Diagnostic help: Asus b550-i died mid game and can't get it to boot [SOLVED]

raz-0

Supreme [H]ardness
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Mar 9, 2003
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SOLVED: the problem with these symptoms turned out to be memory, and not the motherboard. The system crashed so bad it corrupted the bios. The symptoms discussed are mostly the symptoms of that. But not only do you need to recover the bios via flashback, you need to clear cmos after flashback, then repower the system via a long hold on the power switch or equivalent. At that point it will decide it is a new cpu and take a while to boot. If you turned on TPM for windows 11 compatibility eval, you will get some funky messages you have to answer that will prompt a reboot.

Hardware
silverstone SX700
asus rog-strix b550-i
5900x
32gb corsair vengance LPX (2x16)
silicon power 2TB gen 4 nvme for boot
Adata 2TB gen 3 nvme for D:
3080 FE

Ok, So here's my situation. I was playing jedi fallen order, and boom the screen goes black, but the box continues to make fan noises and have it's lights on. I go to reboot it and it's not having it. So I go to yank the power and I can see the q-led is red, which means cpu, but temps were fine on cpu, and it wasn't even breathing heavy (had the nvidia perfomance overlay on with a previous session and the game spends most of the time with cpu at 29% or so). So I pull the wall power, and boot it up. q-led is yellow, which is boot. Not only that, fans are staying on at full tilt. I'm like WTF... this has been running fine for about a year. Rinse and repeat a few times and I'm like crap and start digging in.

I pulled the boot drive out, and put it in an NVME enclosure. Works fine there. Put it back in and reboot. No more yellow q-led. Now it's white.. VGA. (I will note here that at about this point it definitely got a long power button press, I don't recall if I did so previously) Video card is getting power and the logo is lighting up and fans spin. I can't swap my video card into something else at the moment, so swap in my old 1080. Still get VGA error. Of note, it seems the fan profiles are loading as the fans no longer stay at full speed (this is wtih either video card). I'm going to try swapping my video card into my kids system later after he goes to bed, but right now I'm stumped. Other than the mobo or psu giving up the ghost. I really don't want to be pulling everything out and testing it on the benchtop, and not really any point until I can find the cables to my only spare psu with enough oomph to run this (down side of detachable cables... can't remember where I put them ~5 years ago).

3080 always ran reasonable temps and was at box stock settings. The memory hotspot never went above 95C in my testing IIRC.

So so far
PSU is producing anough juice to spin fans and light things up.
mobo - unknown and not sure how I'd test it. I can't even buy a spare one and swap right now only scalpers seem to have stock.
CPU - unkown I do have a spare 3700x sitting around. but would rather not swap until I tested more stuff.
GPU - gonna test it later.
Boot drive - works in enclosure.
memory - unkown

I really hate this mystery shit, this rig has been running for basically a year and has been really stable after some initial teething pains.

Any suggestions?

ETA: gpu tested in another system and works.
 
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Do you have another psu or gpu to swap in?
As stated i swapped in another gpu and no workey. Same led situation with vga error. I did get a chance to try the 3080fe in my kids rig while he was in the shower. It appears to work fine.
 
Psu and memory swaps will be easiest. Then of course the dreaded cpu swap. After that mb is your likely culprit.
No love with clearing the cmos?
Gotta love weekend troubleshooting!
 
Yea I see the gpu swap now. I’d swap memory next or psu. Hopefully it isn’t a dud motherboard.
 
Psu and memory swaps will be easiest. Then of course the dreaded cpu swap. After that mb is your likely culprit.
No love with clearing the cmos?
Gotta love weekend troubleshooting!

Gotta try the cmos, but it’s kind of a pita to get to the pins in this setup as most of the board is covered by the heatsink.
 
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My money is on the psu. You can hook up another one outside the case and not even have to pull your whole machine apart usually. The only time I had a psu take a shit was mid game also. Playing fine and then an abrupt shut off followed by just fans spinning on a restart.

Let us know how it goes and good luck!
 
Hmm well either both psus are bad or it’s the motherboard or ram. Guess I’ll test my ram in the kid’s rig tonight.

I guess the cpu could be bad too. But it’s not like it was being pushed hard, unless it was murdering a single core or something.
 
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Much more likely a board issue now. But the ram could be suspect. I highly doubt a bad cpu. In fact in 20+ years building hundreds of pc’s I’ve seen exactly one bad cpu. And that was a way over bolted and over clocked AMd Barton core 2500+. And that was before CPU’s had all the built in fail safes they have now.
 
either cpu or board died....any way to try cheap local cpu to test the board out? we have seen many newer model amd cpus going bad and needing rma. So have to see if its board or cpu
 
Much more likely a board issue now. But the ram could be suspect. I highly doubt a bad cpu. In fact in 20+ years building hundreds of pc’s I’ve seen exactly one bad cpu. And that was a way over bolted and over clocked AMd Barton core 2500+. And that was before CPU’s had all the built in fail safes they have now.

Yeah that’s my sentiment as well. I’ve been building for almost 25 years now and haven’t gotten a bum cpu.


either cpu or board died....any way to try cheap local cpu to test the board out? we have seen many newer model amd cpus going bad and needing rma. So have to see if its board or cpu

I’ve got a 3700x sitting around. Dunno if I’ll have time to fit it before next weekend.
 
Yeah that’s my sentiment as well. I’ve been building for almost 25 years now and haven’t gotten a bum cpu.




I’ve got a 3700x sitting around. Dunno if I’ll have time to fit it before next weekend.
sooner you make it happen, sooner you can do a proper rma and get back to normal. should take no more than half hour to swap cpu and see what happens. mine would be more like 10 min. In truth im leaning on bad board cause thats kinda a lower end model for asus and using a rather high end cpu....on my system i would definitely think it was the cpu cause i buy boards built like tanks only
 
Maybe for the cpu. With all the motherboard makers i pretty much assume you get a hassle and nothing comes of it because they can blame too many other things.
 
That sucks.
Well maybe you'll get lucky and Asus cs will get your rma taken care of with a quickness.
GL!
 
So ram booted and passed in my kids rig. Swapped in the 3700x on the mobo, same deal as before. So it’s got to be the mobo.

sigh.
Well you got it confirmed as needed...I think it possible you get it swapped on out with Asus in couple weeks max if you act soon.... maybe even one week....I only used there support one time and it worked on out just fine
 
Gah wtf!?

New mobo, still getting the white vga light. Except the video card works in my kids machine which is just the m-atx version of this board.

I’m baffled at this point. The only thing I haven't 100% verified as working is the cpu. Other than trying one that was put back in the clamshell while 100% working.


Also somehow I snapped off a fan blade in one fan while doing this. Grr.
 
No bent pins that you can see?
Bent pins on the cpu? It had been in there wiring for the better part of a year.

The 3700x I tried in there has no bent pins.

I managed to bend one on removal on the 5900x. Not much, and nudged it back. No issues inserting it, and it just dropped in.
 
I mean i have even tried stupid shit like the monitor cables despite being pretty certain it couldn't be them. I mean when it crashed the audio went with it and my phones were plugged into the mobo.

This is super frustrating, I just want to play some frikin games, not solve electronic mysteries.
 
Now I'm tearing my hair out.

Video card tested in donor system. Works
Nvme tested in donor system. Works (didn't boot off it though)
Cpu tested in donor system. Works.
Ram tested in donor system. Works.

Psu pulled from a donor system that worked makes no difference.

Motherboard swapped with brand new identical motherboard... Same problem: vga led stuck on and no signal no post.

Wtf.

I guess the next step is to remove everything from the case and do the bench top bare bones build. But seriously wtf.
 
I guess the next step is to remove everything from the case and do the bench top bare bones build. But seriously wtf.
yup that and also double check your pcie cables, makes sure there are no loose pins or anything. also, i see you tried the ram in another system and its good, but did you try other ram in the goofy board?
 
Motherboard swapped with brand new identical motherboard... Same problem: vga led stuck on and no signal no post.

Wtf.

Are you sure you have the correct BIOS version on the board? There are B550 boards that don't have the correct BIOS version to support Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. You need to use a 3000 series CPU to flash it to the latest BIOS that supports 5000 series parts.

I had this exact issue with a customer's ASUS B550 board several weeks ago, had to take it back to the store to be flashed since I didn't have a 3000 series CPU lying around.

The behavior of the board was the same as yours, didn't do anything when powered on. Just sat there with fans spinning.
 
Are you sure you have the correct BIOS version on the board? There are B550 boards that don't have the correct BIOS version to support Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. You need to use a 3000 series CPU to flash it to the latest BIOS that supports 5000 series parts.

I had this exact issue with a customer's ASUS B550 board several weeks ago, had to take it back to the store to be flashed since I didn't have a 3000 series CPU lying around.

The behavior of the board was the same as yours, didn't do anything when powered on. Just sat there with fans spinning.
he tried
So ram booted and passed in my kids rig. Swapped in the 3700x on the mobo, same deal as before. So it’s got to be the mobo.

sigh.
 
Are you sure you have the correct BIOS version on the board? There are B550 boards that don't have the correct BIOS version to support Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. You need to use a 3000 series CPU to flash it to the latest BIOS that supports 5000 series parts.

I had this exact issue with a customer's ASUS B550 board several weeks ago, had to take it back to the store to be flashed since I didn't have a 3000 series CPU lying around.

The behavior of the board was the same as yours, didn't do anything when powered on. Just sat there with fans spinning.
The board that died was flashed and running.

I can try the new board with my 3700x, but it is a super fresh batch right off the boat and even had the windows 11 branding on the box. But it is worth a shot.
yup that and also double check your pcie cables, makes sure there are no loose pins or anything. also, i see you tried the ram in another system and its good, but did you try other ram in the goofy board?

I effectively have tested 3 psus at this point. Each with their own set of pcie cables. They dont appear loose, and I'm doubtful I have three sets of sneaky loose pins or damaged wire. They also pass on my psu tester.
 
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I can try the new board with my 3700x, but it is a super fresh batch right off the boat and even had the windows 11 branding on the box. But it is worth a shot.

Yeah, same problem I had. Stated right on the box "Ryzen 5000 series ready" but had an an old ass BIOS that only supported 3000 series chips.
 
Well here's hoping it's mismatched bios. But I'm not trying anything until more thermal compound shows up in the mail.
 
Well here's hoping it's mismatched bios. But I'm not trying anything until more thermal compound shows up in the mail.

Just use white lithium grease. It's not great, but it's good enough to do basic power on testing. I've had to use it in a pinch on a few occasions.

Also, you don't need to clean and reapply grease when doing CPU/heatsink swaps. If you have a glob on there already, just keep going. It's not like the stuff goes bad after mounting the heatsink once or twice.
 
Just use white lithium grease. It's not great, but it's good enough to do basic power on testing. I've had to use it in a pinch on a few occasions.

Also, you don't need to clean and reapply grease when doing CPU/heatsink swaps. If you have a glob on there already, just keep going. It's not like the stuff goes bad after mounting the heatsink once or twice.
Don't have any of that either. More should be here tomorrow.
 
Best idea yet....it's like outdated roms in use on both boards in possibly
Possible for the new one. The original one had been flashed to be 5000 series compatible. I dunno can you crash so hard that the bios get corrupted?
 
Possible for the new one. The original one had been flashed to be 5000 series compatible. I dunno can you crash so hard that the bios get corrupted?
bios can get corrupted on asus boards...had to order a new rom chip from asus long ago
 
asus rog-strix b550-i supports flashing the bios from a USB drive, without a CPU.
You know, when I got mine back in January, I tried to do just that. Spent about an hour trying to perform the flashback and it wouldn't even start. I finally decided to just throw the 5800x in there with my 2700x's stock heatsink, the only thing I changed, and the board would perform the flashback just fine on the first try.

Just my experience.
 
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