Here's a head scratcher.....

Yes going to get parts tomorrow picking up new ram and new video card. I think his hard drive is good especially after seeing another drive act the same. Got a chance to do some googling and discovered apparently that some are having issues with the gtx 770 doing hard lockups and black screen. So back this one goes for a brand new one and going to pick up a new ram kit.
 
I tell you this pc does not like me. Went to get parts, For a new video card, brand new one in clearance that was cheaper than the old open box card but still the gtx 770, switched for a new psu again, and a new kit of crucial ddr3 1600 ram. Actually came out with money left. Alright!

Get things back, unpack the power supply and realized it was damaged as in the side of it was pushed out of place. Gotta return this power supply as I was afraid to power it in as is. Back to Microcenter lol.
 
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Dumb question. Never had to boot outside a case before. Showing my age I guess (Well be 33 this month, maybe a pup compared to to some of you. I'm guessing it's as simple as set up on a clean pad hook it all up and short the pins for the power switch with a flat head screwdriver? If I had a little extra cash microcenter started carrying a case where the board is basically bare. essentially a test case.
 
I read the whole thread and the thing I noticed the most is you seem to be after changing the same parts over and over, yes I know they blew a couple times. I too agree out of the case is a good idea... just pull all the guts out, lay the MB on a table (wooden) hook up the PSU, a single stick of RAM, yank a power switch out of an old case or make one (screw driver will work if you got steady hands, but the real thing is always better), cpu and heat sink, plug into monitor, post consistently.. first... eliminate as much hardware as you can, just add one device/thing/gizmo what have you back at a time until you find the one that's causing the problem... just to ask you did install the chipset drivers right after you installed Windows correct?
 
Yes to chipset. Reason I was changing power supply this time was as a cost cutting move as I'm spending so much time and gas etc getting parts. Found a 750 watt corsair power supply for half cost of the one I had in there and corsair is known to be reliable. Also trying not to charge this guy to much. I feel I'd be justified but I know how I'd feel if I were in his position. But the corsair is 750 watt modular, and 62 Amos in a single 12 bolt rail. Should be overrated for that card anyway(I had actually upgraded the power supply to a better unit before anyway without him knowing before I had a bettet handle on what was going on).

Anyway before I read this last part, put power supply and new card back in. Also purchased a new kit of ram for the system. So it has new CPU, new motherboard, new ram, new video card (not open box). Only old items are the case, buy Ray drive and hard drive.

Went in and reset the bios to auto detect new ram, Did not clean install again (though I may to be sure). Reinstalled video drivers, same type of card as before. So far things seem happy. The only hiccup I saw was I loaded up like the crysis demo to test it, and the new card did black screen and lost signal to the monitor for a couple seconds and then recovered. Still curious as to why that is, and is why I may clean install again for good measure. But I intend to push this system hard for a few hours to make sure that it seems to be working fine.

Back when I was running nvidia cards never had these issues. Nor do I with my AMD Radeon card. Wish I could find a deal on one of those but all their high end cards are constantly sold out. I was told people are buying them to do bitmining.

Built another system almost exactly like this one last year with a 7970 and never a hardware issue with it yet knock on wood. I'm convinced at this point any remaining issues will be the video card.

Oh yeah. With changing parts and what not. The power cycling thing has actually stopped.

*Edit* Sorry for any bad grammar out misspellings. It's late and typing on the phone.
 
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Totally admire your resolve, sir.
So how much has this cost in parts so far if you don't mind me asking.......
 
In parts almost 0. We have a chain in some areas here called Microcenter, I purchased 2 year warranties on everything through them. I get 99.99% of my parts through them. They have basically online prices and price match online retailers prices. Probably had at least 5 trips over for this one system. Plus the time for our troubleshooting. For me to go over there takes 40 minutes one way. Main thing is just gas, time and frustration, however, no restocking fees even. If you have a 2 year warranty plan through them, you can bring the part back with no box, have them look up the reciept, and they just give you store credit and you get what you need no questions asked. I'm in there so much they know me by name and I've seen the managers tell the employees we are in there a lot and just to take care of us. To give you an idea, it's probably about the size of a grocery store or small walmart here in the US.
 
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Could power be the issue? Perhaps a Battery Backup would clean that up...

Also, when I first built my computer, I didn't put the spacers in, so it would only boot for ~1 second, then shut down. I kind of figured out that they weren't just a nice bonus with the case, they were strongly recommended.
 
Should not be an issue. I actually tried it where I plug in my own workstation into, and have never had issues there. I did a little more checking and when I get back I'll have to test it, but some things online suggested people were having issues like with things being choppy if they didn't completely remove old drivers. Which I did experience choppiness also, which should not happen even on crysis with a 4ghz 8 core processor, 8 gb ddr3 ram and a 2gb gtx 770 card. So I think I'm just gonna do a clean install of the system, install very basic chipset and very basic video drivers with no extras and see where it lands.

*Edit*

Have considered a Battery Backup in case of storms and what not at home.
 
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Btw standoffs are definitely in place. I think toward the back of the board may not have any installed(they had a micro atx vs full atx in the case before, but it's definitely not touching the backplate.

Thanks everyone for all the help. So frustrating when you've done these enough that you know you've got it right and are still having issues.
'
 
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Me too. The current card in there is a galaxy gtx 770 2gb. Last 2 cards I had in my personal system were nvidia cards both made by galaxy. So always had good luck with them. The open box one I returned was actually an evga card.
 
The card is paired up with an amd fx 8350, gigabyte 970a-ud3p with 8+2 power phasing. Corsair CX 750 modular power supply 62 amps on the 12v+ rail, 8gb ddr3 1600 crucial ballistix sport ram. So not like I'm using junk parts.
 
I think you really just have to break it down out of the case, bare minimum and build up one component/device at a time. It's a slow process, but the only way your going to find the problem, and it would be much easier with some other known goods like another gfx card etc. Test with card A then with card B, eventually you'll find where the problem is.
 
I really think it was leftover drivers. Clean installed with new hardware in, installed only chipset and sound and lan as well as usb drivers, installed gfx drivers from the cd. Loaded crysis demo and it runs ok at 1920x1080. Had to tuen antialiasing to 2x or 4x everything else on very high and it runs it, of course when you hit a checkpoint you get a stutter as it saves but at least it seems happy. Gonna push it a bit harder but looks like it's happy. Got my fingers crossed.
 
Just letting everyone know system is happy. Delivered back to current who seems happy as a lark. Got a feeling he's gonna be more into first person shooters on pc because of a game he got to try on it.
 
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