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Is my PC finally dead? (Won't boot) (1 Viewer)

TLEF316

Footballguy
I've had my current pc for like 7 and a half years. I replaced the motherboard like 6 years ago (unnecessarily it turned out) it was a high end gaming PC when I built it but obviously pretty dated now. Still runs anything on passable settings but obviously way past it's prime.

A couple of months ago, it started shutting down without me doing anything if I left it untouched for several hours (often overnight) when I tried to turn it on, it would try to boot for like 5 seconds (lights on, fans going) and then shut down again. It would usually do this like 5 or 6 times and then work. Then it would work fine for a few weeks and then have problems again. It's been fine for the past month or so but now seems to be totally dead in the water. Tried rebooting dozens of times with no luck. It also seems to struggle to recognize hardware because the lights on my keyboard (sometimes) and mouse (always) fail to turn on now during the 5 second attempts to boot. So now I'm thinking it might be dead for good but want to make sure I'm exhausting all reasonable avenues (for a nearly 8 year old PC) before pulling the plug.  

Things I've tried....

Many restarts

Replacing the power supply

Replacing the motherboard battery

Re-seating all the RAM (and testing without each pair of sticks)

MB, RAM and CPU are like 7+years old. Most of the hard drives (including the SSD I use as a boot drive) about the same. (threw in a 2nd ssd a few years ago) Vid card is like 5 years old I think.

I've read some suggestions on the internet that involve trying to update all the BIOS and other software but that's obviously not possible at this point since I can't boot. I'm at the point where Im ready to throw in the towel and get a new MB, CPU and RAM and call it a day unless anyone has other suggestions.

Thanks

 
I was going to suggest the power supply, but since you already tried that, I'd say it's probably the mother board.  Why not just buy a new PC and throw the SSD/HDDs in the new machine?  I feel like building them doesn't really save much money, but it's been a long time since I've even looked at doing that. Unless you like building them, then disregard.   

 
Same thing happened to mine a few years back. When you turned it on I'd just see the Windows dots going in a circle loading thing and it would never get past that. I tried everything to no avail.

 
Same thing happened to mine a few years back. When you turned it on I'd just see the Windows dots going in a circle loading thing and it would never get past that. I tried everything to no avail.
I don't even get that, unfortunately

 
I was going to suggest the power supply, but since you already tried that, I'd say it's probably the mother board.  Why not just buy a new PC and throw the SSD/HDDs in the new machine?  I feel like building them doesn't really save much money, but it's been a long time since I've even looked at doing that. Unless you like building them, then disregard.   
I do like building, but also don't feel like spending the money on another PS, case, getting hit for another copy of windows, etc. Plus I don't have any games that I'm really playing right now so I'd rather wait until one comes out before I upgrade my video card.

I know prebuilt gaming pcs have gotten a lot more reasonable in the past few years but i still don't see the reason to go that direction.

 
What happens when you try to boot it without the hard drive plugged in?

Does the MOBO have a built-in video port? If so, try unplugging your video card and plug the monitor in to the built-in port. (You may have to change the BIOS so it recognizes the onboard video.)

 
Do you get any beep codes when it tries to boot? Long beep(s) or short beep(s) or a combination?

 
Also don't forget that the power supply in existing case might not be big enough for a new computer. The builds of today seem to require a much larger supply than in past.

 
looks like you tried everything i would try except one. check the CPU itself. The putty (arctic silver) that the CPU sits on sometimes dry out and that causes the CPU to overheat quickly even with a cooling fan on top of it. my pc had this issue twice in the last decade and it's a cheap fix. the two symptoms you pointed to, not booting and booting after a few tries but shutting down on its own, were the two symptoms I remember seeing before figuring this out.

you keep pointing out how old it is and technically age isn't a factor at 7 years.

 
Long shot, but years ago we had some Dells at work that would try to go into a deep hibernation mode and not come out of it. That 5 seconds then shut off is exactly the same thing that would happen.

just for giggles, power it on, and then hit the power button 3 or 4 times while you are in that 5 seconds of “life”. We used to get a message at that point asking if we wanting to get rid of the saved state and boot fresh or something like that. Obviously, if you get that, choose the fresh boot.

If by some miracle that solves your issue, get into your BIOS and turn that hibernatoin state off.

 
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Depending on your comfort level, you could try to run a live linux distro from a usb drive. That's usually my last resort. 

 

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