I was using my computer last night, playing a low demand game. I put it to sleep to go eat dinner and came back a few hours later. I hit the power button to wake it up, and the lights came on for a few seconds, then went off. Okay, that’s weird. Then, they came back on for a few seconds, then went off. It did this 3 or 4 times, then stayed off, and now there is no response when pressing the power button (I think there was a slight buzzing sound when the lights came on each time, but I was wearing a headset, so it’s hard to say for sure).
This is the first time I’ve ever seen something like this happen, so I have no idea what I can even do to start troubleshooting this issue. The only things I’ve thought to do so far are try a different plug on my plug strip (one I know is working) and turning off the rocker switch as well as completely unplugging the power cord from both the computer and the plug strip. I left the rocker switch off and the cord unplugged from both the outlet and the computer overnight. Nothing has gotten a response. What can I do?
Sleep or hibernation on Windows can be unstable sometimes and cause strange issues. Most likely, it will turn back on if you leave it alone for a few hours. You could also try unplugging the power cord and letting it discharge for an hour or overnight.
If these don’t fix it, the most likely problem could be your motherboard. Normally, you’d hear beep codes from the motherboard indicating any issues during POST.
Gael said: @August
Is there even a point to sleep now with SSDs? I wonder why it’s still around.
It helps save power without fully shutting down. You can keep all your open programs and continue where you left off. This is useful for laptops, especially when you need to move from one room to another but don’t want to use up your battery, and it saves you from having to boot everything up again.
@August
I’ve seen that some newer hardware doesn’t come with the beep alarm by default. I had to order some to hear error codes. It’s possible that the computer doesn’t have them, so they might not be able to hear the beep codes.
Looks like a serious problem, but without more details, it’s hard to know for sure. It could be that your hard drive or motherboard is damaged since your PC doesn’t seem to even get to POST. You can try unplugging and reconnecting the hard drive. Also, check the small coin-shaped battery on your motherboard, remove it and put it back. This might help.
Try unplugging everything except the power cable, monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
I recently had a similar issue with too many things plugged in. My PC would go to sleep, and even though moving the mouse could wake it up, it would shut down again. After I removed the soundboard, it worked fine. If that doesn’t help, try the following:
Remove everything except mouse, keyboard, and monitor. If that doesn’t help, try the next step.
Reseat your RAM. If that doesn’t work, keep going.
You may need to buy new parts to test. Try a new power supply first, and if that doesn’t work, try replacing the motherboard.
If you remove the RAM, be sure to pull the power cord first.
You can also try pulling the power cord, hold down the power button for 10-15 seconds to drain any remaining power, plug it back in, and then see if it powers up normally.
What brand is your computer? I once had a similar issue with a Dell. I had to remove the IEC cord from the back, take out the coin battery from the motherboard, and hold down a switch on the motherboard for 30 seconds to get it working again.