I doubt it's a problem with CMOS, that would only be the case if it was a bad OC, which it doesn't sound like, and fans would keep spinning anyways. When was the last time you opened up your case to do something? Is there any chance you have another computer which you can test parts individually in?

Lasts time I opened it up to do something was just a dusting like a month ago, last serious thing was a wire clean up where my HD_AUDIO 7 pin connector for my case wasn't on properly and the mobo sparked up and now the case audio doesn't work. That's all I can think of. And no I don't have spare parts or a spare computer. I think in a few hours I'm going to pull the mobo out and rebuild the computer and see if I can get anything. I'm sort of narrowing it down to my mobo or ram because I read somewhere that my fans wouldn't spin up if the CPU failed.

Any Beeping errors (you'll only hear them if there's a speaker connected to the mobo)?
can you boot into to bios/firmware setup? Does the computer hang during POST just before it goes into the setup menu?

I don't have a speaker AFAIK this mobo doesn't have it built in

It won't go into anything, there's no display. My mobo's manual says that when those lights are on the computer won't start until the problem is fixed. That's literally all it says about red cpu, dram, and VGA lights

Sounds like either the power supply bit the dust or a component on the motherboard is shorted out, causing the PSU to shut off. Does the system only come on once and then won't turn on again until you unplug the system from the wall for a bit, or can you endlessly cycle the power button and the system comes on and shuts off every time? If it's the latter, I would be inclined to say a motherboard issue since you removed the dGPU, and there is probably damage from the front panel audio incident you mentioned.

I would try taking the motherboard (with the CPU and RAM) and PSU out of the case completely and setting them on a non-conductive surface e.g. a wooden desk, and try to power on with those minimal components first. If it acts normally, there's probably something in the case that is shorting out the motherboard.

Yeah when I power on I the fans will spin up and LEDs will light up for a moment then about 5 seconds later it does it again until I turn off my PSU. But I will def take everything out and rebuild it in a few hours. Thanks for all the suggestions so far guys.

Happened to me when I first built my computer. Take your RAM out completely and put it back in. Should fix it.

I'm doubtful. His system was running fine while playing games (i.e. it was under stress) and suddenly it shut down and doesn't work now. RAM doesn't cause a system to exhibit a short circuit condition unless the RAM shorted out, which I have never seen or heard about in my history of computer repair.

I'll stick with my initial consideration of motherboard or PSU failure. Can you give us the make and model of your power supply as well? If it isn't a reputable brand e.g. Corsair, Antec, Enermax, Seasonic, etc. it's entirely possible it may have bit the dust, but again I'm more inclined to say it's the motherboard. I had an EVGA GTX 460 short out once, and the system would instantly shut off in a split second. While troubleshooting, I turned on the system one more time, it stayed on, and the voltage controller IC on the GPU sparked and emitted a bunch of smoke (burnt a hole in itself). I'm thinking that some voltage regulation circuit on your motherboard probably failed in such a way that the board works for a few seconds and then shuts off as a failsafe to prevent further damage or a fire. Let us know what your findings are when you tear everything down and test on a desk.

To properly test this use the "paper clip test" on your PSU. I had the same problem a long time ago when a cheap PSU burned out after 6 months and damaged my motherboard. My computer would only boot every other time (I forgot if it was failure to POST or just power failure completely, probably the former). Antec described the paper clip method to verify that it was indeed some sort of mobo problem.

These are just some quick links I found on it.

http://www.overclock.net/t/96712/how-to-jump-start-a-power-supply-psu-test-a-power-supply-and-components

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khpnx21oydg

Don't worry it's very unlikely that you would get shocked while doing this.

I'm using this mobo (and a similar setup) and had the same issue (pretty much exactly). The LEDs are really not useful at all - it's worth picking up a post speaker.

It was a defective RAM module that was causing my issues (and lighting up the VGA or CPU led, thanks Asus), but it could be different for you. Make sure you check both modules individually (make sure the connectors are good) as one bad module will prevent posting.

If you need more help troubleshooting I can offer some experience of having worked with that issue, so just prod me or whatever.

Yeah I'm back and someone on reddit said they have the same exact issue as me as we'll with the same mobo and PSU (raid max) so I'm hoping its either ram or PSU, I'm going to strip it down right now

Well I took everything out and breadboarded it and nothing really happened, got the same results. I'm going to see if I can get ahold of some ram and a PSU. In narrowing it down to 3 things, ram, PSU or mobo

But I rebuilt the computer and the same thing is happening. So something is obviously broken.

1 question though, if my mobo was completely done and just died on me wouldn't the LEDs not light up? My HDD also starts to spin up.

Most Raidmax PSUs are borderline horrendous (their 80Plus Gold models may be alright), so that's probably your issue then. Many of those no-name PSUs are "gutless wonders" that literally cannot support half of the power output specified on their label, and they also have the bare minimum of poor quality electrical components to operate. I'd say if you can't wait for a decent PSU to arrive from Newegg or some place or are unsure if it's the PSU, just go to Best Buy and pick one up, and if it turns out your symptoms are still the same, return it.

If it turns out you need a new PSU and money isn't too much of a concern, look for 80Plus Gold certified PSUs as they are typically pretty decent regardless of the vendor and they also offer 7-10% better electrical conversion efficiency than the regular 80Plus (white logo) units.

Yeah it is one of their 80plus golds, I'll probably take a run to fry's for a corsair 750w modular power supply or something similar.

Tomorrow I think I can get some ram and a PSU, I'll update accordingly. Thanks for all your help guys. Especially you Jstn, you gave me probably the biggest lead on what it could be.

Dude just follow either of the guides I posted. You don't have to go out and pay for a new PSU to cross off the PSU on your list of possible issues.

I'm not paying for one.

Alright so I did the power supply thing with the paper clips and I guess the PSU is good according to drew's post

So a few things

- No bent CPU socket pins

- the motherboard was seated properly

- I cleared the CMOS for every stick of ram in every slot.

- Every single light (boot device, VGA, dram, and CPU led) are "post" lights and they all don't light up.

It's looking more and more like my mobo

Do you have a multimeter to check the power supply output voltages? It won't tell you everything, but it's handy to use one just to make sure the 3.3v, 5v and 12v DC rails appear to be within +/- 5% of the target voltage. If the PSU appears to be fine, I'm going to say the motherboard is bad especially if the diagnostic LEDs no longer illuminate. The ASUS "-V" series are rather "cheap" quality-wise anyway, and I haven't really been a fan of ASUS motherboards in the last few years.

I do have a multi meter I think thanks for reminding me

But the LEDs on the mobo do still light up my bad if I said other wise

I just bought a cheap 4gb stick of ram so I can knock ram out of the of the question. I'll return it.

Yeah I'll look something up on checking out the PSU voltages etc, thanks for reminding me about that though.

Orange wire = 3.3v
Red wire = 5v
Yellow wire = 12v

Set your multimeter to 20v DC, connect the black wire to any of the black wires (all grounds are common) and probe one of each of those colored wires listed above with the positive lead while the PSU is activated (green PS_ON wire jumped to ground). I would test the +12v yellow wires on the 4+4 pin "P4" connector (the supplementary motherboard power for the CPU) as well as the 20+4 pin main connector (has all three main voltage wires present).

My multimeter is actually dead and I don't have the batteries for it. I'm going to the store and im gonna buy a new mobo and see if I can get a new PSU because I think the warranty is still alright.

I had a similar issue earlier with my old E8400 build, seemed like some caps shorted out of something. I let the pc be for a while (didn't need it as it was my secondary anyway) and it booted up again. I had it unplugged that entire time. Also during my time in HP tech support we had to make our customers do voodoo shit like a powercycle (power off, power cable out, hold power button for 1-2 minutes, plug the pc in and try starting). Could be worth a try I suppose. While I call it voodoo shit, it sometimes actually did something (or the customers actually plugged the powercord in, hard to tell)

I'll try that out, thanks for an idea.

Any particular motherboards you are interested in, or do you just plan on getting a cheap one to get your PC running again? Z77 chipset based boards are pretty nice, I have both an ASRock Z77 Extreme6 and Z77 Pro4-M running 3770Ks at 4.3GHz just fine. My first i7 system is a 2600K with an ASRock Z68 Extreme4 and it still works perfectly after 2 years even after being loaded down with 24/7 distributed computing programs the entire time. The 6 series boards are a little dated but are still fine if you find a P67/Z68 for a good price.

A bit dated, but might try this

http://i.imgur.com/39USpX4.png

I was looking for a sub 120$ asrock z77 board with at least two sata 6gb/s ports so probably the pro3.

Cool chart brought me down to CPU or mobo failure ASSUMING the PSU check was good. I'm just gonna see if I can take it back anyway.

Alright so every thing is running fine now, here's the situation for future reference if someone happens to stumble across this thread with the same problem.

My specs: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/32hz/saved/fE7 , without the new mobo below.

What was happening is my computer wouldn't post, so it wouldn't power on, my fans (all of them even my psu) were spinning up for a moment then stopping and during that moment my VGA, CPU, DRAM, and BOOT_DEVICE lights would come on for a little bit)

That is it.

My solution was the motherboard, it had suffered previous damages and happened to be the problem, it was a "fancy" mobo i didnt need and the lights didn't tell me anything. So my voltages on my PSU were correct and it's working fine, my cpu has good idle temps as well as my gpu and my ram wasnt the problem seeing as using other sticks did the same thing. I tried memok and clearing the cmos and it didnt work.

So there were two things left, my mobo or my cpu. Seeing as i took out my gpu and tried running off integrated graphics.

It was my mobo, I went out and bought an MSI Z77A-G43 and my build is working fine, just like it used to.

So I'm running good and thanks for all of your help guys it helped me narrow things down and i didnt have to make a million trips to the store. Thanks for reading my blog lol.