Left my computer untouched for over 20 hours to let it cool down, when I tried to boot it up, there was no signal from the monitor whatsoever. Usually I see a windows logo before losing signal. When I restarted, the desktop skipped right past the option to go to the BIOS and skipped the windows logo and brought me directly to where I can login just fine and get to the desktop, launch steam, etc. Each restart varies between either nothing happening or going straight to the login screen.

At this point I'm fairly certain the root of this problem lies with the blackout that occurred last week, and whether it shorted something in my psu or mobo. Any way to confirm these suspicions?

My buddy had extremely random untraceable errors, turned out it was his motherboard.

you could test it but you'd need a lot of tools such an oscilloscope and other things, that'll take much time and money, so i'd skip that, and i'd go for the most simple, try another psu, even one of those grey sh**, just assure it can supply 400/450" at least, and try to use the pc with it. anyway such motherboard should tell you that u're hardware is overheated in the splash screen after the crash/freeze or whatever it is, anyway don't buy a psu just to try this, i'm not 100% sure, find some way to get one for free and try it

ye and explore everything and keep us posted.

A PSU would probably rather fry any other components if it was malfunctioning like that.
GPU also wouldn't have such a wide range of dying symptoms, as most of them would only cause the graphics to be more or less weird, or you wouldn't get visual input at all.
RAM, welp, I also don't think it could have such massive effects on everything you do, but it's a possibility.
I'm fairly sure the problem lies within the motherboard; either the blackout damaging the MoBo, or the SSD messing up the drivers bad (which would be rather weird), or both.

As for confirming the suspicions about a dead MoBo, I don't really know anything else than somehow getting your hands onto a MoBo that supports the CPU you're using, and trying with that.

either psu, mobo or memories

So assuming I can get my hands on a different power supply, manage to to boot up and still get crashes, then I should go ahead and just cash out for a replacement motherboard?

unstable 12/5v rail doesn't mean it would fry something, it just means unstable, sometimes the psu supplies more stable current with a stable voltage, sometimes it doesn't but that doesn't always fry things, that just make things work bad, and this MIGHT be the case.

i agree on probably not being the video card.

the malfunction of a ram module could cause blue screens, freezes and pc not starting at all

mobo malfunction could cause it, but it could give every kind of problems, literally everything, it's probably the hardest thing to detect, unless you try another mobo ofc.

Like I said in an earlier post though, I did a memtest with one stick of RAM and after four passes of it shut down as usual with no errors found. I'm leaning towards the motherboard being shorted somewhere at this point.

you only have 1 ram module? if it's a yes, it's ok if it's a no, then run a memtest testing all modules

^^ Yes I tested both, but what I'm assuming is is that if the system crashed while the second one wasn't in, then it couldn't be the other one right?

I had an ASRock motherboard(A780GM-LE) years ago and had some similar problems. My screen suddenly froze, which was fixed after rebooting. However, my screen then randomly started going completely black(but not saying there was no video input) at random intervals after turning my computer on. My computer would sometimes refuse to boot and go to Windows Boot Repair. Sometimes it would just get stuck at the BIOS loading screen and when it did it would display it in random incorrect colours, different every time. Other times it would do the uniformly odd coloured screen thing as you described.

At first I thought my OS was corrupt, because after completely wiping the drive(to all zeros) and then reinstalling my OS, my computer would be fine for months again, only for the problems to come back in exactly the same chronological progression as they had occurred in the first time. After doing this three times, the problem immediately returned the day after I had reinstalled my OS, signifying that something else was at the root of the problem.

Long story short(he said, after writing the wall of text above), I assembled a new computer and gave the remains of my old one to my father, who replaced the motherboard and continues to use it as his "tinker computer". It still works to this day without any trouble, so it does seem that the motherboard was the faulty part. Good luck, I hope it's something that can be repaired easily which has failed you.

at this point I'm about 90% sure the black out has destabilized you motherboard which in turn could have damaged you CPU so even if you have another CPU you can test with I wouldnt want to put it in your mobo in case it fries the other one. You should be ok to put your CPU into another mobo to test it though. Not much else I can say except hopefully your GPU, PSU, RAM and Hdd are fine (you may want to run a chkdisk/SMART test on this for bad sectors)

P.S: Invest in a high rated surge protector if you havent already

#41 & 42:

Helpful posts, thanks. Already looking at a replacement motherboard, I'll update this thread as things develop/conclude.

Thanks so much to every one else that posted in the thread.