PC Woes

[Greboth 2,721]

So as not spam the gaming logo thread with pc stuff it's best to give it it's own thread.

 

So copy pasta from another forum;

 

I was playing a game on Saturday and my mouse stopped working - a bit of investigating at the time and my mouse was working and it was some of my usb ports had stopped. However the game and PC continued to work fine.

Restarted my PC to see if it fixed the issue and got stuck on the Asus splash screen with the motherboard displaying q-code b4 which is a usb hot plug error. I unplugged all usb, including internal usb headers, rebooted and still got the b4 error. Cleared CMOS, still B4.

Fully power cycled inc. plug socket off and I can get the PC to boot - I get the error no kb or mouse plugged in and I need to do the bios set up which make sense as I reset CMOS. I plug in a keyboard and mouse and get in to BIOS, checking BIOS settings and it starts lagging before eventually locking up entirely.

Repeat the above until I can get in to BIOS again - this time quickly checking boot drive and saving. PC restarts and boots in to windows fine. BIOS crashing is unusual so first though was temperatures - CPU in high 30's, GPU low 40's - perfect idle temps so certainly not overheating at idle. 20 minutes of running prime95 and Furmark see CPU in to low 70's and GPU in to low 80's - again perfectly fine. I've run both for an hour and while I melted having the PC kick out that much heat - the PC was fine.

So I've ruled out temps - restarted PC several times over and all fine. PC continued to work fine for Sunday (watching tv, gaming and 3d rendering) and was on and off several times throughout the day. PC booted up fine at lunch time while I watched some TV but turning it on after work today and back to q code B4 again. Rinse and repeat above and I can again get back in to windows again.

PC Specs:
Ryzen 2700X
Asus ROG X470 Hero
32Gb RAM Team Group Dark Pro 8 Pack (4 x 8Gb)
Samsung nvme boot
1 ssd, 3 mech drives for storage.
Corsair RM850x 850w psu.
Windows 10

The PC has been running fine since I built it ~2 years ago. The only change to the PC recently was a GPU change on 29th May (1070 for 2080). It seems too coincidental that the problems should start after a hardware change though I can't see why a GPU would cause the above problems a week after being installed especially as there's been no other issues with gaming, rendering or stress testing it.

 

 

 

Some extra info too;

Current thinking is that it's one of the usb devices I have plugged in or the usb controller on the motherboard.  I'm leaning towards motherboard as I get the usb error even with nothing plugged in (even front headers disconnected).  Since getting it running ok on Sunday, I had plugged all my usb devices back in but obviously the problem repeated Monday.  Since Monday, the only USB I have plugged in my keyboard and mouse and so far so good though it worked previously too so we shall see.  I do have a wireless keyboard mouse combo that I can plug in should the problem repeat with my current mouse and keyboard.

 

I haven't yet tried updating drivers or the bios yet though, it's on the list of things to maybe try but I don't see a system working for 2 years would start failing and the solution be a driver or bios issue but who knows.

 

Diddums suggested swapping RAM sticks around which I said  I couldn't do due to my CPU cooler, on actually inspecting my PC I think I might be able to get them out without needing to remove my cooler.  Though as the PC runs fine when actually running I am leaning towards it not being RAM.

 

GPU this is obviously a potential as it was only changed last week - though similar to RAM, as I have no issues with it when the PC actually runs, temps are fine, it passes stress tests I'm again leaning towards it not being the cause.  Though I do have an old quadro card I can swap in to rule out if need be.  Though for now focusing on USB related issues as that's my q code error.

 

Windows itself - there's a potential it is just Windows itself has fubared or my nvme boot drive.  The drive says it's error free but it could still be windows.  Thankfully all my documents are stored on other drives so I wouldn't lose anything wiping but I'd still rather not as re-instaling all the programs is still a pain.  Though still might do it as I tend to sit at atround 85% full so might take the opputunity to install a bigger boot drive too.

 

I think that's all but I welcome any thoughts people have on this issue.

[Diddums 4,346]

Mobo fucked, RMA time. 

 

You're the third person to have a fucked mobo so far this year, what the hell. 

[Greboth 2,721]

That was my thinking but I don't fancy the hassle of trying to RMA a MB with a weird intermittent fault.  Also, touch wood it's been working fine since Monday evening and I've been deliberately turning it on and off throughout the day to test if it boots each time.  I must be up to about 20 successful boots in a row now so i'm am starting to wonder if was something I had plugged in via usb is actually fubared rather than the MB itself.

 

Annoyingly, if it is a usb devide then there's no quick way I know of to find out which one except plug one in, give it week or so to see if the problem re-occurs, if not plug in another and wait another week and so on and so forth.  Even more annoying is, I realised yesterday, resetting cmos I lost my ram timings which took me so damn long to get stable at 3200Mhz 😞 oh well needs must.

[Plumbers Crack 4,062]

Have you tried putting the old GPU back in?

[Greboth 2,721]

12 hours ago, Plumbers Crack said:

Have you tried putting the old GPU back in?

 

No, I don’t have the 1070 that came out of my PC but I do have an old GPU I can test with.

 

Though the timing is of concern, I don’t have any problems associated with a gpu problem so I’m reasonably happy to rule it out for now.