My PC stopped booting after shutting down while I was playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The motherboard now stops on the white VGA debug LED, which is part of its CPU → RAM → VGA → BOOT diagnostic sequence. I have reseated the graphics card several times, removed the CMOS battery for about 15–20 minutes, and inspected the GPU power connections for melting or scorching. The monitor works when connected through the Ryzen 9 7950X's integrated graphics, so the rest of the system appears to boot normally without the dedicated GPU. Event Viewer records a Kernel-Power event 41 from the shutdown, but I'm unsure whether that points to the power supply, an overheated GPU, the motherboard, or the graphics card itself. The system uses an ASUS TUF Gaming X670E-PLUS WiFi motherboard, Ryzen 9 7950X, 32GB DDR5-6000 memory, a Zotac RTX 4090, and a Corsair 1200W HX Platinum PSU. What further tests can identify the failed component?
2 Answers
Kernel-Power event 41 only means Windows detected that the previous shutdown was unexpected; it does not identify the failed part. The quickest reliable approach is swapping components or testing the 4090 in another known-good system. Testing another GPU in this computer, or testing the 4090 elsewhere, should distinguish between the graphics card, motherboard slot, and power supply. Visual inspection of the cable cannot prove that it is electrically sound.
The white VGA light is the motherboard’s diagnostic LED, not a message from the monitor. Since the system starts normally from the integrated graphics, the problem is most likely somewhere in the dedicated-GPU path: the RTX 4090, its power connection, the PCIe slot, or the PSU’s GPU cabling. Confirm that the card is fully seated in the primary PCIe slot and, if possible, test with another known-good compatible cable or graphics card.
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