Computer won't start - occult damage probable.

[R8pilot]

Hello Forum Members,

No, not occult as in devilish, but occult as in "hidden." But devilishly hidden, of course.

I was messing with something in sim rig's computer, and left it out on the floor while I was working on it. I forgot about that, and later, walking in almost total darkness, I tripped over it, knocking it flat with a huge whack. Well, now it won't run.

There was a faint electrical smell in the case (possibly normal, but probably not), yet no visible damage to any components.

The fans turn on normally, the silly LED's on the memory sticks turn on, and the one lonely LED on the mother board (Gigabyte Aorus Elite B650M) lights up red, but there's nothing in the manual explaining the light.

Curiously, pressing the reboot button on the MB cycles the power (eventually) as if it's rebooting.

I removed the graphics card and tried the CPU's graphics output, but no luck. I replaced the power supply, which also made no difference. I re-seated the memory and all the cables. I took the cooler off the CPU, but there's no way the CPU chip itself moved, so I left that alone.

I'm thinking my next step might be to just get a new motherboard, but there's probably other things to try first. Any ideas?

Thank you.

 

[trichens]

If I've found the correct pages in the manual there are four LEDs in the bottom right corner near the front panel header.
They are laid out like this
[ CPU ] [ DRAM ]
[ VGA ] [ BOOT ]

If there is a fault the LED will be on for one of these.
If the [ BOOT ] LED is on it means no operating system.

 

[R8pilot]

Oh! Yes, I found the four lights - thanks! The top left light (when looking up from the edge of the board) is on, which I presume is the "CPU" light.

When I press the reset button by those lights, the DRAM light blinks, then the BOOT light, then the CPU light comes on and stays on.

I'll re-seat the CPU after all and see if that fixes it...

 

[R8pilot]

Interesting. After reseating the CPU, it's the BOOT light that is on. The BIOS comes up, with "no bootable device found."

Time to reseat the NVMe drive too...

 

[R8pilot]

Ok, reseating the NVMe drive did nothing, nor did moving it to the second drive slot.

I remember a very frustrating few hours trying to get it to boot when I first set it up. I think I have to disable the "secure boot" function, but that's grayed out.

The Boot menu shows "System mode: Setup" - that's not grayed out, but can't be changed regardless.

Secure boot is "Enabled" and "Not Active" and the mode is "Standard" These are all grayed out and can't be changed.

Is it necessary to get into Windows (somehow) before this can be disabled? Any other ideas?

 

[trichens]

What did you boot the PC off when it was built - assuming you built it yourself?
The fact that you can get into the BIOS is encouraging?
That would indicate that the CPU, GPU and DRAM are all OK?

If you can boot off something then that should allow you to see if the NVMe is detected.
If it's not then it could be the problem or otherwise it's the motherboard that might be busted.

 

[R8pilot]

Yes, getting into the bios was encouraging - thank you.

When it first came up, a warning prompt told me that the bios settings had been reset. Secure boot, in particular, was re-enabled.

I transferred an NVMe drive containing W10 from my older computer. I believe this drive was in a pre-secure-boot platform, and this is why I have to disable "Secure Boot." However, the option to do so is grayed out in the bios. I recall this was a problem when I first set it up, and that it was a struggle to figure out, but I don't remember what I did to get past this.

 

[trichens]

Secure Boot
Allows you to enable or disable Secure Boot and configure related settings. This item is configurable only when CSM Support is set to Disabled.

 

[trichens]

CSM Support
Enables or disables UEFI CSM (Compatibility Support Module) to support a legacy PC boot process.
Enabled Enables UEFI CSM.
Disabled Disables UEFI CSM and supports UEFI BIOS boot process only. (Default)

 

[trichens]

I wonder if the CMOS battery was shaken loose so the BIOS was reset?

 

[R8pilot]

CSM is disabled. That's not the problem. The problem is convincing the bios to disable Secure Boot (it's enabled). The option to change it is visible but grayed out as inaccessible.

Yes, I wondered why the bios was reset. The battery is fine. It hasn't reset again - just the first time.

I recall having this exact problem with Secure Boot when I first set up the upgraded processor and motherboard. It was agony. Searching the web, you find many people asking how to enable it, but only a few asking to disable it. The solutions, though, all seem to require booting into windows to do so, which of course I cannot do right now.

By the way, the NVMe drive shows up in the bios, I just can't boot from it due to the Secure Boot problem.

 

[trichens]

Found this...
Shutdown.
Remove the NVMe so no drives are found; you can then boot up and apparently disable Secure Boot.
Update BIOS and shutdown
Then reconnect the NVMe drive and turn back on

 

[R8pilot]

That sounded good, but unfortunately even without any drive it's still grayed out and still cannot be changed.

 

[R8pilot]

OK, I disabled it! I did so by running windows in repair mode from an install disk and following instructions to reboot from within windows.

But my NVMe drive is still not accessible from the BIOS's boot panel.

 

[R8pilot]

I think the reason I had so much trouble with the NVMe drive is that it was a dual-boot Linux / W10 disk that is formatted with an MBR partition table. Secure Boot won't work with that.

I wiped the disk and reinstalled a single W10 instance. I turned Secure Boot back on first in the hopes that it won't ever be a problem again.

I run all my normal games on linux. If and when my SimuCube runs on linux without hacks, I'll gladly say goodby to Windows! Hate it!

Anyway, thanks again for the tip about the LED's and all the other tries.

 

[jgf]

Another reason I've eschewed Win10/11. Thankfully Win7 is still perfectly functional for me; if I outlive it (not likely) I'll have to learn Linux.

 

[R8pilot]

So many problems:

* Internal graphics display resolution is stuck at 1024 by 768. Option to change this is grayed out.
* No WiFi, as if it simply doesn't exist. I certainly have WiFi, antenna and all!
* No video from my borrowed 4080. Perhaps I need a driver, but with no WiFi...

So much fun!

 

[trichens]

I'd guess that the W10 media just doesn't recognise the wi-fi hardware.
Cable connection to router perhaps?
I doesn't trust wi-fi for anything other than accessing web pages and emails.
Just waaay too flaky in my opinion.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Occult damage?
Check around for small computer shaped stuffed toy with needles in it.