- Issue Details:
1. PC shut down: complete power off - investigation indicates DIMM slot / motherboard failure (this happens at unpredictable intervals)
2. Not always possible to restart immediately - it can just spin the CPU fan and "hang" there without POSTing - only way to turn it off is at the incoming power switch (front power button won't work)
3. On attempting to restart (from cold start and it's not "hungup" as in 2. Above) won't show the BIOS screen One cannot raise the BIOS through the DEL key at all. boot screen does not show - just a black screen. Then :-
4. The machine will boot into the first boot drive. When it boots it will only go to the last selected first drive (because of 3. above it's not possible to change this) goes to OS splash screen and loads but is unstable and keeps randomly shutting down.
4a. Problem happens under both Windows 10 and Linux OS
5. It might run for 2-hours but most likely only runs for a short time - shut down is sudden and complete power off - then goto 2 above
6. Technical investigation indicates it's a problem with the DIMM sockets. If one inserts the two DIMM blocks the machine won't boot and hangs without POSTing. These are evidently side effects of a DIMM slot / motherboard failure. Will boot with one memory stick inserted but not two. The memory sticks are interchangeable but only one at a time can be installed
7. Research shows this is a known if infrequent failure and is always noted as a hardware issue (probably motherboard) and apparently is not all that rare
I believe this *is a motherboard failure and which should be subject to warranty