Upgraded to Corsair RM650x power supply and now system won't awake from sleep

I have had a happily performing ASRock Z77 Extreme4 motherboard since 2012 until my Corsair 520HX power supply died (the PSU was 10 years old). I ordered a Corsair RM650x to replace it. Everything works fine except that after the computer goes to sleep, it won't wake up properly. There's a very weird sequence that happens when it tries to wake up.

 

• I move the mouse
  
• I hear the case fans briefly startup (like for 2 seconds) and then shut-down - system goes quiet, nothing.
  
• I wait a few seconds and move the mouse again. Same thing again with case fans briefly starting up and then shutting down.
  
• Finally, I hit the sleep button on the case. The screen shows the BIOS as if it was going to be doing a normal boot from scratch, but then freezes. No matter how long I wait, nothing happens.
  
• I hit the sleep button again and system then reboots from scratch. Sometimes, the prior sleep state is gone, and it has done a clean reboot at this point and sometimes it has been restored from sleep and my windows that were previous open are still open.
  

 

So, something with this new power supply and my system does not allow it to get out of sleep state properly. The only other thing I did when replacing the power supply was to also replace a couple case fans that had gotten noisy.

 

Any ideas what could be going on here? I've seen this set of symptoms described in some other internet posts, but did not find a resolution.

 

I have not updated the BIOS on my motherboard since purchase since everyone describes that as a potentially risky process and should not be done unless you know you really need to. Current BIOS version is P2.40 from 10/15/2012.

 

I tried removing all hard drives except the boot drive and that did not make any difference.

 

Other system info:

 

i7-3770K

Normal clock (no overclock)

32GB RAM DDR3

Boot drive is OCZ SSD

3 Hard drives (problem occurs with only 1 hard drive too)

Four case fans

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 - GDDR5 2GB

Windows 10, 64-bit (latest version)

 

EDIT:

 

I have updated the motherboard BIOS. That did not change the problem.

I've also tried turning off all C State support.

I tried installing Windows on another drive and booting off that as the only drive in the system (even on a different SATA controller). Same problem.

I made a video of what the weird startup sequence looks like where it appears to have two aborted attempts to power up before it actually gets going. The video starts with the computer in sleep mode and then I just wiggle the mouse to wake it up. I don't touch anything after that.

 

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNm9vpII73dvYlQ-TYXr2BtfWI6_rTOxhd7T2m3J6WoOB0yjtCiU1Rsile6UVZsBQ?key=X3VValh2YnVBbHZOTlZld0wxQXlDZ1Q3aEMtQ1JB

 

I'm not just hoping to debug the issue more to try to conclusively figure out if the problem is with the motherboard or the power supply.

Is your processor overclocked and all C-States disabled?

Is your processor overclocked and all C-States disabled?

The problem occurs with no overclock and completely default UEFI settings. I have turned off all C-state settings in the UEFI as an experiment and nothing changed. It still hung after attempting to boot.

 

There's something wrong very early in the boot process where fans whirl for about 1/2 second, then shut-down, pause ~2 seconds, fans while for about 1/2 second, then shut-down, pause ~2 seconds, then the boot process starts, but hangs while the ASRock logo is on the screen (before it gets to booting windows). The boot process does proceed far enough along that I can get into the Bios before it hangs so it's somewhere after where it accepts the F2 key to get into the Bios that it hangs.

 

But, there's clearly something wrong right at the very beginning where it fails to start normally twice in a row before the boot starts.

 

And, this only happens when resuming from a sleep mode. If it's a boot from scratch, the computer starts completely normally without the two whirs and pauses. So, there's something wrong with resuming from sleep mode.

Aw man, this used to happen to me all the time back when I was on Z77 and I never figured it out. I never really found a fix for it and just did hibernate instead (if I really had to). The best remedy for me was to just keep the PC on at all times. Didn't bother me much during night time, I didn't have many LED fans back then.

 

This problem is quite specific and it's quite difficult to pinpoint the issue to provide a proper solution. It sounds like it'd be the motherboard.

 

You know how you mention you don't want to do a BIOS update unless you absolutely have to? Well, this is one of those "absolutely have to" reasons. I'm only recommending this as one of the solutions. If you follow instructions correctly, your BIOS update should go flawlessly and it's quite simple. With that said, we are not liable for anything occurs during or after the BIOS update and your hardware refuses to function. You don't have to do this, but it's just another attempt and remedying your issue as I do not believe this to be a fully tied to the PSU.

Aw man, this used to happen to me all the time back when I was on Z77 and I never figured it out. I never really found a fix for it and just did hibernate instead (if I really had to). The best remedy for me was to just keep the PC on at all times. Didn't bother me much during night time, I didn't have many LED fans back then.

 

This problem is quite specific and it's quite difficult to pinpoint the issue to provide a proper solution. It sounds like it'd be the motherboard.

 

You know how you mention you don't want to do a BIOS update unless you absolutely have to? Well, this is one of those "absolutely have to" reasons. I'm only recommending this as one of the solutions. If you follow instructions correctly, your BIOS update should go flawlessly and it's quite simple. With that said, we are not liable for anything occurs during or after the BIOS update and your hardware refuses to function. You don't have to do this, but it's just another attempt and remedying your issue as I do not believe this to be a fully tied to the PSU.

I did do the BIOS update yesterday evening. The BIOS update went fine, but it didn't fix the problem at all. ASRock wants me to drive making another drive bootable and try running from a different drive. That seems unlikely to be the issue (no problems ever with this boot SSD I'm using), but I guess I'll try it. What seems odd to me is that it all wakes up just fine from a fresh boot, just not when sleeping and I never had this trouble with the Mobo until my PSU went bad and I had to replace it.

Aw man, this used to happen to me all the time back when I was on Z77 and I never figured it out. I never really found a fix for it and just did hibernate instead (if I really had to). The best remedy for me was to just keep the PC on at all times. Didn't bother me much during night time, I didn't have many LED fans back then.

 

This problem is quite specific and it's quite difficult to pinpoint the issue to provide a proper solution. It sounds like it'd be the motherboard.

 

FYI, I made a video of what the weird startup sequence looks like where it appears to have two aborted attempts to power up before it actually gets going. The video starts with the computer in sleep mode and then I just wiggle the mouse to wake it up. I don't touch anything after that.

 

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNm9vpII73dvYlQ-TYXr2BtfWI6_rTOxhd7T2m3J6WoOB0yjtCiU1Rsile6UVZsBQ?key=X3VValh2YnVBbHZOTlZld0wxQXlDZ1Q3aEMtQ1JB

 

Any idea how I can conclusively tell if the problem is with the motherboard or the power supply? FYI, an ASRock support person asked me to take a known good drive, install windows on it and then try booting/sleeping with that boot drive. I did that (a 3hr process) and the problem is still there and identical. I think we've ruled out anything with the boot drive.

The A2 code of the motherboard seem to be an " A0 - A7 Problem related to IDE or SATA devices. Please re-install IDE and SATA devices. If the problem still exists, please clear CMOS and try removing all SATA devices. " ( http://www.asrock.com/support/faq.asp?id=334 ). See your motherboard manual for further info because you don’t tell us the model of the motherboard. Unplug all the sata ide devices and leave only the drive with the OS. You tell us that you use a new drive and you have the same problem. You use with the new drive new sata data cable and new sata power cable?? And unplug all usb devices except keyboard mouse.

The A2 code of the motherboard seem to be an " A0 - A7 Problem related to IDE or SATA devices. Please re-install IDE and SATA devices. If the problem still exists, please clear CMOS and try removing all SATA devices. " ( http://www.asrock.com/support/faq.asp?id=334 ). See your motherboard manual for further info because you don’t tell us the model of the motherboard. Unplug all the sata ide devices and leave only the drive with the OS. You tell us that you use a new drive and you have the same problem. You use with the new drive new sata data cable and new sata power cable?? And unplug all usb devices except keyboard mouse.

Per guidance from ASRock (the motherboard is ASRock Z77 Extreme4), I've pretty much ruled out the drives. At their suggestion, I formatted a different drive as a boot drive, then removed all drives except that one from the system and the problem is still there. I tried that drive with several different SATA cables in several different SATA connectors, including ones from different SATA controllers. The problem is exactly the same no matter which drive I boot from, which controller is being used and with only one drive in the system. It seems hard to believe the issue is actually related to the hard drive.

 

The weird startup sequence where it attempts to power up twice before actually succeeding is immediate, before the BIOS even boots so it's hard to believe that this is somehow caused by more than one SATA drive.

 

I have also even tried removing the video card and running off integrated graphics. No change.

 

I have already tried clearing CMOS and running with full UEFI defaults. No change.

 

One thing you suggest that I have not tried is to unplug all USB devices though the only thing I have beyond keyboard and mouse is a bluetooth dongle. I can try removing that.

 

ASRock wants me to try each of my memory sticks one at a time to see if that makes any difference. A heavy memory tester shows no problems with memory in general once running, but certainly memory is something that might be different in resume from sleep vs. cold boot (because memory was being kept alive in sleep state).

 

I feel like I'm running out of things to try. I wish I had a different PSU to try since that's what got changed when the whole problem started. I was kind of hoping someone from Corsair or with a lot of PSU knowledge might engage on the thread about how a PSU could be involved in causing these symptoms (which is why I posted here). It's definitely an initial power-up issue, but only when system was in sleep state.