PC boots to post fine but wont boot rescue media

[bradnewman]

Hi all. I have a PC that has been running very well since 2011. Today in the middle of getting some windows updates it just shut off. This is an advanced problem as I have already done extensive troubleshooting. The PC boots to post fine but wont boot rescue media. It either starts to load rescue media and then sits there or upon trying to load rescue media the PC shuts off.

I have tried the following already:

Disconnected everything and re-seat it.
Reset CMOS
Pulled the hard drives
Took the SSD to another computer an performed a secure erase
Pulled the memory (I hear the memory missing beeps)
Tried 1 stick of ram at a time in different slots
Pulled the PSU and replaced it
I cant run memtest as I cant load any rescue media

I don't get why it boots to post and runs fine allowing me to change settings with no issue but wont go beyond that. The PC build is as follows with NewEgg part numbers on the left:

11-119-233 CASE CM|RC-912-KKN1 RT
13-131-707 MB ASUS|P8P67-M PRO (REV 3.0) P67 R
19-115-070 CPU INTEL|CORE I7 2600K 3.4G 8M R
35-103-065 CPU COOLER CM| RR-B10-212P-G1 RT
14-121-418 VGA ASUS|EAH6870 DC/2DI2S/1GD5 R
14-999-030 VIDEO ADAPTER SAPPHIRE | 100924 RTL
17-371-016 PSU ANTEC|BP550 PLUS RT
20-227-590 SSD 120G| OCZ OCZSSD3-2VTX120G R
20-231-424 MEM 4Gx2|G.SKILL F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT
27-106-333 DVD BURNER LITE-ON | IHAS224-06 %

Thoughts?

 

[Burpo]

Could be a failing VRM or Cap. Just curious, what position is the overclock switch in? The board has a switch near the mem ok button.

 

[bradnewman]

The switch is to the left or down when the memok button is top right. The red light illuminates when i flip the switch in the other position. So the current position it is in the red light is not lit.

 

[Burpo]

What type rescue media? What power supply are you using?

 

[bradnewman]

Antec 550w and I replaced it with Thermaltake 650w both produce same issues so its not the PSU.

 

[bradnewman]

as for rescue media I am using OCZ live unix disk to boot to and I tried parted magic. On a good note I flipped the overclock switch and it lets me get farther in the process. Instead of just turning off I can now run memtest86+ (running now so far no errors) and I get farther with the overclock with parted magic. I now get the following error

 

[bradnewman]

 

[bradnewman]

no errors in memtest86+

 

[bradnewman]

Im just not sure if its the motherboard or the processor?

 

[Burpo]

Could be a bad bios irq setting, resulting in an irq conflict. Really seems like bad CPU tho. I would pull the CPU and examine it closely, even wipe down contact surface with alcohol and re-seat it, and check socket for bent pins. You said you changed power supplies and feel confident that's not it, but if the board has bad VRM, and flicking the overclock switch may have given it a tad more juice? You def seem to have hardware problem. Board or CPU.. A local shop may test CPU for you.

 

[Burpo]

Question? Have you updated BIOS to Version 3602? Can you? It's worth a try..

 

[bradnewman]

Bios is already the latest version. Good idea to have the CPU tested.

 

[Ketchup]

Any updates on this one?

 

[bradnewman]

It was indeed a motherboard issue. Not sure what it was on the board, but I started seeing incorrect fan readings in the BIOS. So I took a guess it was the board. Swapped it out for another and all is well. In my experience boards have many more parts and usually if something is going to go between the processor and the board it usually the board. I hope this helps others and a big thanks to all who helped me.

 

[piasabird]

SSD could be bad maybe try a hard drive by itself.