My PC suddenly became completely unresponsive after I put it to sleep. When I came back, pressing the power button did nothing—no fans, lights, or other signs of life. The Corsair SF750 passed the paper-clip test using Corsair's instructions, so I'm unsure whether the power supply is actually the problem. I don't have spare components for testing since this was my first build about three years ago.
The system uses a Ryzen 5 7500F, an ASRock Lightning B850I motherboard, a Corsair SF750 power supply, and a Lian Li A4-H2O case. Could this be related to the motherboard, RAM, BIOS power management, or the system failing to wake properly from sleep?
3 Answers
A sleep or standby firmware issue is possible, especially if the system becomes completely unresponsive after suspending. Once you can boot normally, update the motherboard firmware and chipset drivers, then check the sleep and power settings. If it happens again, a full shutdown may help distinguish a wake-from-sleep problem from an intermittent hardware or connection issue.
A paper-clip test only shows that the PSU can start up; it doesn’t prove that it works correctly under load or that the motherboard is receiving power properly. Reseat the RAM, 24-pin or motherboard power connections, and CPU power cable. Testing with one RAM stick at a time is also worthwhile. In this case, reseating the memory brought the system back and restored video output, so a poor contact may have been the issue.
Try bypassing the case power button by briefly bridging the two motherboard power-switch pins with a screwdriver. That rules out a faulty case button or cable. Also check the wall outlet, power cable, PSU switch, and all motherboard power connections before assuming a component has failed.
Since the PC was already running before I left it in sleep mode, I wasn’t convinced the case button was the cause, but I’ll still use the pins to eliminate that possibility.
I reseated the RAM and the computer started working again, including displaying an image. I’ll keep an eye on it, although the motherboard has caused me trouble before.