I'm having trouble with my PC after cleaning it. It shuts down randomly, and I need to toggle the PSU on and off to get it to power up. I thought maybe cleaning out the dust would help, so I used a blower (not a hair dryer) to clean it up. I removed the GPU to clean it, reseated the RAM, and reconnected all the PSU wires. After putting everything back together, it powered on with a red QLED light. I reseated the RAM again and cleaned the CPU, even repasting it. Now it turns on, but it won't boot properly— the QLED red light flashes intermittently every few minutes. I'm wondering what could be causing this issue and how to fix it. Here are my specs: CPU - R5 5600X, Motherboard - MAG X570S Tomahawk Max WiFi, CPU Cooler - Arctic Liquid Freeze II 360mm, GPU - Sapphire Pulse RX 6700XT, RAM - G.Skill Trident Z Neo 16GB 3600MHz, PSU - Seasonic Focus 750 GX750 Gold. I suspiciously think the PSU might be faulty since it had issues three months ago and got replaced. Any ideas?
1 Answer
Sounds like you need to take a step back and simplify things. Start by taking everything out of the case—place the motherboard on some cardboard. Connect just one stick of RAM, the CPU, the cooler, and power it on with the 24-pin and 6-pin from the PSU. If it boots, try the other RAM stick; if it boots again, you can slowly add components back one by one. If you can't get it to boot at all, you might be looking at an issue with your CPU, PSU, or motherboard. You could consider borrowing or ordering parts to test—I've done it before and discovered the CPU was the issue after trying new motherboards.
I don't have any spare parts or extra cash to buy new ones. Do you think just reseating everything again could help? How can I tell if it's working without a display since my CPU doesn't have integrated graphics?