Emergency Status Update (THIS CHANGE MADE FROM DESKTOP) · 7:34am Jan 7th, 2021
UPDATE: For the moment, all is well. Backing up and watching closely. Going to perform system tests.
This post has nothing to do with politics.
Just heading this appropriately, before anyone panics for the wrong reasons.
So what’s up? Yesterday, as I was working on the print copy of Axtara – Banking and Finance, my computer stuttered, froze, and died. Then powered back on … only to shut off a moment later, without even a BIOS POST beep.
For those not technically minded, this is really bad.
Some work later with a voltmeter concluded that the first suspect, the power supply, was fine and functioning within optional boundaries, delivering the power it was supposed to. Which, assuming it’s not failing under load (unlikely), puts the culprit elsewhere.
As of right now, the next suspect, which I shall test in the morning, is the CPU fan. If it fails to start, that would be one reason the system isn’t even passing POST. If it does start, then the problem is either the CPU … Or the motherboard.
Neither are good, because both are costly to fix.
Unfortunately, I’m writing this on my phone. If Monday sees a Being a Better Writer post, it’ll be either because I was able to get the computer online without much difficulty, or because I wrote a short, quick one on my phone.
Given that all my books are on the computer and it’s currently unaccessible, no writing is being carried out.
I’ll update you readers as I know more, but this is not exactly a great development. I’ve got my smartphone, and that’s it.
I’ll keep you posted. Max out.
Wow, I very much hope your system isn't borked. You have any USB storage, Google Drive, or MEGA backups for your work? I had to learn that lesson more than a few times myself, the hard way, and I've got a bit compulsive about it as a result.
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Well, the bad news it's been a few months since my last backup. Or a month at least.
The good news is that there seems to be no issue with the SSD where my books and work is stored. Worst case scenario, I slap the drive into a new computer and everything is still there. The only loss would be the day's work from today.
Yikes. Hope it doesn't end up being too expensive of a fix.
Hmm. Well here's hoping it's not a failure that requires a replacement. From my own experience troubleshooting crashes, here are a few more ideas not mentioned in your post:
It could be overheating (likely a fan problem or bad thermal paste), which could fit the stuttering as the system downclocks itself to keep from passing critical temperatures. Chances are the computer would turn back on after resting if this were the case, though if the CPU fan completely died... it might not get very far.
A bad RAM stick can keep your system from booting.
Conductive objects (beyond other hardware) in contact with your motherboard can also prevent booting.
I would wait on this one if you can, but resetting (and, if it works, reupdating) your motherboard's BIOS (which should be doable without being able to turn it on) may revive the computer, if something went wrong there.
If you observe any other exciting symptoms, I might have more ideas later. Good luck getting it fixed!
Ouch. I had my motherboard die on me in 2019. I fortunately found a computer repair business that got it replaced for me ASAP (and even fixed some other things that had been bugging me without me telling them about it), but it certainly wasn't a cheap fix. So I hope it wasn't that.
OUCH! Best if of luck getting things fixed. Hopefully it is something other than the motherboard. As stated above a bad RAM DIMM could also be an issue. Is it an off the shelf machine or a custom job? Have you considered a small USB drive or cloud option for nightly backups of you mission critical documents?
Depending in where in the hard disk your files are you could salvage something, taking it out and putting it in another pc.
But is posible that the hard disk is the problem (try boot up the pc whitout it, or put the disk drive in a enclosure to see the content in another pc) and probably you would need to replace it.
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Thanks. Me too. Lack of a POST is not indicative of good things, though.
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Overheating has been considered, and is one of the things that is going to be looked at today. The lack of POST puts it with the fan and CPU issues as a possible, though it wouldn't explain the lack of POST. A bad ram stick would, unfortunately, still produce a POST error, so if there is bad ram, it's secondary to whatever is wrong.
A short, however, is something I'll be looking at. The most that could cause it would be a bad wire or dust on the back of the motherboard, or possibly a faulty switch, all three of which I'll be checking today.
I can't currently access the BIOS since there's no POST. It's that bad.
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This option has been considered, especially if my diagnostic cannot find a cause. No matter what, however, this may end up costing me a pretty penny. If it could have just held on another year ...
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Bad ram delivers a POST beep (I've run into that before) so it's identifiable. This is full out no POST, nothing. Just hit power and it immediately cycles off again, then on but only lights, nothing else. Alarming, to say the least.
I've got a backup, just not daily or weekly. Worst case scenario, I'll pop my primary drive into a roommate's computer and copy the files out. But the drive is new and should be good.
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The drive is new, and a bad boot drive would just dump me to a BIOS setup on boot (been there, done that) as opposed to taking even that down.
Thanks for all the responses, folks! I'll update you all when I know more!
My condolences.
I know that feeling of dread when a computer doesn't start.
No fun.
I wish you well.
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I've revived several of those, but I know what you mean. You're generally right about the RAM, but (as a fun fact) I have seen a memory error hang a computer in the middle of the boot process forever more than once. I forget how much of that was the motherboard and how much was memory, though. Different symptom regardless.
Again, if all else fails it's worth a shot trying to reset or reflash the BIOS since the worst it could do is brick an otherwise unusuable motherboard. And it most likely won't brick it anyway. I do doubt it'll be the solution, though.
If you do have dead hardware, it was the motherboard 9 times out of 10 in my experience. Unless the socket is crispy I'd like to think you could get away with keeping the CPU. If you need both new, I seriously recommend looking at an AMD pair if you don't have AMD hardware already; the performance and price are generally both better than Intel these days.
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Update!
So the CPU may very well have been having serious heat issues. I got the same problem with just the bare essentials (not even a HDD plugged in) and the sources I was looking at indicated it's very likely a CPU issue. The motherboard lights indicate that the motherboard is functioning. I pulled the cooling fan, and the thermal paste was dried in clumps: not good at all. So I cleaned it all off, bought some new stuff and reapplied it, and in an hour here (letting it cure a little, mostly to destress) I'll test the system again and see what happens.
Edit: The CPU may still have gone too far, so I've looked for and found a replacement.
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Well you solved a problem. That much cannot be contested.
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Yeah, one step at a time!
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If you haven't tested it yet, I'd be a little surprised if it jumped straight from overheating enough to throttle to dead, though it's possible you've not noticed throttling lately if the computer has been running lighter loads. For a previous job, I ran CPUs on the edge of their maximum (plus or minus some) and none of them died from overheating, even when they overheated. The timescale on that was hours or a couple of days tops, though, not days to weeks or more. In the longer run, cooling problems more often led to something (generally coolant, for these) getting into the chip bed and making it crispy that way.
Can't say for sure, but I can still hope.
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I've been having system hangs and crashes for the last month or two now under load spikes, usually while gaming. Just BAM, black screen, locked audio ... And a reset. But never after any long period of time. Just when the system would go under a heavy load (like finishing loading a save or starting a game for the first time. A reset would _usually_ fix the problem, but one of the possibilities I was toying with was overheating or a CPU hang, and only one of those would cause the POST to fail.
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I suggest taking that SSD out before you turn your computer on again.
You can boot Linux from most Linux CD-ROMs without a hard drive.
It's always a good idea to keep an old computer around, to use when you need a working computer to help you fix your computer.
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It is unfortunately the boot drive. So for a proper boot, I'll need it to be in there.
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Oof. Sounds like this was the equivalent of an overdue oil change. Under a heavy load, a CPU's temperature can spike nigh-instantly without a good connection to a heat sink/thermal mass. (yeah, I've also watched this happen real-time*). It makes more sense that it'd happen under load than over time because the CPU could still dump heat, just not very much and with next to no buffering. At least, as the thermal paste deteriorates, that's what you're headed for.
*Multiple times, when things had apparently gone wrong in the thermal paste area.
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I have had a bad RAM cause a no post situation once in the past but your right it does seem much much more likely to be the CPU and a thermal issue. I hope it gets back up on you with just the thermal paste redo and the CPU didn’t cook.
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Yeah, I suspect that's what it was. That and the D drive going out. Ordered a new drive.
5431041 No, you don't need a boot drive if you have a bootable Linux CD. Of course, you can only boot into Linux with it.
When you say a heavy load, do you mean CPU load, heat, or current?
An underpowered USB device can make a computer shut itself off any time the electrical load increases. E.g., one that has its own power transformer, but that isn't plugged in, or has too low an amperage. The device then tries to draw the current it needs from the computer, and if you go over a threshold specified in your BIOS, it turns the computer off.
In any case you should try running the computer with all unnecessary peripherals disconnected.
Could also be a BIOS setting that will shut the computer down based on a temperature sensor.