Pc Froze Completely And Now Won't Post

Summary: My PC suddenly froze. I held the power button to turn it off, now it won’t turn on.
Hello,

I was using Discord normally when my desktop suddenly froze. It became completely unresponsive to any peripheral input. I held the power button to get it to power off, and pressed it again to power it on. This time however it wouldn’t boot. I’ve listed below the current behavior of the desktop:

The light on the front panel will light up, the fan on the CPU and the fans on the GPU will spin up also.

The monitor, which is connected to the video card through the DP port, doesn’t react in any way when I power the desktop on. The same goes for any peripheral connected to the I/O panel on the motherboard, which doesn’t seem to be receiving any signal or power. The keyboard and mouse don’t light up, and the ethernet blinker on the panel doesn’t turn on. No POST, nothing.

Once powered on, the following happens when I try to power it off:

I hold the power button for around 4-5 seconds. The front light turns off and the fans slow down. Around 2 seconds later, the PC turns itself back on. This time, when I power it off, it stays off. Sometimes, though not usually, it powers itself on again. A second forced power-off usually works. There are some instances where it doesn’t work, and the PC turns off, then turns on, then turns off, turns on again, I turn it off, then it powers itself back on, according to a seemingly random behavior. Eventually it’ll turn off stay off.
When turning it on, sometimes it turns itself off after about 2 seconds, and turns itself back on a second later and stays on.

I have tried disconnecting and reconnecting the 24-pin power cable to the motherboard, removing the RAM, disconnecting the SSD, removing the video card and connecting the monitor to the motherboard through the HDMI board on the panel, resetting the BIOS settings - both by removing the CMOS battery for around an hour and by shorting the reset pins. None have worked.

I built the desktop and it worked fine for about two months. The specs are as follows:

Motherboard: ASRock H410M-HDV
CPU: Intel Core i5-10400
RAM: 2 x Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 8 GB 2400 MHz
SSD: Crucial CT1000MX500 1000 GB
Video card: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2060
PSU: EVGA 400W – 100-N1-0400-L0
OS: Inactivated Windows 10 Home

Thanks.

 

Welcome to Major Geeks!

I think at this point, I would try swapping out parts with old ones, if some are available.

Another idea that I am not completely sure you have tried is unplugging everything for a couple days.

Several times with one box, and recently with another, they weren't booting at all after I unplugged them at the PSU instead of at the wall. I tried everything, but they didn't work again until I plugged the PSU in first, then the wall. I wouldn't think it would make a difference, but maybe it somehow sparked in a bad way; that kind of connector is apparently known for sparking.

It sounds like it could be a defective part, maybe something overheating? I had a heart sink clamp crack on me recently, without being readily noticeable, allowing overheating due to slightly uneven bonding, which caused an on-off cycle.

Good luck! Please let us know how it goes!