System briefly flashes BIOS logo, then nothing

[fritzgrant]

I built this system a year ago and haven't had any issues with it until suddenly yesterday. When starting the system after extended shutdown (1+ hours) it very briefly flashes the BIOS logo and then goes blank, and if I have a drive connected, it will flash the windows startup logo, and then go blank.

If I manually reset the machine multiple times in a row (3+) the system will boot as normal, and then function normally. And if I then restart OR shutdown the machine and power it back up, it will boot normally and function normally still. The blank screen issue only arises when I have the system shutdown for times in excess of 1 hour and then try booting it.

MB : MSI H110m Gaming
Ram : Single stick of HyperX
CPU : Intel Pentium G4400
Video : On board
PSU : Seasonic 520w

Here has what I've tried so far:

• Pulling the battery/reset the cmos
• flashing the bios to most recent version
• disconnected all drives -- issue still persists when just booting to bios
• re-installed the ram and tried other slot
• checked to make sure speed boot was disabled in bios

I don't have a speaker to test codes at the moment, I'm trying to find one.

 

[EarthDog]

Have you tried buying a new battery?

 

[trents]

I also wonder if the PSU is failing. The capacitors will store a charge for a period of time and then leak off. But changing the CMOS battery with a new one is certainly a cheap experiment.

 

[Alaric]

Worth every penny. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LN8OQDO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Vishera]

If it was the PSU, the system would shut off completely. He said the screen goes blank; unless I'm taking the exclusion of "system shuts off" too literally, the system is still running after the brief logo flashes. And because he's getting those flashes, I'm wondering if it's not a bad GPU. Being that his GPU is integrated, perhaps the CPU as a whole is going kaput?

 

[fritzgrant]

I can't even get it to display this morning after using the multiple resets method, I will try going out and buying a battery first.

I pulled a video card from one of my older systems and tried booting with it -- nothing happened, not even a flash. I might attribute that to something needing to be enabled in the BIOS though, even though I did reset the cmos before installing the card.

One thing I've noticed though is if I boot with the on board graphics, and it does the "flash" thing, if I let it sit there a while it will still flash whatever screen it is on ever so briefly. So if I'm on the BIOS screen, it will flicker the BIOS screen occasionally.

After the battery test I think I will pull the PSU and test with a backup.

Thanks for the ideas guys.

 

[trents]

I can't even get it to display this morning after using the multiple resets method, I will try going out and buying a battery first.

I pulled a video card from one of my older systems and tried booting with it -- nothing happened, not even a flash. I might attribute that to something needing to be enabled in the BIOS though, even though I did reset the cmos before installing the card.

One thing I've noticed though is if I boot with the on board graphics, and it does the "flash" thing, if I let it sit there a while it will still flash whatever screen it is on ever so briefly. So if I'm on the BIOS screen, it will flicker the BIOS screen occasionally.

After the battery test I think I will pull the PSU and test with a backup.

Thanks for the ideas guys.

After this additional information it doesn't sound like the battery to me. But a new battery is probably in order just to prevent future problems with that component, given the age of the existing battery.

 

[EarthDog]

Yeah, doesn't sound like teh battery after hearing that.

Almost sounds like the monitor or cable or something is failing... odd.

 

[RollingThunder]

flashing the bios to most recent version

It's little puzzling on this. You obviously flashed the BIOS when your computer was working properly because you couldn't have flashed it in its current condition. Was you computer working correctly before flashing your BIOS? Why did you flash your BIOS?

 

[fritzgrant]

It's little puzzling on this. You obviously flashed the BIOS when your computer was working properly because you couldn't have flashed it in its current condition. Was you computer working correctly before flashing your BIOS? Why did you flash your BIOS?

The computer started doing this three days ago, at that time I could reset it a couple of times and then it would work fine as if nothing was wrong, I could go into the BIOS as well as boot an OS. At that point I decided to flash the BIOS to the most recent version.

Update:

• I changed the battery with a known working one out of my current system, system still flashes.
• I tested the system with a backup PSU I had laying around, still flashes.

I finally managed to get it booted again (normally) by resettting 35+ times.

 

[RollingThunder]

Fritz,

ED mentioned 'cable' and this caught my attention. I was having similar issues with my 6600K machine, it would not boot and it told me it needed a boot disk at the black screen. I changed the SATA cable to my SSD and voila, all was well. Now I'm not saying that's your 'fix' but it's a quick and cheap test to find out. Stranger fixes have occurred with computers.

 

[don256us]

RT. I was thinking more along the lines of an issue with his drives but he has already tried booting into BIOS without his drives connected which might rule out the cables.

From the OP, it looks like the machine is a year old. Is that right? Was it built with new parts or used?

I was really leaning towards the PSU but that didn't work either. I'd like to have the machine boot into memtest 86+ from USB or CD but if we can't get that far....

Perhaps the MB gave up the ghost.

 

[RollingThunder]

Don, I agree that he's running out of options quickly and what's left isn't good.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Perhaps the MB gave up the ghost.

It surely happens now and then, usually just after any RMA options have expired.

 

[Vishera]

It definitely sounds like the motherboard or CPU are going bad.

 

[fritzgrant]

RT. I was thinking more along the lines of an issue with his drives but he has already tried booting into BIOS without his drives connected which might rule out the cables.

From the OP, it looks like the machine is a year old. Is that right? Was it built with new parts or used?

I was really leaning towards the PSU but that didn't work either. I'd like to have the machine boot into memtest 86+ from USB or CD but if we can't get that far....

Perhaps the MB gave up the ghost.

Yeah, lines aren't a problem here I don't think because I'm having trouble even getting the BIOS displayed with everything disconnected.

I built the machine with new parts.

I just ran 4 passes on memtest 86+ with 0 errors.

I'm a bit in the dark as far as how to test/eliminate the possibility that the CPU is causing this. My hunch is the MB itself, is there a semi-reliable way I can rule out the CPU? Would a simple CPU stress test suffice?

 

[don256us]

So it booted into Memtest?! That's adds more mystery to my way of thinking.

 

[fritzgrant]

Yeah, after you get the initial cold boot trouble out of the way the system is perfectly functioning in every aspect. If it were my system I would just leave the thing running 24/7 and forget about it, but it's a system I built for my father and he's lumped in with the group of people who like to shutdown every night; not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[trents]

So it booted into Memtest?! That's adds more mystery to my way of thinking.

Indeed it does!

- - - Updated - - -

The only way to eliminate the CPU is to drop it in another known good machine. It's much more likely to be a motherboard problem since CPUs rarely go bad. That is not true of motherboards.

Just to be sure, can you put the PSU temporarily in another machine to make sure that component is up to snuff?

 

[Mr.Scott]

It's the board.
Cheap board with a higher than average failure rate.