When I moved recently my PC suddenly stopped booting.
Before transport I removed the GPU so the PCB wouldn’t crack, but my motherboard was showing that it got stuck in the GPU check when booting, so I thought I accidentally broke the GPU by shocking it with static, or popping off some capacitor or something. I still wanted to rule out everything else before buying a new GPU though.
I kept replugging things, thinking it might be a connection that came loose during transport, I reseated the RAM, I tried just one RAM stick, I even reseated the CPU.
Turns out, somehow a CMOS reset fixed it. I’m still confused as to why that worked.
“Weird Shit” is always a possibility when there’s any power at all in the system. The PSU will keep low level power supplied for a surprisingly long time after being unplugged from the mains. 💛
Possibly helped somewhat for older machines where pressing the button made the fans spin for a little, but modern systems are somehow smart enough to not even bother doing anything
When I moved recently my PC suddenly stopped booting.
Before transport I removed the GPU so the PCB wouldn’t crack, but my motherboard was showing that it got stuck in the GPU check when booting, so I thought I accidentally broke the GPU by shocking it with static, or popping off some capacitor or something. I still wanted to rule out everything else before buying a new GPU though.
I kept replugging things, thinking it might be a connection that came loose during transport, I reseated the RAM, I tried just one RAM stick, I even reseated the CPU.
Turns out, somehow a CMOS reset fixed it. I’m still confused as to why that worked.
EHCI (system config) data was corrupt. Possibly from pulling the GPU while the motherboard board still had power (or residual power in caps).
CMOS wipe resets to blank and that data gets rewritten after BIOS runs the “wtf is plugged into me” routines triggered by blank data.
That’d be my guess.
I wasn’t aware that data could be corrupted by unplugging components, but what you’re saying is making sense. That could definitely have been it.
“Weird Shit” is always a possibility when there’s any power at all in the system. The PSU will keep low level power supplied for a surprisingly long time after being unplugged from the mains. 💛
Is it true that this power gets drained when you press the power button without the power cord plugged in?
Not in my experience.
Possibly helped somewhat for older machines where pressing the button made the fans spin for a little, but modern systems are somehow smart enough to not even bother doing anything