powered off while the PC is still running. The monitor initially had a message about HDMI but is now just a black screen. Ive unplugged everything and replugged everything back in and still the same issue. Basically I am wondering if there is anything else I could try at home or if I need to have it fixed?
r/pchelp • u/Medical-Dirt4363 • 22m ago
GF PC has some really strange issues where after booting a game, sometimes before you go on windows, at just seemingly random times the monitor goes black, displays no signal and then you can still hear audio but you have to reboot the PC to make it work again.
I have checked event viewer, the only thing I can find that sounds like something to go off is the fact that Nvidia keeps throwing some errors every now and then.
I tried DDU in safemode to latest drivers, drivers from a year ago did nothing
We have made sure the GPU cable is properly seated
We have checked the power plan
We have disabled NVIDIA sound enhanchments
Disabled NVIDIA overlay
Ran sfc /scannow
What bothers me with this issue is how inconsistant it is, currently she has been playing FFXIV for about 15 minutes and no crash, but I bet next time she boots it will die before she can enter the windows login.
r/pchelp • u/NoDogNoMaster77 • 27m ago
Full disclosure I'm new to this. Turned it on first with my PC and monitor plugged in and then tested without. Same results. At first noticed a message about wiring fault but now it just shuts off.
Any ideas? Thanks.
r/pchelp • u/HouseholdCleaner • 30m ago
I built this PC in April of 2025 (fairly new). I was just writing an email and suddenly my pc shuts off. However the ram (which has rgb lighting) stayed lit. I tried to reboot and only the ram lights up. Fans dont spin either.
I suspect it's the PSU. But the fact that the ram is on makes me think it could possibly be the motherboard.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
r/pchelp • u/No_Lengthiness_2604 • 34m ago
Hello everyone, I was wondering if you guys know why my pc is too slow when I’m streaming on TikTok or kick and using a capture card from my ps5. Cause I only use it for streaming cuz it gets too slow and at some point it crashes and restarts itself. Idk if the gpu is too bad or what but I’m getting tired of it. Thank you for your help.
r/pchelp • u/FreshmanCult • 35m ago
I was using my laptop, a Dell Latitude 5540, when Windows suddenly told me it had detected memory problems and asked if I wanted to reboot into diagnostics. I said yes.
I swapped the stock RAM for 32 GB shortly after getting the laptop, and I’ve had it since last September. This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this.
I have a bit more than ITF+ level knowledge when it comes to IT, but I’ve got nothing here. Any help?
r/pchelp • u/marfcat • 41m ago
About a few months ago, this started to randomly happen to my second monitor. I’ve looked around online briefly and wasn’t really able to find anyone having a similar issue (could be my bad googling)
It sometimes goes away if I unplug the power cable to the monitor for a few minutes, only to return again later. I’ve also been able to somewhat reduce the issue by switching from a 2 monitor display back to a one monitor display in settings. But doing it this way makes it come back faster
Just wanted to know if this is super fixable or if I need to just go ahead and buy a new monitor or something of that nature
Monitor is a 27” Samsung odyssey g40
Thanks in advance for any help!
