Hey folks, I'm really having a tough time with my PC and I can't seem to pinpoint whether it's the motherboard, CPU, or something else causing the problems. Here's what's going on: My PC initially began randomly restarting, and then it started to get stuck during the boot process. Sometimes it won't even post, with the fans running at full blast. The strange thing is, if I unplug it and leave it off for hours or even a day or two, it'll boot up normally for a while before falling back into that annoying restart/boot loop. When it does get into Windows, it typically runs for a few minutes—sometimes as long as a whole day—before it restarts again and gets stuck in those endless boot loops. It seems that the more time I leave it turned off, the longer it can actually run. When it's in this problematic state, the PC powers on, restarts, powers on again, and ends up just sitting there with the fans going and no display output.
Here's what I've already tried:
- Swapped out the PSU but had the same problem.
- Tested different RAM sticks in various slots; still the same issue.
- The GPU appears to be fine; no artifacts or crashes when it's running.
- No overheating has been detected.
- Disconnecting the drives doesn't change the behavior.
My setup includes:
- CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
- GPU: ASUS GTX 1660 Ti (triple fan)
- Motherboard: Gigabyte B450m Gaming BR
- RAM: 2X8GB DDR4 (tested multiple sticks)
- PSU: Corsair CX550 (tried different PSUs with the same behavior)
I'm leaning toward the motherboard being the culprit, but could it be the CPU or GPU instead? Has anyone experienced similar issues where the PC only seems to work after being unplugged for a long while? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!
3 Answers
Can you describe what happens when it restarts? Does it just go black screen or cut off completely?
It sounds like the motherboard might be the main issue. If it were the GPU, you'd usually face black screen crashes. CPUs tend to fail less frequently compared to motherboards, so I’d definitely check that first.
Yeah, I'd go with the motherboard as well. Those symptoms really point to a motherboard failure since it behaves like it’s lost power and then requires a reset to recover.
Yeah, that's exactly it! It basically acts like an unplugged cable. Then it will boot into Windows for a bit before restarting and the fans ramp up with no display showing.