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  1. #1

    PC no longer starts properly

    General Information

    CPU Intel i7 2600k
    Motherboard p8p67 B3 revision
    RAM 16GB 1600mhz
    Graphics Card AMD R9 290
    Power Supply Corsair CX750M
    Operating System Windows 10

    For the past few days I noticed that my screen would occasionally go black for a while, which I suspected was my video drivers crashing. I rebooted my pc and it seemed to do things, but my monitors were black. I rebooted another couple of times and the few times that it actually showed something on my screen, the bios messages seemed to be random characters instead of English, and it seemed to change resolution more than it used to. I made it into Windows once, but the screen froze when I started firefox.

    It seems to me that my motherboard is broken, and if it is I'm going to buy a new PC tomorrow. If any of you has any insight or anything else I could try I would love to hear it.
    I don't think this matters nearly as much as you think it does.

  2. #2
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zoefschildpad View Post
    General Information

    CPU Intel i7 2600k
    Motherboard p8p67 B3 revision
    RAM 16GB 1600mhz
    Graphics Card AMD R9 290
    Power Supply Corsair CX750M
    Operating System Windows 10

    For the past few days I noticed that my screen would occasionally go black for a while, which I suspected was my video drivers crashing. I rebooted my pc and it seemed to do things, but my monitors were black. I rebooted another couple of times and the few times that it actually showed something on my screen, the bios messages seemed to be random characters instead of English, and it seemed to change resolution more than it used to. I made it into Windows once, but the screen froze when I started firefox.

    It seems to me that my motherboard is broken, and if it is I'm going to buy a new PC tomorrow. If any of you has any insight or anything else I could try I would love to hear it.
    This could be any number of things... however...

    When the BIOS screen starts displaying weird symbols and whatnot during boot it generally means graphics card damage.
    Is there any way you could get it to work and take a picture of the BIOS screen if it messes up again?

    Alternatively I've had someone with an FX-6100 CPU had the same issue with graphics cards you have with blacking out and crashing.
    (not the FUBAR symbols on BIOS loading screen) - We solved it by replacing the PSU. (after extensive testing of course)
    His issue was literally with the exact same PSU you have, the first revisions which have a green text as their name, not the silver text.

    Can you try to run things if necessary on the iGPU? See if that boots things up normally at least?

  3. #3
    The Unstoppable Force Belize's Avatar
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    Bios errors are generally a code on not actual English.

    May want to google said code.

  4. #4
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Belize View Post
    Bios errors are generally a code on not actual English.

    May want to google said code.
    You're thinking of the wrong thing as that's not BIOS error codes what he is describing.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Evildeffy View Post
    This could be any number of things... however...

    When the BIOS screen starts displaying weird symbols and whatnot during boot it generally means graphics card damage.
    Is there any way you could get it to work and take a picture of the BIOS screen if it messes up again?

    Alternatively I've had someone with an FX-6100 CPU had the same issue with graphics cards you have with blacking out and crashing.
    (not the FUBAR symbols on BIOS loading screen) - We solved it by replacing the PSU. (after extensive testing of course)
    His issue was literally with the exact same PSU you have, the first revisions which have a green text as their name, not the silver text.

    Can you try to run things if necessary on the iGPU? See if that boots things up normally at least?
    So I booted my PC some more times. Half the time it ended in a black screen, twice I got a screen full of characters that look like traffic cones (which I apparently took a super blurry photo of, oops), I got the gibberish bios message once before a black screen, but it was too quick for me to snap a picture, though I'm fairly sure it was the same symbols I had before.
    It also booted through to windows twice successfully and once it showed a garbled windows logo.
    http://imgur.com/IrgyZX4
    http://imgur.com/kvX63LF

    and it just did the black screen and recovery thing again.
    I can't try the internal gpu because unless I'm missing something somewhere, I don't have one.
    I don't think this matters nearly as much as you think it does.

  6. #6
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zoefschildpad View Post
    So I booted my PC some more times. Half the time it ended in a black screen, twice I got a screen full of characters that look like traffic cones (which I apparently took a super blurry photo of, oops), I got the gibberish bios message once before a black screen, but it was too quick for me to snap a picture, though I'm fairly sure it was the same symbols I had before.
    It also booted through to windows twice successfully and once it showed a garbled windows logo.
    http://imgur.com/IrgyZX4
    http://imgur.com/kvX63LF

    and it just did the black screen and recovery thing again.
    I can't try the internal gpu because unless I'm missing something somewhere, I don't have one.
    This to me signifies a broken GPU or VRAM on the graphics card, either which way you're fucked.

    Your CPU does have an iGPU but I forgot that the P67 series boards did not have outputs for them.
    It wasn't until Z77 when it was made standard... so effectively you're fucked.

    Is there a possibility you can borrow a GPU from a friend or something?
    Because I'm thinking that you perhaps still have warranty on that card (maybe) and you could RMA it if you can test it.
    If no warranty is present it will still tell you if the graphics card is the issue.

    Which as I said I'm pretty damn sure is your issue by the pictures.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Evildeffy View Post
    This to me signifies a broken GPU or VRAM on the graphics card, either which way you're fucked.

    Your CPU does have an iGPU but I forgot that the P67 series boards did not have outputs for them.
    It wasn't until Z77 when it was made standard... so effectively you're fucked.

    Is there a possibility you can borrow a GPU from a friend or something?
    Because I'm thinking that you perhaps still have warranty on that card (maybe) and you could RMA it if you can test it.
    If no warranty is present it will still tell you if the graphics card is the issue.

    Which as I said I'm pretty damn sure is your issue by the pictures.
    There's no warranty on the card and I don't particularly care if the problem is in the mobo, gpu or cpu, because if any of them are broken then I want to replace all of them anyway.

    What does give me pause however is that you suggested that it could be the PSU, because I replaced that only a few months ago and it was the only component I would keep for a new build. It would be a pain to replace everything except the broken part. The problem with my old PSU was that my monitors didn't display anything at all, at first occasionally and then it simply never worked again until I replaced it. That is the result I get sometimes now as well.

    The strange thing is that now that I've successfully booted, everything seems to be working fine. There are no strange graphical glitches apart from the occasional black screen that seems like a driver crash (and I get a radeon popup that tells me that something happened and it reset some settings I never changed, I don't remember the exact message, will copy if it happens again)
    I don't think this matters nearly as much as you think it does.

  8. #8
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zoefschildpad View Post
    There's no warranty on the card and I don't particularly care if the problem is in the mobo, gpu or cpu, because if any of them are broken then I want to replace all of them anyway.

    What does give me pause however is that you suggested that it could be the PSU, because I replaced that only a few months ago and it was the only component I would keep for a new build. It would be a pain to replace everything except the broken part. The problem with my old PSU was that my monitors didn't display anything at all, at first occasionally and then it simply never worked again until I replaced it. That is the result I get sometimes now as well.

    The strange thing is that now that I've successfully booted, everything seems to be working fine. There are no strange graphical glitches apart from the occasional black screen that seems like a driver crash (and I get a radeon popup that tells me that something happened and it reset some settings I never changed, I don't remember the exact message, will copy if it happens again)
    Well the errors you've had happen during the BIOS screen is a sign of hardware failure in the first place, most likely caused by the graphics card.
    So my personal opinion is that at this point in time.

    However.. the PSU thing I mentioned did occur with that PSU but again... the CX750M version that had green text, if yours is only a couple months old it might be the new silver version which should be considerably better.
    That said .. discounting it is of course never smart and the only way to test this is to try it with another PSU.

    Hence my questions of whether you could try running the iGPU or if you could borrow a PSU.
    Problem is that as you state you can't do either.

    And normally, this considering your name being Dutch, I would offer for you to drop by and I could test it for you. (see my location underneath my avatar)
    But as it so happens I very recently (2 weeks ago) sold both my test PSU and test graphics card .. so I can't even test that for you right now.

    Honestly though I think your issue here is the graphics card but try running furmark with the "GPU Stress test" option and see if that craps out the card.
    If you get artifacting and crashing then it's your graphics card, if it's a straight up without BSoD crash it might be both.

    So ... silver CX750M or green?

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Evildeffy View Post
    Well the errors you've had happen during the BIOS screen is a sign of hardware failure in the first place, most likely caused by the graphics card.
    So my personal opinion is that at this point in time.

    However.. the PSU thing I mentioned did occur with that PSU but again... the CX750M version that had green text, if yours is only a couple months old it might be the new silver version which should be considerably better.
    That said .. discounting it is of course never smart and the only way to test this is to try it with another PSU.

    Hence my questions of whether you could try running the iGPU or if you could borrow a PSU.
    Problem is that as you state you can't do either.

    And normally, this considering your name being Dutch, I would offer for you to drop by and I could test it for you. (see my location underneath my avatar)
    But as it so happens I very recently (2 weeks ago) sold both my test PSU and test graphics card .. so I can't even test that for you right now.

    Honestly though I think your issue here is the graphics card but try running furmark with the "GPU Stress test" option and see if that craps out the card.
    If you get artifacting and crashing then it's your graphics card, if it's a straight up without BSoD crash it might be both.

    So ... silver CX750M or green?
    It's silver, and I'm going to try furmark now
    I don't think this matters nearly as much as you think it does.

  10. #10
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zoefschildpad View Post
    It's silver, and I'm going to try furmark now
    Then I have honestly very little doubt it's probably your graphics card.
    The new CX-M revisions (silver) are a lot better than their predecessors and have a lesser failure rate.

    Pretty much all signs pointing towards a broken graphics card, mobos generally don't cause corruption like that.
    They tend to just fail outright.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Evildeffy View Post
    Then I have honestly very little doubt it's probably your graphics card.
    The new CX-M revisions (silver) are a lot better than their predecessors and have a lesser failure rate.

    Pretty much all signs pointing towards a broken graphics card, mobos generally don't cause corruption like that.
    They tend to just fail outright.
    Furmark is really trippy, but as far as I can see there is no artifacting at all. My PC now sounds like it's about to take off, but it seems to be doing ok otherwise.
    I don't think this matters nearly as much as you think it does.

  12. #12
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zoefschildpad View Post
    Furmark is really trippy, but as far as I can see there is no artifacting at all. My PC now sounds like it's about to take off, but it seems to be doing ok otherwise.
    Look closely and reboot several times.. An error like this does not disappear without a reason.

    By rebooting I mean both soft and cold reboots.

    Also define trippy..

    I will be going to bed though so won't read this till afternoon?

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Evildeffy View Post
    Look closely and reboot several times.. An error like this does not disappear without a reason.

    By rebooting I mean both soft and cold reboots.

    Also define trippy..

    I will be going to bed though so won't read this till afternoon?
    Man, the only reason I haven't gone to bed yet is that you kept replying.
    With trippy I mean it swirls around and the background twists and turns, which makes it very hard to focus on, but it's supposed to do that. And I'm not saying it's solved, it just seems that once my PC actually boots properly, it also works properly, which sounds like a good thing, but it just makes the problem that much harder to diagnose...
    I don't think this matters nearly as much as you think it does.

  14. #14
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Edit:
    Actually had a thought before brain crash.

    Is the monitor connected through VGA/DVI?
    Due to the nature of those connections they can cause that as well (the artifacting) ... Try to wiggle the cable and see if it ocurrs.. If so test another cable!
    HDMI/DP do not show such corruption in general.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Evildeffy View Post
    Edit:
    Actually had a thought before brain crash.

    Is the monitor connected through VGA/DVI?
    Due to the nature of those connections they can cause that as well (the artifacting) ... Try to wiggle the cable and see if it ocurrs.. If so test another cable!
    HDMI/DP do not show such corruption in general.
    Dvi d, but I have 2 of them and they show the same thing so it can't be the cable. I hard rebooted a few more times and got more traffic cones, corrupted windows logos and windows repair popped up all ready to reinstall and a completely garbled screen that autorebooted before I could take a picture. Looked like an attempt at white text on light blue background but it was too garbled to make sense of. Anyway, I don't know what I'm even looking for anymore so I'm going to go to bed now...

    - - - Updated - - -

    Also the error message I get when the screens black out for a bit is "default radeon wattman settings have been restored due to unexpected system failure"
    I don't think this matters nearly as much as you think it does.

  16. #16
    I'd go with what EvilDeffy has said and say its the GPU.

    See if you can grab another one from anywhere and pull the old one. Easy test if you can get your hands on one.

  17. #17
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zoefschildpad View Post
    Dvi d, but I have 2 of them and they show the same thing so it can't be the cable. I hard rebooted a few more times and got more traffic cones, corrupted windows logos and windows repair popped up all ready to reinstall and a completely garbled screen that autorebooted before I could take a picture. Looked like an attempt at white text on light blue background but it was too garbled to make sense of. Anyway, I don't know what I'm even looking for anymore so I'm going to go to bed now...

    - - - Updated - - -

    Also the error message I get when the screens black out for a bit is "default radeon wattman settings have been restored due to unexpected system failure"
    I'm going to stick with my assessment of what the problem is.
    Honestly see if you can borrow a graphics card from somewhere and test it.

    However if you really CBA doing that you do have another option.. do you have another PC nearby with a sufficient enough PSU?
    Stick the Graphics Card in there and see what happens.

  18. #18
    Run seatools smart check too just to rule out HDD, should work for all brand of HDD's.

  19. #19
    The Lightbringer Evildeffy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fascinate View Post
    Run seatools smart check too just to rule out HDD, should work for all brand of HDD's.
    How in the name of hell are you mixing graphical corruption on the BIOS screen to be a HDD issue?
    That's a physical impossibility.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Evildeffy View Post
    How in the name of hell are you mixing graphical corruption on the BIOS screen to be a HDD issue?
    That's a physical impossibility.
    He ran furmark without artifacts and seatools is a free program, HDD could throw his driver errors too if he has any faulty sectors.

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