TR Forums

Heya folks. Me again with another PC failure. The last issue I had was here -- viewtopic.php?f=33&t=120558

My PC has been working fine and dandy since I replaced the motherboard earlier this year. Until yesterday...

I had my first day off in a while and decided to spend the day gaming. I spent approximately 8 hours gaming. Throughout the day I noticed that about every 45 minutes to an hour my PC would audibly "rev up" for about 10 seconds. This did not used to happen. I took the side off and verified that both case fans, CPU, and GPU fans were running. At about hour 8 I was returning to the lobby after a match of Fortnite, and the entire screen turned a weird purplish color and the PC became unresponsive. Now when I restart the computer my MOBO logo screen displays normally, but then the screen goes black with a 1 inch white line across the screen, with a tiny smaller multicolored line.

Around that time I had to start making dinner and do some work around the house, so I have yet to get into the troubleshooting. Another important note is that we moved into a new home on Saturday. It was only a 2 mile move, so I just put the PC in my car with nothing else stacked on or near it. Other than checking to see the fans were running, the only other thing I did was check to see that nothing was unplugged internally due to the move. I did this while the PC was turned off and disconnected from power.

At this point I'm looking for suggestions for troubleshooting. I'm assuming the first step would probably be to remove the graphics card and see if the issue persists?

If your system has integrated graphics, I would proceed with your first idea of pulling the graphics card and seeing if it will boot from the IGP.

With the move, it's possible some components may no longer be fully seated. Reseating the cards, power and SATA connectors, etc. would be a good step as well. They may not have become unplugged but may have a less than perfect connection. While you're at it, verify that the CPU cooler is still solidly in place.

Re-seating components is a good suggestion, based on your recent move.

If you've been hearing a cooling fan spin up, it may be that evil dust bunnies have plugged up your filters, heatsinks or fans.

Because you've got a corrupted/hung graphic while loading windows, trying to boot with the graphics card removed, connecting your monitor to the integrated graphics may be an option.

One way to approach PC troubleshooting is to simplify: Remove and disconnect as much as possible, then try booting with a minimal setup. If that succeeds, add components back until the problem re-appears.

Seems JAE nailed best advice there in last paragraph.
Unplug and re-plug everything, perhaps with the exception of case wiring.

My advice when moving computers (bit late)--TREAT LIKE EGGS-Lay flat so that heavy items that are likely to cause problems,
such as GPU's and tower coolers, are vertical.

Along with JAE's tips, also check none of your cooler push-pins have popped or broken. If your case has a decent cutout, you
should see easily from back of MB...........
Good luck...........

Thanks folks! I removed the components and then reseated everything and it's back in working order again so far (no graphics or fan issue). This kind of issue probably didn't deserve its own thread, but I wanted to be prepared in case it was an issue like last time (which took me a lot longer to resolve). I appreciate all of your feedback!

Congratulations on a successful fix. Hopefully things will keep working this time until you are ready to upgrade to an 8-core fire breather in some future year.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Congratulations on a successful fix. Hopefully things will keep working this time until you are ready to upgrade to an 8-core fire breather in some future year.

Thanks! I just realized that this month is the 3 year mark for my current PC, which was my initial goal when building the PC. I'm currently weighing my options for possibly transitioning to a Ryzen 2600x setup, while still hanging onto my GTX 970 for a bit. I go back-and-forth between the idea of just replacing mobo, CPU, and RAM right now, and then upgrade the rest of it later... or just to save up until I can build a whole new system. My i3 is definitely feeling sluggish though.