PC Randomly Died this Morning

[Dakana]

So this morning my home PC just died. I logged on after some windows updates had been performed last night and was on it for a few minutes when it suddenly turned off. Now it refuses to even post. I've been running this setup for a year now and had no problems and haven't changed any hardware in that time. I did a quick look over before I came to work and found all of this.

• None of the capacitors on the motherboard seem to be blown
• The mother board still seems to be getting power since the LEDs on it are lighting up still.
• The power supply was really hot ever after about 10 mins
• There was a thick layer of dust on the CPU fan (my biggest worry)
• I looked at the CPU there are no visible signs of damage (I’m not sure if there even would be if it had over heated)

Any thoughts on what happened or what I can do to fix it? Or possibly how to test if I did fry the CPU? I need my gaming PC to be running again ; ;

[Isiolia]

If you haven't already, check to make sure everything is seated - you could also try pulling out all but the most barebones setup and see if it boots.

Pull the CMOS battery for 10 minutes or so to reset the BIOS. May also want to unplug the PSU in case some overload protection got tripped in that.

Try a different PSU if you have one available - shouldn't be getting super hot.

You most likely didn't fry the CPU. Modern CPUs all have thermal monitoring and will throttle and/or shut down before they get damaged (unlike, say, really old Athlons). What -could- be happening if cooling isn't functioning is that the machine is dropping to a protected mode almost immediately and thus not booting. So if you can see fans not spinning or something then that may be a clue.

[Olo401]

Hmm.. not POSTing is a big deal because the system is getting held up before it tries to load the OS. That means a problem with either the BIOS, CPU, the mobo's chipset or the system memory. Try replacing the BIOS battery, since that's the most common and easiest to fix.

The heat from the power supply really isn't a concern unless the PSU fan isn't spinning or you've got a ton of dust in there creating static havoc. As a preventive measure you should give it a generous dousing of canned air. Don't open the PSU tho!

[Artemicon]

When a system doesn't post the best thing to do is to go down to the bare minimium.

Motherboard
Dimms
CPU w/heatsink

try powering it up with this only. If you insist on clearing the cmos and your MB doesn't have a jumper for it, disconnect the A/C from your powersupply take the battery out (only takes a few seconds for the capacitors to discharge) I wouldn't wait any longer than 10-30 seconds.

I wouldn't worry too much about the battery because that wouldn't cause the MB not to post as the battery just prevents volatile memory settings like date/time bios settings etc. from being erased. Thats why when you disconnect your PC from power the CMOS doesn't reset every time... get it?

If it still doesn't post try taking out your cpu/dimms and cleaning them. Doubtful but if your motherboard has a debug LED(s) then you could find out more info that way. If you have a volt meter you could try checking the voltage coming from your powersupply or the voltage readings on your VRM (voltage regulator modules).

There are alot of things it can be and if It just up and decided to stop I would probably start with clearing the cmos, keep in mind that will erase every setting in the bios you had such as overclocking.

TL;DR

Clear CMOS,
Clean/Reseat Dimms/CPUS
Check Voltages/Debug LEDs
Its not the battery