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I'm looking at an Intel NUC, model NUC5i7RYH. It was working fine until yesterday, running Windows 10. After being left alone for the night - it has entered a state in which:

  • nothing is sent to the display;
  • the fan speed is high;
  • the chassis is cold to the touch;
  • pressing the power button does nothing, even a long press which usually forces power-off;
  • the power led is lit stably, not blinking.

If I disconnect the power connector, wsit, re-insert it and press the power button, the NUC gets back into this non-responsive state. Switching the display cable from (DisplayPort M -> DisplayPort M), to (Mini-HDMI M -> HDMI M -> HDMI F -> DisplayPort M) has no effect (the relevant monitor has no HDMI input, only DP).

Why could this be happening, and what, if anything, can I do to get the NUC to boot again?

Note: I've tried disconnecting the SATA connector from the on-board SATA header, in case this has something to do with the SSD; this had no effect.

einpoklum
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  • It's probably dead, sorry to say but there's nothing a regular user can do. It may still be repairable by some electronics engineer, under a microscope. – ChanganAuto Nov 20 '21 at 13:18
  • @ChanganAuto: 1. Why would that be? Are NUC boards so flakey that this is likely to be the case? 2. "Probably" suggests there may be another option. What can I do to check? – einpoklum Nov 20 '21 at 13:25
  • Well, I said "probably"... You can try a reset if such feature has been implemented (again, not sure). But yes, anything can break and the NUCs are no exception. I had one of the same vintage that started by freezing for no reason and ended with a very similar symptom. – ChanganAuto Nov 20 '21 at 13:29
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    NUCs break quite often. Try this: unplug the system, unplug the power supply from the mains, hold the power button for five (fifteen?) seconds, wait about 5 minutes, plug the NUC back in, then plug in the power supply. – Gantendo Nov 20 '21 at 13:30
  • @Gantendo Funny, I was thinking capacitor when I wrote the first comment. – ChanganAuto Nov 20 '21 at 13:30
  • @Gantendo: Where on my board is that capacitor located? And - is it on the side that's accessible when I open the chassis bottom, or the side that's facing the top and needs me to disassemble the board from the chassis? – einpoklum Nov 20 '21 at 13:33
  • @Gantendo: I saw the image, but it's not even my exact model. Also, does that link you sent fit the situation of power being _on_? They seem to talk about the NUC being completely dead. – einpoklum Nov 20 '21 at 13:35
  • @einpoklum I should've made it clearer, but that was an example of what ChanganAuto was talking about – Gantendo Nov 20 '21 at 15:05
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    If you do this: "`unplug the system, unplug the power supply from the mains, hold the power button for thirty seconds, wait about 5 minutes, plug the NUC back in, then plug in the power supply`" you'll drain the capacitors. Give that a try and let us know if it worked. – Gantendo Nov 20 '21 at 15:08
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    @Gantendo For some reason unplugging the system and holding down the power button doesn't seem to fully drain them for me, but letting it sit unplugged for around a day does. =/ – jamesdlin Mar 18 '22 at 07:31

7 Answers7

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The person I was asking the question for consulted a technician, who said some electrical component on the board is fried, and it's a gonner. So, there's some money down the drain for you. I was only able to salvage the SSD and the memory.

Only 5 years of service and this piece of equipment, bought for over 1,000 USD, engineered by a single company, goes dead; Intel...

(Good thing I'm not the one who had bought it so the egg is not on my face.)

einpoklum
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I've been encountering the exact same symptoms on my NUC5i7RYH for the past year. What has worked for me (so far) is to let my NUC sit unplugged for day or so, after which it can boot again, and everything otherwise seems normal. This leads me to believe that the problem is capacitor-related.

(I have tried the "hold the power button down for 30 seconds, wait 5 minutes" trick to drain the capacitors, but it has never seemed to work for me.)

jamesdlin
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I also have exactly the same symptom on my NUC5i7RYH, and, in fact, for a couple of years for 3 times. It happens after a power outage. I tried all the tricks mention above, including removing/reinstalling memory, SSD Drive, DisplayPort, keyboard, mouse, CMOS battery, holding power button, etc. Luckily for the previous 2 times, it just started booting up normally while I was trying all the above tricks. Then, If I gracefully shut it down from Windows start button, I can still boot up normally. It is still a mystery to me why it came back. This, the 3rd, time after an outage 3 weeks age, I still having trouble to bring it back. Somehow I have the feeling it is related to BIOS setting after sudden power loss, but, don't understand why battery/CMOS/capacitor draining does not help so far. I am still trying while looking for a replacement for my entertainment PC.

JoeyM
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    As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Apr 02 '22 at 04:37
  • This does not really answer the question. If you have a different question, you can ask it by clicking [Ask Question](https://superuser.com/questions/ask). To get notified when this question gets new answers, you can [follow this question](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/345661). Once you have enough [reputation](https://superuser.com/help/whats-reputation), you can also [add a bounty](https://superuser.com/help/privileges/set-bounties) to draw more attention to this question. - [From Review](/review/late-answers/1117417) – DarkDiamond Apr 02 '22 at 08:18
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I'm getting the same problem with an NUC5I5RYK purchased in 2015.

Symptoms:

  • When clicking the power button it lights up (solid stable blue)
  • The fan runs at maximum speed.
  • No signal output to monitor (Mini DisplayPort).
  • Clicking or holding down the power button again has no effect (e.g. it does not turn off).
  • Only way to stop it (and the noisy fan) is to unplug the power supply.

When it starts normally (as it should) the fan will start directly in slow and silent mode with no significant speed/noise at any moments.

Solution #1

Let it run for a little while (e.g. 5 minutes). Then unplug power supply, don't wait, and reconnect the power supply and click the power button again. This often worked for me.

Solution #2

But today solution #1 didn't work – even after many attempts. I finally decided to unplug it and put it on a heater! A hair dryer could probably also work fine but be carful with any excessive heating. Heat the underside gently for 10 minutes (no need to open the casing). This solved the problem for me – this time. When I plugged it back in and clicked the power button it immediately started ok. The reason for this working is probably because the heating will positively affect a fault component (e.g. a capacitor) or a bad soldering coming lose on the PCB.

SteffenSH
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INTEL NUC PROBLEMSAPL5337 - for causing problems in this thread try heating and cooling this element (max fan speed, no video signal, can't turn off even if button is held down for a long time)

Kapa
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    This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://superuser.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](https://superuser.com/help/privileges/comment); instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). - [From Review](/review/late-answers/1166536) – DarkDiamond Jan 11 '23 at 14:12
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-I have a NUC5i5RYH with this exact problem. Works fine while it's on all the time and "Warm". If it turns off after power failure it won't start. I just followed the advice here and heated it nice and hot with a hair dryer and whamo, it boots. I'm now copying my media off it. It's had this issue for about 2 years now. But as it is always on it was only when we had a power failure, It's not set to auto start, that there was an issue. I've figured out now it is because it would get cold. My previous fix was to leave it on for a few hours and reboot. I now know it was because it warmed up that it would boot. It's probably a cracked solder joint or bad component (capacitor) but it's obviously past its 5 year Intel use-by date.

Gertsy WozHere
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    This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://superuser.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](https://superuser.com/help/privileges/comment); instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). - [From Review](/review/late-answers/1211012) – Destroy666 Aug 17 '23 at 11:40
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I have exactly the same issue. I also have a NUC5i7RYH with Windows 10. It was working fine until a couple days ago and now won't boot. It powers on, I get a high fan speed, no display, no keyboard response, the unit is cool, power button does not work after powering on (I have to unplug the power cable to shut it down again, press and hold for a long time does nothing).

I've tried removing the drives, removing/reinstalling the memory, unplugging/replugging the fan, unplugging/replugging the CMOS battery, and performing a BIOS recovery via the bios jumper method. Nothing works. My guess is the CPU is dead.

Jeff
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  • This does not really answer the question. If you have a different question, you can ask it by clicking [Ask Question](https://superuser.com/questions/ask). To get notified when this question gets new answers, you can [follow this question](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/345661). Once you have enough [reputation](https://superuser.com/help/whats-reputation), you can also [add a bounty](https://superuser.com/help/privileges/set-bounties) to draw more attention to this question. - [From Review](/review/late-answers/1102860) – DarkDiamond Jan 16 '22 at 08:04
  • This is more of a comment than an answer - although it's a good comment. – einpoklum Jan 16 '22 at 19:22