My PC lost power for a moment while I was using it, and now it turns on but shows no display. The motherboard has a solid white VGA diagnostic LED. The system has a PRO B550M-VC WIFI motherboard, Ryzen 5 5500, RTX 3080 Ti, and 8GB of SK Hynix RAM. Windows 11 is installed on one SSD and CachyOS is on another. I've already reseated the graphics card, removed one RAM stick, unplugged the system, and waited several minutes before trying again. Is the whole PC likely damaged, or are there troubleshooting steps I can try first? I currently can't afford to replace any components.
3 Answers
The power supply could be the part that failed. A brief outage or surge can damage a PSU while leaving other components unharmed, so the whole PC may not be cooked. The most useful next test would be trying a known-good PSU with enough capacity for an RTX 3080 Ti. Avoid repeatedly power-cycling it if you notice burning smells, clicking, or unusual PSU noises.
Start with a CMOS reset, since a sudden power interruption can leave the BIOS in a bad state. Unplug the PC, switch off the power supply, remove the CMOS battery or use the clear-CMOS pins according to the motherboard manual, then wait a few minutes and try booting with default settings. Also disconnect both SSDs temporarily so the system is only testing the core hardware. If it displays an image afterward, reconnect things one at a time.
A solid VGA light points toward the graphics card, its power connections, the PCIe slot, or the power supply—not necessarily the entire computer. Reseat the 3080 Ti carefully and check that every GPU power connector is fully inserted. If possible, test the system without the graphics card; the Ryzen 5 5500 has no integrated graphics, so that won’t produce video, but the diagnostic behavior may change. Don’t assume the GPU is dead until the PSU and connections have been checked.
I’ll try the CMOS reset first and test it with the drives disconnected.