PC stays powered up but screen, USB devices all go off and power button doesn't work

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littlebluesmurf

Member
Jun 8, 2013
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I am having a rather annoying and somewhat random problem with a PC I built in December. It keeps half turning itself off. The fans stay powered up, the Blu Ray drive still works, the power button light stays on but everything else turns itself off. So my screen will go black, the USB devices will go off (they come back on if I unplug and plug them back in but do not do anything).

The power button and reset on the PC will not do anything, I have to flick the switch on the back of the power supply. This issue is rather random, it has happened 4 times today, yet it went 3 days with the PC on most of the time without doing it once just a few days ago.

Overheating - I have run Cinebench 11.5 multiple times with each run being right after the previous without the issue occurring, temps also stay within a safe operating window.

Drivers - everything is up to date. I could try uninstalling them all and reinstalling but I can't imagine a driver issue causing this sort of problem.

RAM - It is 1866mhz whilst the AMD A4-5300 (in there until I can finally buy a 45w Kaveri chip) can only handle up to DDR3-1600. Could this be the cause?

I have swept this PC for viruses etc and found nothing, cabling is all fine. I am really at a loss with this one.
 
Ketchup

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
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Are you using the integrated graphics or do you have a card?

What board and power supply do you have?
 
Ketchup

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,558
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Onboard video keeps coming to my head. I question how "frozen" it is if the PC reacts to USB. I am guessing you are knowing this due to audio?

Do you have a video card you can try with this machine?

The buttons are dependent on your BIOS settings and the OS. I honestly can't remember ever turning off a desktop with that button and NOT having to hold it down.
 
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littlebluesmurf

Member
Jun 8, 2013
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ketchup79 said:
Onboard video keeps coming to my head. I question how "frozen" it is if the PC reacts to USB. I am guessing you are knowing this due to audio?
Click to expand...

I don't think it reacts to them, just gives them power again if I unplug and replug them in. I have changed the HDMI cable over to the other HDMI port on the motherboard, will see if that makes any difference (which I doubt). It could be the graphics but being an APU I would of thought the chances of that would be low.

ketchup79 said:
Do you have a video card you can try with this machine?
Click to expand...

Not anymore :(

ketchup79 said:
The buttons are dependent on your BIOS settings and the OS. I honestly can't remember ever turning off a desktop with that button and NOT having to hold it down.
Click to expand...

Single press to the power button now will begin shut down, hold it down continuously and it will power off after a number of seconds. When it does the half on and off thing it does nothing no matter how long I hold it down.
 
Ketchup

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
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I have also seen a bad power supply react this way, with only the button on the power supply itself turning it off. Does it need time to cool down after you do this?
 
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Clay Aichin

Member
May 26, 2006
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I've been having a similar problem with a 2 year old HP Pavilion. It started 4 days ago. The screen first crumbled into a mush of white and blue as if the hard drive stopped, and then the screen went black. Only the power light and the fans were on. I tried posting into bios several times and nothing. After turning the computer back on a half hour later, I was able to boot into Windows for a few hours and ran a mem test and WD HD diagnostics with no
problems. The crashes have continued and most of the time I can't boot into bios.

Even when I run Ultimate Boot CD or Hiren's, the screen freezes after about 10 minutes. I've been reading about possible BIOS malware, but the authors don't seem to believe it. A quick Google search indicates that many people seem to be having this problem. I still have a 16 year old Dell 486 computer that never once failed to boot into Bios.


Here are similar problems around the same time as we experienced it (there's alot more when searching):

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1994159/computer-booting-bios-showing.html
http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=127697

I can't recall reading so many threads on computer forums about the inability to see bios.
 
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littlebluesmurf

Member
Jun 8, 2013
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ketchup79 said:
I have also seen a bad power supply react this way, with only the button on the power supply itself turning it off. Does it need time to cool down after you do this?
Click to expand...

No cool down time is required. Sometimes it happens after 5 minutes of being on, other hours then other days the PC will run all day without any problem. The power supply also has its own inlet for air so heat is not the issue.

I ran Memtest86 with 2 passes today just to rule the RAM out and as suspected the RAM showed no problems.
 
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littlebluesmurf

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Jun 8, 2013
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littlebluesmurf said:
Will be updating to the F3 bios today, I am still on the original F1 bios :$
Click to expand...

Have had to contact Gigabyte support as neither the @Bios utility would update the BIOS without being updated itself (no update is available), Q flash gave the same error and as far as I am aware one cannot update Q flash on its own. There is the DOS method but I simply cannot be bother to try.

Tried the F2, F3 and 4a beta BIOS files.
 
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littlebluesmurf

Member
Jun 8, 2013
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One fresh Windows 8 install later I have managed to update the @Bios program and the bios successfullt to the F3 bios. The problem has not gone away. :(
 
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Rob2290

Junior Member
Feb 21, 2014
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Any new updates to this problem? I am having the exact problem in my htpc build using the Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI board. It is indeed very random. Just as described by the op, I can go days without issues but other times it is within 5 minutes. Switches wont work to power off, leds stay on, dvd drive freezes/power led stays lit up if I try to open the tray when the pc is frozen. Hdmi looses signal. No way to restart/power off unless I switch the power supply switch in the back to off.

System specs:
Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI rev 3.0 F2 bios
AMD APU A4-4000
Patriot 1333 DDR3 2gb (x2)
SilverStone ST45SF 450w 80+ bronze cert psu
SilverStone Sugo mini ITX case
Seagate baracuda ST1000DM003 1tb hd
Blue-ray/Dvd writer
Windows 8.1 64bit

this is irritating because I can not find the source to the problem.. probably need to exchange the MB.

Thanks,
Rob
 
razel

razel

Platinum Member
May 14, 2002
2,337
93
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I encountered a somewhat familiar issue recently beginning December. My work PC would go to sleep every 3 minutes. Research online lead me to try waking up the by the power button instead of the USB keyboard/mouse.

That solved it for me to continue working. Eventually the work around was to uncheck the 'allow this device to wake the computer' for the USB keyboard. this was a work PC meaning the configuration never changed and only MS updates are installed. So I assume an MS update sometime Nov or Dec caused it.

You can try to do the same in Device Manager for your USB keyboard/mouse. What's nagging is even your power buttons don't wake it up. I suspect your PC is either in S1 sleep or is awake, but the display output is off. In both cases it is receiving no input to tell it to turn on.

Maybe if it still has PS/2 ports you can also try to wake it using an older keyboard/mouse?
 
Ketchup

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
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Just thought of Sleep. Sorry if I someone else mentioned this. What are your sleep settings like in the BIOS?
 
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Rob2290

Junior Member
Feb 21, 2014
3
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Hello and thanks for the replies guys!

I have checked bios and all the sleep settings are disabled in the bios. I also have them disabled in windows 8.1. I'm not to sure it has to do with sleep settings as it is very random occurring and it turns off even while i'm using the pc sometimes.

One thing I noticed is a setting called "HPET Timer" under power management in bios which is enabled. This is a new setting that I have not seen before on other motherboards. I will disable it and see if it fixes the problem.

If this setting does not fix the problem i'm not sure what will..


Again thanks!
 
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Aletor

Junior Member
Mar 21, 2014
4
0
0
Hi,

I have the exact same problem, but I'm running an Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS.

As this problem is really annoying, I decided to install a monitoring module to my server in order to check exactly when it is happening.

I can precise, when the crash is happening, there is no more network.

As far as I see, when the computer if offline there is still a CPU activity but I don't know for how many time precisly. Then, after this piece of time, CPU / RAM / Disks seems to be completly stopped.

Thing is, I have no idea how to diag the problem. As Littlebluesmurf, I have this Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI without a BIOS up to date.

I will try to upgrade it and disable the "HPET Timer". If it does the trick, I will tell it.

See you

UPDATE : Here is my CPU / MB / PS
AMD A4-5300
Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI
Corsair VS350 - 350W
 
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Rob2290

Junior Member
Feb 21, 2014
3
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0
Hey Alector what seems to have worked for me is turning off "HPET Timer" in bios. That seems to have fixed the problem..been using my htpc ever since I posted last on here and I have not had a problem since. Fingers crossed. Haven't changed anything else and it has been really stable now with win 8.1.

Let me know if this fixes your problem as well.. it will be good to know so that everyone else who owns a Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI knows.
 
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