So before I make a wall of text, here are my system specs:
CPU: AMD FX-9370 (No OC)
GPU: ASUS GTX 660
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-2133Mhz, 8gb (2x4)
MOBO: ASUS Crosshair V Formula-z
PSU: Corsair CX430M
HDD: Seagate 1 TB Hybrid Drive OS: Windows 10 64-Bit
Grab some popcorn, cause here's that wall of text:
So around 4 days ago, I was gaming and everything was fine until BAM! My computer COMPLETELY froze. Cursor and everything, so I hard rebooted my system by flipping the power switch on my power supply. My first assumption was that my GPU driver needed updating, so I checked, but it was up to date. I further checked my windows drivers, but to no avail, was there anything to be updated.
I decided to just continue to play games. A few minutes, it happened again. I repeated. This happened at least 2 more times before I knew something was up. I searched the web hard for something like this, but I could not find anything that quite matched my description. I decided to just restore the system to about a week earlier when it had been functioning normally. I allowed my computer to recover in safe mode, but returned later to find that my computer had froze IN safe mode. At this point, I didn't know what to think. I booted a few more times, trying to pinpoint the issue. Each time was worse, as the freezing moved from only in game, to on the desktop, even to the lock screen, and even the windows loading animation. At this point I was already very concerned. After this stage, it happened.
My computer would not boot. Let me be more specific. It booted, but nothing appeared on screen. The motherboard, being an ASUS ROG series mobo, gave me the Q-Code FF , which it is my understanding that "FF" means Fault Found or something along those lines. Normally, when the motherboard booted normally, it would show a series of numbers to indicate which steps and etc the motherboard is doing to hand the system over to the OS. Formerly, the system would NEVER freeze, until windows had control, which led me to believe it was formerly a software issue. Now that the system, won't display anything on my monitor whatsoever, I have strong reason to believe this is something on the hardware side of things. Now when my pc starts, it jumps immediately to "FF". I tested the PSU for being the culprit by following the steps in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac7YMUcMjbw. No problems were detected with the PSU.
My build however is very power demanding, and may in fact be malnourished by a 430 Watt power supply. I'm not entirely sure if the power supply is to blame, since my computer froze worse and worse over time. I also on top of all this, built this computer ~3 years ago, so I'm not sure why it would do this now if the power supply was insufficient or damaged. My next thoughts are possibly linked in a damaged hard drive, but I have no way of testing, since I can't even get the PC to Post at all. A key fact is that when I go to turn the system on, the fans only Rev up only HALF, which adds substance to my suspicion that PSU is malnourishing the system. I'm not too sure at this point what the problem is. I took out my cpu to check for bent pins, but all of them are fine. I tried following this guide: http://www.overclock.net/t/1185635/how-to-fix-your-computer-that-wont-post-or-has-an-ff-error-code but the last few steps aren't really possible, since this is my only computer that I own right now that I can swap out the motherboard/cpu to test the either.
I'm not sure what to do at this point guys, and if I can't figure it out, I might sadly have to take it to a repair place to get it checked out. ANY help would be so greatly appreciated, as I am desperate to fix this in only a few days, so I need help with whatever you guys think the problem may be. I am willing to try anything pretty much at this point, so I appreciate any thoughts.
Thanks, -Steve