Boot Loop Before Post

Hey, everyone.

As the title states, I'm experiencing a boot loop issue. Before I get into that, however, I should fill you all in on a past event.

About a few days after Christmas while I was cleaning my PC, I accidentally bent a few CPU socket pins without noticing (a thread from a cloth must have hooked on without me seeing). Once I'd reassembled all the parts, the computer would not start. Puzzled, I tried turning it on again - it turned on for about a second before immediately turning. Waited for about a minute and tried again. It turned on, but there was no video output and suddenly the smell of burning dust came from the CPU with a bit of smoke. Immediately turned off the PC, disassembled, and only then did I notice that some of the edge-lying pins had been bent and about one or two inner pins.

A month and a bit later, finally got a new motherboard and upon assembling it and powering up, the system fans spin for about a second before turning off; the GPU and CPU fans keep spinning, and the PC turns off shortly, and after about a two seconds, boots up, and the cycle repeats.

Here's a list of what I've tried:
- Removing the CMOS battery for an hour, and trying again.
- Trying one stick of RAM in each of the slots, tried again with the other stick. Tried both as well.
- Unplugging all HDDs, ODD, GPU and one stick of RAM.
- Switching power cables
- An entirely different PSU
- Using one and two 4 pin 12V ATX connector instead of the 8pin EPS one the new board seems to want.

Really don't know what to do. Could it be the CPU? Should I update the motherboard BIOS somehow? Could the new motherboard be faulty? Any suggestions (apart from "buy a new computer" - don't have the money, haha)?

Thanks in advance

My specs are:
Intel Core i5-3330 (stock cooler installed)
Nvidia GTX 650Ti
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H (this is the new motherboard) [Rev 1.2]
8GB DDR3-1600 Transcend JetRam
160GB OS HDD
1TB + 250GB HDD
620W Seasonic M12II Bronze

 

If you used the CPU from the old motherboard, it's probably that.

 

I'm with Eldon; you're symptoms match an overheating CPU so it was probably damaged by the bent pins on the old system board unless you skipped replacing the heatsink compound.

 

Thanks for the replies. I did one more test without RAM, and the bootloop occurred. As far as I know, the system should either remain on without POSTing, or power-off completely without RAM. Started suspecting my CPU as well.

I'll purchase a cheap, second-hand Celeron or i3 and try again - will report back then.

 

$25 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Penti...795013?hash=item4af8812c85:g:AIoAAOSwGotWkBY1

 

Seller doesn't ship to my region (South Africa). Found a guy selling an i3-3240 on a local forum for quite a good price, so I'll pick that up. He also has a personal warranty in case I find that the CPU isn't at fault.

 

I recommend you add your location to your profile - that way we might be able to better help you in the future.

 

Managed to get a different processor, and the system works perfectly. Thanks for the tip, guys.