June 19, 2015, Friday
Short story:
Hard shutdown. Overclocking error. Messed up display. Restarts by itself. Bluescreens. Then, PC fan turns on but no beep and no post. No joy.
Long story:
It was on. I just turned the monitor off and forgot about it. I pressed the power button (quick press) thinking I was turning it on which actually shut it down. I realized my mistake.
The power light on the tower was still on so I had to do a hard shutdown/shut-off (hold down the power button) so I can start again. On bootup, It showed the "boot failure because of overclocking" screen. I continued as normal.
Related: The only other time I had this "overclocking" screen was last month. I remember that the machine took longer than normal to boot. I did a hard shutdown, powered on, saw the overclocking screen which I took a picture of (see image above), continued as normal and was able to work without a glitch.
Back to the long story...
PART 1: While working, the display went crazy and then, the PC froze > hard shutdown, powered on > "...boot failures because of overclocking" screen > pressed any key to continue and then chose Shut Down from the login screen.
PART 2: After a few minutes, powered on > 3 long beeps > power light is on but no post. Hard shut-off.
PART 3: 10 minutes later, turned on, posted OK and normal login then > immediately restarted by itself > chose Safe Mode, logged in > quickly restarted by itself > chose Safe Mode > logged in, it ran OK long enough to show "recovered from unexpected shutdown" box then > blue screen (with dump), then > quickly restarted by itself > chose Shut Down from login screen. Turned off AVR and unplugged/plugged keyboard usb (wireless, just because it is the only thing new on the desktop pc, been using it for less than a month).
PART 4: 20 minutes later, powered on, posted OK, normal login > 15 minutes in and then > crazy display then, it shut off by itself. The case's power light was still on so, hard shutdown > turned off avr and unplugged/plugged keyboard usb.
PART 5: 3 hours later, posted OK > chose Start Normally, logged in OK, showed "recovered from unexpected shutdown" box (problem details - event name: bluescreen) BUT audio service not running, etc. > restarted from Start Menu to fix > fixed OK > able to use (but Firefox kept crashing) for 20 minutes, then > crazy display then > restarted by itself > chose Start Normally > barely 2 minutes in, bluescreen came on and then it just shut off. Again, power light was still on so, held power button down to turn off. Turned off AVR too.
PART 6: 1 hour later, removed keyboard usb and plugged ps/2 to test. Powered on > fan on, no post. Again had to hold power button down to shut power off. Turned off AVR. Unplugged ps/2 and plugged in keyboard usb. Unplugged AVR from wall. I was done.
June 20, 2015, Saturday
Luckily, help came. Very lucky. I was relieved when he got one of my many messages (texts, emails - I did not know which accounts he still uses).
They were out and on their way home. Around 11:30 p.m., they stopped by.
Troubleshooting: The mobo is OK. The processor is OK. The memory cards... Well, it took a while and some eraser-work but they were OK. Hmm... nothing showing up on the screen -- might be the display thing (on mobo) but after some tinkering, the display fired up -- it is OK.
The system was repairing... it was taking tooooooo long.
Diagnosis: System files are shot.
Treatment: Reformat.
It took a little over 2 hours. They had a long day and were tired but they were so nice to me. I was sorry all I had was a handful of garlic corn bits to offer when they became hungry. I took over installing the last few drivers so they can already head home. Business done. Did I say I was lucky they were able to come to the rescue? I was.
A few notes: Watch out for "tripping" (clicking sound, power off, no fan) which has to do with the PSU (power supply). Consider an SSD (solid-state drive) for better speed/performance.
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