Help please?

[the_darkness]

So I was doing some gaming yesterday and everything was fine. And then, my rig just cut out on me. No errors, no warnings, no freezing - it just turned off. When I press the power button nothing happens. The fans don't come on, the PSU fan doesn't come on either.

I have a Maximus VIII Hero Alpha - when it's plugged in, the red start button is lit and some of the lights on the motherboard (NB LED, for example) fade in sometimes, then go off. At first I thought the board was fried, but I'm not sure as things are lighting up.

Two interesting observations I've made:
1. When the board is connected to power, the NB gets hot.
2. My video card has a white and red led on it - when it's connected to the PSU, the white light illuminates (as well as the ROG logo but not fully), when it's disconnected, the red one illuminates (this appears to be the intended behavior?).

What I've done so far (drivers and Windows updates are current):
- Removed the battery for 5 mins
- Removed the battery for 30 mins
- Reseated all PSU connections on both the board and the PSU
- Reseated memory DIMMs (I have two 8GB sticks - I tried using one or the other and with both channels)
- Reseated M.2 Drive.

So, I can't be sure it's the mobo because I know that it's getting power. I can't be sure it's the PSU because I know it's providing (at least some) power. And I don't even want to believe it's the CPU because I think I might cry at that point (rig was built in December).

Any thoughts on this? I have accepted the fact that I will be parting with some cash to buy a replacement part of some sort, but I'd rather not guess at which one it is.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[Blaylock]

Did your SuperNOVA come with the shorting test plug. You can pull the PSU and install the test plug and verify the +12v, 5v and 3.3v lines to ensure the PSU is good. Otherwise I'm thinking it's the VRM of the Motherboard. If you just built this rig in December than everything should still be under warranty. You can only pray that what ever did fail didn't take anything out with it.

EDIT: Per EVGA looks like they do come with the "self-tester"plug. You'd just need to google the pin-out for each connector. Linky

 

[trents]

If you have access to one, plug in another PSU to test for that component being the culprit. Or if you have another PC temporarily install the PSU in it. It might even be smart to purchase an inexpensive, backup PSU for such times as these. What you can't tell easily with a cheap PSU tester or a multimeter is if the PSU is putting out enough wattage to power a system, even if the voltages are right. Hence, you can still have LEDs light up on the board but not have enough power to start the whole unit.

I would certainly start from the PSU end on this one. If nothing else, it's easier and cheaper to do it that way.

By the way, an 850W Super Nova is way overkill for the system you outline in your Sig. You could easily get by with a quality 500W PSU.

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

I had an issue like this before. turns out, one of the connectors on the ATX cable was loose/broken. So i replaced the power supply and now all is well again.

Try replacing the power supply and see if you can at least boot to UEFI.

 

[the_darkness]

Thank you all for the help.

@Blaylock - I did find the testing tool. Turns out the PSU was just fine. As the NB was getting really hot when it was plugged in and powered off - I'm guessing a capacitor or transistor blew. Either way, a board replacement did the trick. I'm not happy I had to replace it, but I never back down from an excuse to upgrade my rig - so I did.

@trents - I realize that 850W is a bit much, but when I bought it - I did have scalability/upgrades in mind (like adding a water cooler like I did). As long as she doesn't blow out on me, should be one of the last PSUs I buy.