My desktop never reaches the BIOS. It powers on for about 10 seconds, shuts off for roughly 5 seconds, and then repeats endlessly. I have already disconnected all peripherals, removed the Arc B570 graphics card and SSDs, tested without the RAM, and cleared the CMOS, but the behavior has not changed. Connecting a motherboard speaker results in continuous beeping—around 50 beeps—before the system powers off and starts the cycle again.
Before this boot loop started, the computer also had intermittent power-loss problems: it would shut down after a couple of minutes under load, immediately after booting into Windows, or during especially demanding workloads.
The system uses an ASRock Challenger Intel Arc B570, Intel Core i5-13400F, 2x8 GB Kingston Fury DDR4-2400 memory, a Biostar H610MHP motherboard, a Chieftronic SteelPower BDK-650FC 650W power supply, and a Samsung 980 500 GB SSD. I also tried an Intel i3-12100F, but the same boot loop remained. The motherboard BIOS has never been updated. What should I test next, and is the motherboard, power supply, or CPU the most likely cause?
1 Answer
The 13th- and 14th-generation Intel desktop CPUs had a known reliability issue associated with overly aggressive motherboard voltage settings. BIOS updates were released to apply safer defaults, so an outdated BIOS is worth taking seriously. If the original CPU was damaged, a BIOS update would not repair it—but since a 12th-generation i3 produces the same behavior, the CPU is less likely to be the only problem. The earlier shutdowns under load also make the power supply or motherboard a strong suspect. The best next step is to test with a known-good, compatible PSU and inspect the board for damage. If the board cannot POST even with the 12100F, one memory module, no drives, and no graphics card, the motherboard or PSU is probably at fault.
I tried swapping in an i3-12100F and the exact same loop continued. I have also never updated the motherboard BIOS because I was worried about the system losing power during the update.