Question System not posting need help with diagnosis

[jamesdsimone]

I was copying some files from my network to a hard drive when my computer froze. I finally had to do a power off and when it rebooted it stopped at the initial ASUS screen. I was unable to get it to go to BIOS. I tried it again this morning and the same thing happened. I got distracted and left it and after about 10 minutes it booted to the Windows boot menu. My keyboard was not connected so it default booted to normal or I would have switched it to safe mode. It went all the way to the start Windows screen but never got to desktop. I did another power off and rebooted. It hung again at the ASUS screen but after about another 10 minutes it did go to BIOS. Everything looked fine except the CPU temp was 125F/52C which seems high since it is not doing anything but booting but still under the max of 144F/62C. I forgot to check what the max temp is set in BIOS and now can't get back in. I have a water cooler if it has gone bad would that explain the behavior? Or is it a bad MB? CPU?

 

[mindless1]

In the BIOS there probably isn't HALT idle state so not so unusual for CPU to read higher temp than idling in an OS with that feature.

Is this HDD you were copying to, what is also booting the OS? If not, I'd unplug it and see if the system behaves normally, or first try unplugging and replugging the cables at both ends in case there's a bad connection there, or try a different cable if in doubt.

I doubt safe mode is going to matter since it seems more like a hardware fault. Make sure the water cooling isn't leaking and shorting something out and/or damage resulted.

Any special/changed bios settings? If not you might try clearing CMOS (or try that anyway if the settings changes were not crucial or can be reinstated.

I'd wonder about the power supply, possibly burst capacitors so if not under warranty, I'd pop it open, clean dust out while open, and look for vented caps. Obviously another option is swap in a different PSU if you have a spare.

Also do a visual search of the motherboard and if all else fails, strip system down to only the essentials, boot drive, CPU, video card if board doesn't have integrated video, and one memory module. CPU is least likely, motherboard and memory next least. You might try booting to memtest86 to see if there are memory errors.

 

[jamesdsimone]

I was copying from my network to a hard drive I have in an external USB dock so I don't think that has anything to do with it. I agree it seems to be a hardware issue. I have not changed any BIOS settings. Everything is pretty much set at default. I opened up the case and it was pretty dusty especially the water cooler radiator. There is no leakage that I can see. I cleaned everything up and I'll try booting it up and seeing if I can get into BIOS again. I'm pretty sure I set a shut down temperature but don't remember what the number is.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Cleaned out all the dust and cat hair got into BIOS and the CPU temp was 102F/39C. Got to desktop and everything seems to be working. Guess it was the CPU overheating.