Os or ssd fail plus monitor

Recently I haven't used my desktop PC much and it has shown no errors or made any weird noises. It's a PC Specialist build I've added to.

The other day it told me it didn't have or couldn't read the disk, insert boot media and press ctrl alt del. Then the monitor, a day or so later, turned bright blue with "no cable connected".

Monitor is easier to understand except for the underlying cause. It doesn't work on another PC while a different cable made no difference in the first PC.

As for the PC, once I had a working screen, I used f8 in the hope of the advanced boot menu for safe mode and command prompt to try fixboot, mbr, etc, but got a list of drives instead. Tried various things including trying to press it just between post and windows starting to load, but either I can't do it right or it's another fn key, etc. I tried a few plus space bar and esc.

Giving up on that, I tried the Windows repair menu from the DVD but it told me the version was not compatible. Then I disabled my two hdds in bios and got the same message after two long waits for the windows disc menu to load and then after clicking on repair.

Opening the case, everything is fixed in firmly except for the gpu which has been unable to be firm for a long time. I think it won't reach the edge of the case to be screwed in so I can wobble it, but it's in the socket just fine.

There's been a quiet, slightly popping, crackling sound twice that hasn't lasted long, I tried listening close to the parts, but don't know which component is doing it.

I'm at the point of buying a sata-USB gadget to get anything I can off the three disc drives so I can reformat a hdd if the ssd has died, and see if the ssd is readable or fried, but I wonder what would have caused it if the monitor is also dead immediately afterwards and the ssd isn't read in bios. Anything to do with gpu or mobo?

Last February I replaced the motherboard as the original had died, plus upgraded the CPU and put in the ssd. Build date on the PC's base is July 2010, that applies to the hdd, gpu and ram.

Details as I have them, can't see the pc spec in Windows, obviously :confused

Motherboard is an Asus m5a97 le r2.0
Ssd is sandisk sdssdp 128gb
Hdd I think are both western digital, one green, 1tb, and one black 500gb.
CPU is AMD FX6300 Black Edition 6 Core (3.5/4.1GHz, 8MB Level 3 Cache, 6MB Level 2 Cache, Socket AM3+, 95W)
O/S is Windows 7 64-bit
USB keyboard and mouse
8gb ram in two sticks of 4gb. I don't remember the speed, but I guess they're ddr3, from memory and the age of the PC.

I unplugged the other USB things, speakers and printer to narrow it down and clear desk space.

I'm stumped. Thoughts?

 

Welcome to MG!
You are on the right track with F8. Asus uses that same key to choose the boot drive so choose the one with Windows and keep pushing F8 again so Windows sees the keypress during its boot so you can get into safe mode.
Popping is not good, be absolutely sure cables are secure and your MB is not touching the case, especially on the bottom.

 

Okay, I'll try it again and see if my os drive is on the list. Main issue I have is bios doesn't even list it. I somehow forgot that bit in my first post, but that was the most important part.

I'll take another look at the mobo and cables.

Btw, I forgot some specs, not sure what helps, so power supply is 850w and gpu is a Radeon 5500 I think.

 

Well, last efforts have given the same result. Sata cable swap and sata socket swap both tried. If amd has a warranty of over a year I'll look into it, though I've had the ssd resting on the unused card reader as the power cables were too short for it to be mounted. So maybe not. Didn't occur to me for ages after I installed it that it might also get too hot like that.

Still stumped on the monitor, though. It's also not very old really, its predecessor lasted years and only died after it had been replaced. I have access to my dear dad's PC and screen, that's a bit smaller (he died last month, this is all fun). Of course I paid more for mine to be height adjustable and his has to sit on a huge beige drawer cabinet. Better that than dictionaries.

Thanks for your help. Any other thoughts as to cause of sudden death of two things like that, I'm intrigued to hear them.

 

I assume you tried your SSD in your Dad's PC to see if it shows there.
By the same token you can pull the drive out of your Dad's PC and see if your MB sees it.
Check the ACHI setting in your BIOS and try both settings to see your SSD.

A power surge can fry multiple components at once. Worst part is that you are not at fault and usually don't see anything but damage later on.

Sorry to hear about your Dad.

 

I hadn't thought of that, but I did once I saw this and it couldn't read it, not sure it even saw it. Also couldn't read my older HDD so thankfully my overflow HDD is fine. I didn't really need that before, but it's come in very handy now. Still might be able to format the old one, though.

I'm not sure what did it, power surge or otherwise, to take out SSD, HDD (maybe) and DVI port on the GPU. Power strip still has green lights by the word Surge.

 

Power strips protect by burning themselves instead of your equipment. If your strip is old I would not trust it.
Sounds like you have a good plan.