Motherboard stuck on error light, and the screen has options for BIOS, nothing responds, wont boot
I bought PC parts from Microcenter a few months ago, and built a PC. Up until now, it has been working completely fine. Until 2 days ago, when I tried to boot it up, and nothing would happen. I tried contacting Microcenter support, but they tried to make me spend $40 for a diagnostic. So last night I realized that the motherboard was stuck on the CPU and RAM error lights, (red and orange) so i looked online, took out the RAM, tried it with no RAM, or one stick in A2. Nothing worked, except now it's stuck on the white VGA light after being stuck on the red ang orange lights for about 30 seconds. The screen shows the MSI logo, and it says I can either press Del, Ctrl + F5, or F11. I tried pressing it, and nothing happens at all. I tried moving the keyboard around different USB ports, and still nothing. I know it can't be an issue with the PSU or really any of the parts, because I haven't touched the PC since the last time I used it, and definitely could not have harmed the CPU pins. I checked all the connections, and everything is fine. Up until 2 days ago, I hadn't used the PC for around a week, and the PC wasn't being used, but it was left on so maybe that was a reason.
The parts are below:
MSI B650-P PRO WiFi AMD AM5 ATX Motherboard
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X Raphael AM5 4.5GHz 8-Core Boxed Processor - Heatsink Not ...
G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-6000 PC5-48000 CL36 Dual Chann...
Lian Li Lancool II MESH Performance Type C Tempered Glass ATX Mid-Tower Com...
Microsoft Windows 11 Home 64-Bit FPP USB - English
Crucial P5 Plus 1TB SSD 3D NAND M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4 Interface Internal Sol...
Seasonic USA Focus GX-850 850 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Sup...
PowerColor AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Red Dragon Triple-Fan 16GB GDDR6 PCIe 4.0 ...
Comments
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Go down to 1 stick of RAM. Clear your CMOS, then power it on again. Give at least a minute to retrain, and see if you're able to access the BIOS.
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Ok so the computer actually managed to boot up after going through many different error light changes. However, will it boot up with 2 sticks? And I'm not even sure what the problem is. Do I need to update the board or something?
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I added the second ram stick, and it showed me an f1 vs f2 menu, and then it got stuck on the VGA light and went to the del ctrl + F5, or f11 menu.
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Need to figure out if it's the module, the slot or the configuration.
- Try the second stick alone.
- Try each stick in A2 and B2
If they both work individually in both slots, it's the configuration. I assume you did reset the BIOS and the RAM dropped back to the 4800 JEDEC speed?
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I tried the second stick alone, and it entered automatic repair. I clicked restart, and the screen went black but didnt turn off, and it never powered on
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Second stick in the same slot the first stick passed in? If that's the case, the likely issue is the second stick failed.
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Yes I tried the stick alone in A2. It enters PC recovery mode. I have a 2 year protection plan on the bundle I got which includes the CPU, Motherboard, and RAM. I'm not sure if this is covered.
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Repair mode and then failed to post on the restart, correct? Sounds like a RAM failure, that would be covered. You can download the free version of memtest86 and try to run a test on it. Test 8 will blow up on a bad stick pretty fast. F11 is your boot menu key.
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I ran a test on the one I thought was bad, and there were 0 errors in 3 passes. (The test stopped right before the 4th one finished, but i assume it would have been the same.) I'm testing the one that i thought that was not broken, and currently there's no issues either after an original pass. It's still testing now.
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If they both test fine, it's not the RAM. Load them back in and test as a pair, see if it fails in dual channel mode, or if you have the same issue trying to access the BIOS/boot menu.
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@PowerSpec_MikeW I tried to boot the computer with each of them in. The second one (which is the one that works bad) did not boot. The first one did and allowed me to log in, then promptly shut off again and entered PC recovery mode when I tried again.
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So I went to a system restore point on the computer with both RAM sticks in. It worked and I was able to log in to the computer. However, the computer and restarts about every 5 minutes. I also can't open google chrome. I'm not sure if what I did was bad, and I'm again not sure if it is the RAM. Part of me feels like it is the motherboard, because one of my two monitors are connected to the GPU, and the other to the motherboard. The motherboard one was acting weird, so I believe it may be the motherboard.
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Possible, it really sounds like a corrupt OS which if the memory was an issue in dual channel, can certainly corrupt the OS. Try this in the BIOS.
- Load EXPO/XMP 1.
- Search for a setting called "Memory Context Restore" and change it from Auto to Disabled.
- Save and exit.
See if it'll boot. If it will, load memtest86 and run 4 passes. If it's good, I'd reinstall the OS.
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Changed the BIOS setting.
Ran the mem tests. No errors.
It still went to recovery mode so I clicked on reset this PC, I clicked keep my files and I clicked local download.
It had an error message saying "The computer restarted unexpectedly. Click ok to restart, and then retry the installation."
On the screen with the loading circle where it said "Undoing changes." It completely froze, which I can't imagine is good at all.
I still haven't turned off the computer, I'm afraid to do it.
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Ok, so after I posted it, it ended up working. I reset it again but this time chose cloud download which it told me wasn't possible. So I chose local reset again. It worked. Tomorrow I'll connect to WiFi and set up everything again. So thanks. I still don't know how everything broke down, I hope you have any ideas, and also as how I can prevent this from happening. I might need to install some drivers, as well as any of the specific software for the parts you know.
Ok so I found the wifi key. Turned the computer back on again after I shut it down. It was still stuck on the f11 or ctrl f5 or del screen and the VGA light on the motherboard was still on. I tried again. It booted. Seems like it has a 50% success rate. Not sure why. Tried to connect to the wifi. It froze. I restarted and tried again. This time it worked. So thanks... I think. Not sure if it's randomly gonna crash.
Edit: Yep it restarted after about 5 minutes.
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Just a restart and not a BSOD? Run Bluescreenview and see if it'll pick anything up: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/bluescreenview-x64.zip
Not RAM. You did find and disable that memory context restore option, correct? It should have increased your boot times to about 30-40 seconds.
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Nothing popped up after I installed the file. It restarted again after about 5 minutes. No blue screen.
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So it's a power loss. Lets try to find out if it's an idle power issue. Download OCCT from ocbase.com. Run the CPU stress test and see if it'll stay on longer.
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I downloaded it. Clicked start on the 1hr CPU test. I think it's that one. First time it immediatley crashed. The second time it had a little popup and counted down 10 seconds, and then I could actually start it. The first time I clicked start and it crashed before the popup even came up. After my post above, the computer did bluescreen when I tried to install driver software. It gave me a clock watchdog timeout error.
So I did the test. So far, the computer has still stayed on. It's been on for about 12 minutes which is longer than it has before. No errors detected yet. So I have no idea why it is crashing now.
Ok so it did crash right after the test finished. For a full hour, it didn't and when nothing was happening, it failed.
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Sounds like a board VRM failure then. We're failing on idle voltage. We could temporarily solve with a static VCORE, but that's a work around.
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It seems like it only restarts if I'm downloading something or installing something. It's like it's very selective. What do you suggest I do? I could bring it in for them to look at.
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Yes, I would bring it in. It's a power issue, testing indicates the board VRM is more likely than the PSU.
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Ok I'll do that. Thank you very much for your help
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