Computer does not boot after a shut down when a GPU is installed (PCIE)

[alex98uk]

Hi,

I have an issue whereby when I have my MSI R7950 TwinFrzr 3 installed, I sometimes get a looping boot problem (reboots just after POST) and after doing a "shut down", the PC will not start up again unless I kill the mains power (at PSU or wall plug).

As soon as I remove the GPU and run using CPU graphics, it works absolutely fine. I already RMA'd my motherboard and it was tested as working fine, I bought a new PSU and I did 2 hours of MemTest with no errors.

My previous setup was a 2600k and it ran absolutely no problem and never had any issues with the GPU crashing or whatnot... it's just since building this Haswell setup. When the system does manage to get into Windows (after cold booting), it works perfectly... but the boot loops and inability to power up after "shut down" is annoying at best...

My setup is as follows:

Intel i7 4770k
Corsair H100
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H (F6 BIOS)
Corsair Vengeance LP 1600mhz (2 x 4GB)
MSI R7950 TwinFrzr
Asus Xonar STX (currently unplugged)
Crucial C300 SSD
Fractal Design Newton R3 600W

Any ideas why this may happen? I tried setting the motherboard from PCIE 3.0 to PCIE 2.0 and moving the GPU from the top PCIE port to bottom PCIE port... but same behavior...

[NecronomicoN]

What happens when you use a different GPU? Not just IG, but a completely different card.

[alex98uk]

What happens when you use a different GPU? Not just IG, but a completely different card.

I'm unable to test that right now, but obviously it's something I need to do. I live away from my family and friends, so I need to wait a week or two before I can get another GPU to test with.

I was wondering in the meantime if there were new power settings or configs in haswell BIOS's that may be preventing it from booting or something.

[Octodog]

I'm assuming you have the relevant power connector(s) going to the card. If it takes two PCI-E power connectors, be sure to try and source them from different cables.
If you plug the card back into your old system, does it continue to work fine?

Do you have any audio or visual POST indicators?

I had a similar problem on an old system. I'd reboot, or try and power the system on and I'd get no visual output. I would, however, get a series of BIOS beep codes (the codes indicated a display card issue).
Turning off at the mains, waiting, then powering on again seemed to work for a while. The problem became more frequent and it turned out to be a faulty video card.

I'm not aware of anything new in the BIOS that would prevent booting with a dedicated graphics card. If you restore BIOS to defaults, that should theoretically rule out an issue there.
Try disabling onboard graphics / making sure "init display first" is PCI-E.

Hopefully this is of at least some assistance..

[kalniel]

Sounds like the PSU doesn't support Haswells low voltage states or isn't doing the right thing with standby loads - with certain component combinations you are hitting the right load to allow it to boot anyway, but not others. Go into BIOS and disable C6 and C7 power states and see if that helps.

[Phage]

Seems you got this resolved.
Love the soundtrack on your video BTW. Just a single word 'feck'. I think we've all been there.