startup issues

[ReadyMan]

I bought a pre-made system from Best Buy in May of 2020.
ASUS - ROG Strix GL12CX Gaming Desktop
- Intel Core i9 - 9900K @ 3.6ghz (not overclocked by me, and dont think it is)
- 32GB Memory
- DVD RW Drive
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
- 1TB SSD

I've been super happy with it.
However, we had some heavy storms this last week, and lost power 3 or 4 times.
Only once was the system on when we lost power, the other times the system was plugged into the surge protectors,
but not powered on.
After the storms, I didnt experience any issues at all.

The last 3 days though, I've powered on the PC, and I hear the post beep, the monitors and case light up, but nothing after that.
Each time I hold the power button for 5 seconds or so, and shut it down, wait a few seconds and power it back up and each time it fires up with no other issues.
It's done this exact process every day now for 3 days.

Any ideas why this might be occurring, or what I can do to fix it?

I havent done anything at all to the system, since buying it, including going into the Bios.

Thanks for any input!

RM

[Krom]

POST beep makes me think GPU problem (or something related to the GPU), because you don't get a POST beep if the CPU/RAM/PSU are experiencing an issue.

Go into BIOS and disable the full screen logo, have it show the actual POST screen instead. Also might not hurt to open it up and re-seat the GPU, make sure everything is snug. And if the motherboard has a debug display, it could be worth noting where it stops.

[Tunnelcat]

Almost sounds like what my ASUS Rampage IV Omega was doing. It would turn on, all the motherboard lights would go on, the monitor would get a signal, the POST beep occurred, but then it hung, not even allowing me into the BIOS. Only a full shut down and restart, not a reset, would it fully boot. However, I did add an older optical drive to the system before I started having issues. So far, after unplugging the suspect Sony Optical drive, it hasn't done it again...yet (cross fingers). Since my MB has a small LED display, the particular error was easy to read, otherwise a person has to watch the LED troubleshooting lights during boot to see what they show. I also had a power failure before the problem began, but my system was off and it was plugged into a battery backup unit, which I had to turn off since my outage was over 7 hours long and I didn't want to drain the battery. However, that means the CMOS battery was draining during that time, although 7 hours wouldn't be an issue unless it already had a low voltage to begin with.

[Nosferatu]

The more I think about this, the more I think you might have had a CMOS corruption issue, which could indeed have been caused by a small surge getting through your protectors from a lightning storm.

Fortunately if that is the case, its an easy fix.

You would just need to clear the CMOS.

Of course unplug the computer before trying the following.

Some motherboards use a jumper but the best way to be sure is to remove the little coin battery on the motherboard for about 30 seconds then put it back in.

When you clear the CMOS do not be surprised if the computer takes extra long to come up since it most likely is resetting everything.

The screen might go black then come back a couple times.

Also, you might want to consider replacing the coin battery. Most motherboards use a really standard one that you can even get right at a Walmart battery station.

[ReadyMan]

Thanks for the ideas!

Nothing works yet.
I tried disabling the logo, but there's no option for that.
The Asus BIOS has an option for "advanced" options, but the only options are to create a new startup boot, or to disable "fast startup".
I tried disabling the fast startup, but no joy.

Maybe I'm missing something in the BIOS setup that would allow me to have more options...?

No monitor on the MB that I can see.

Interestingly, this is a repeatable problem:
If I hard reset, the next startup goes smoothly with no issues.

I did a search and found that some others had this same issue back in 2017 when MS put out a windows update....which got me to thinking that just before we
had the power outages, MS forced me to update earlier that day.
The old link https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 98ee680c62 has some comments that they think it's related to GEFORCE drivers...adding further weight to Krom's thoughts.
Gonna try updating drivers later this afternoon (havent updated drivers since I got the system, I dont think...).

[Tunnelcat]

There still should be a set of LED's that light up as the system is booting. They're usually located near the SATA connectors. Your MB manual should give you the sequence of lights and which ones and what colors show during any part of the boot process. Whatever they show will help you find the issue if you can figure out the error code.

[Nosferatu]

Another easy thing to try is reseating power cables, especially the GPU PCEi connector and if you have a modular power supply check both ends.

Go to 28 minutes in the following to see why that can be important.

[ReadyMan]

Thank you for the ideas.
I'll crack open the case and see what I can discover tomorrow.
Will try the easy fixes first. I dont have a mb manual, as it was a prebuilt system, but should be able to get one online.

Idea:
Would the Event Viewer have any indication of what's going on?
I looked for the events this morning right after boot up-lockup-hard reset-startup and found this:

Description:
The previous system shutdown at 9:12:26 PM on ‎3/‎17/‎2021 was unexpected.

Description:
The driver \Driver\WudfRd failed to load for the device ROOT\WindowsHelloFaceSoftwareDriver\0000.

this one was critical (right after the initial lockup before I had to hard reset)
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.


I have a feeling it's software and not hardware related....dont have anything to base this on other than other things I've been reading.

[Nosferatu]

Forgive me. I do forget sometimes that not everyone is comfortable tinkering around inside computer hardware.

Its kind of my hobby to see if I can referb older hardware to useful.

[ReadyMan]

Solved!

After powering down the system and opening it up to find the CMOS battery (couldnt find it btw), it turns out that turning off the power at the power supply and letting it sit, fixed the issue.
Seems there was a bit of power the system was holding on to, enough to power the fans and lights, but not enough to engage the video card sufficiently to get everything going.
Shutting down the system and driving it to the Geek Squad seems to have eliminated the power the system was holding on to.


Surprising, but this is actually a thing. I didnt even think of turning off and then on the PS power button.
It's running great now, no issues.

I bought a battery backup and hopefully this will prevent any issues like this happening again if there's a power outage/lightning storm.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!

[ReadyMan]

Guess I spoke too soon.
Same problem occurred today after shutting down the system last night.
Fired it up this afternoon and it wouldnt start unless I press the power button for 5 seconds to shut the system down, and then it restarts fine.

I tried unplugging and shutting of the PS switch for 15 seconds....but no joy.
Unplugged and shut the PS switch off and went and folded laundry for 15 minutes and it fired up just fine.

Argh.

Any ideas? Maybe the PS is having issues?

[Nosferatu]

Have you checked the BIOS version? ASUS says the latest and greatest for that computer is version 312 dated 2020/11/05
One of the notes is "Improve System Stability".

I still think it kind of sounds like either a capacitor issue on the mobo which if it is then your totally Fed.

Or its a power connector problem like in the video I posted earlier at the 28th minute which wouldn't be that hard to fix if it is.

[ReadyMan]

Best Buy Geek squad did a diagnostic on the system (Ram/CPU-MB/HD) and everything came up good.
They think it's software related, likely windows, and should wipe it and start from scratch.

Not so sure I'm ready to do that (and dont want to pay them to do it for me at $200...sheesh!).

The bios is version 307, so that's on the list now to flash the bios.

What I'd like to do is use the hot swap SSD drive bay and mirror the other SSD onto it.
Then I could nuke the original drive and see if that fixes the issue. If it doesnt, then I can just use the other SSD.
(I dont know how to do this, but it cant be super hard. Not sure if I need another copy of windows or not...)

[Krom]

Try going into Power Options (--> "Choose what the power buttons do") and disable fast startup.

[ReadyMan]

Try going into Power Options (--> "Choose what the power buttons do") and disable fast startup.

That....WORKED!
Started up the system 3 times now, and it started every time.

How did you come up with that Krom?

I had disabled fast startup in the bios, but that had no affect. Disabling in windows fixed it!

Really appreciate the ideas and input everyone!

(not sure how this became an issue in the first place. I havent adjusted that setting, and havent done anything different since I got the system 11 months ago....)

RM

[Krom]

Just a hunch, if you were clearing BIOS (POST beep) then the next place things can go wrong and cause errors like that in event viewer would be something failing to reinitialize during fast startup. Let's give it a few days first to make sure that was really the issue though.

I pretty much always end up disabling it because if something goes wrong during fast startup and it falls back to normal it causes my dynamic disk mirror to have to resync which takes hours, and the difference between "fast" and "normal" is maybe a couple seconds on my NVMe SSD anyway so it was never worth the trouble.

[ReadyMan]

10 days now and everything running smooth and good!

Really appreciate you Krom (adult beverages on me if you ever make it to Oahu) for all your advice over the years.
AND also REALLY appreciate the DBB tech forum...always my first (and best) choice for tech advice.
I always appreciate the well thought out, experience laden, and logical suggestions given on this forum.

Thanks everyone!

RM