I think my motherboard is toast

M

Motley

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 29, 2005
Messages
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Man I've been banging my head against the wall this past week. I have an AMD MSI X470AC mobo. Ryzen 3600 2x16GB Patrilot memory Radeon x560 video card. Corsair RM850 power supply.

I can't get it to post. I don't get any display out. No beeps or anything when turned on, power button on the case works and all the lights in the case work. Code on the motherboard just says 0. I have changed video card, power supply, different monitors. I have never had a motherboard failure before. And I paid $250 for it less than two years ago.

I am really not happy with the quality of the MSI motherboard. Never again.
 
Go further with troubleshooting, take the mobo out of the case and try starting it with only the essentials, PSU, CPU,1 stick of ram. See if the error code changes. Also usually you can check the error code in your manual.

Also warranty isn't an option for you?
 
did you try pulling the CMOS battery and shorting the battery receiver terminals? my recent MSI boards will not clear CMOS using the jumper, i always have to pull the battery and short the terminals.
 
I'm kind of surprised to hear of that happening with an MSI board, I've always had fairly good luck with MSI boards, but to be fair I have never used their AMD boards and only have experience with MSI boards that use Intel chipsets. I don't know if that would make a difference or not. The AMD boards I've used are usually from other manufacturers.

My general experience is that MSI boards mostly work reliably but only get average overclocks, while with ASUS boards are very flaky and particular about their operating conditions, but if you can make it work it generally overclocks well. I wound up avoiding Gigabyte boards because I had one fail on me rather spectacularly once around 2006, but I've heard they improved a lot since then.

I would try testing with different RAM or a different CPU if possible, because sometimes those things can go bad too. And if the board is still under warranty, I guess you should try seeing if they'll make it right. I wouldn't blame you if your next board wasn't an MSI after this experience, but practically speaking, I'm not sure who would be better. MSI and ASUS probably have the best reputation among the major manufacturers, and the only thing I've heard consistently is to avoid no-name boards, as well as inexpensive Biostar and ASRock boards. I kinda wonder if Supermicro boards would be good, since those are designed in the US and get used in servers?
 
so, was this a working system that is suddenly not posting or are you just building it?
like suggested; try the battery, then tear it apart and bench test it.
 
Yeah, unless you bought it used, it's RMA time. Especially with the troubleshooting you've already done.
 
I had to rma a board with MSI a few years ago and it was a positive experience. I would agree with the above. Bench test to be sure, but it's coming out anyway at this point.

The rma I did was on a used board, that I openly admitted to bending a pin on. I paid $10 to ship it out, and they cross shipped me a new one.
 
SticKx911 said:
I had to rma a board with MSI a few years ago and it was a positive experience. I would agree with the above. Bench test to be sure, but it's coming out anyway at this point.

The rma I did was on a used board, that I openly admitted to bending a pin on. I paid $10 to ship it out, and they cross shipped me a new one.
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That's friggin amazing. I hope they are still that cool about RMAs. They could have easily told you to go fly a kite.
 
Ok I am losing my mind hear. I bought a new motherboard Asus X570 TUF. And it is dong the exact same thing. No post no display output. I even changed the PSU also evga 850w, the old power supply is Corsair RM850.

It power's on and all the lights and fans in the case are working, no beeps or error codes. So there are no shorts on the case. I have double and triple checked all the PSU connections the CPU 8 pin power to mobo is good. even swapped out these cables,

This is partly new build. I sold the CPU, memory, video card a few months ago. Case is Phanteks Everything is brand new, video card, ram, cpu is AMD 3600, and power supply are new. This has never happened to me, I know how to build a system.

What am I missing?
 
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Motley said:
Ok I am losing my mind hear. I bought a new motherboard Asus X570 TUF. And it is dong the exact same thing. No post no display output. I even changed the PSU also evga 850w.

It power's on and all the lights and fans in the case are working. So there are no shorts on the case. I have double and triple checked all the PSU connections the CPU 8 pin power to mobo is good. even swapped out these cables,

This is a new build. Everything is brand new, video card, ram, cpu is AMD 3600. This has never happended to me, I know how to build a system.

What am I missing?
Click to expand...

What if it's the CPU that died and not the motherboard?
 
Geeezus man, I pulled out the motherboard. Set everything up and outside the case, and still same thing. I can start the system by jumping the power switch, get the llights on mobo. Still no output on monitor.

GPU is plugged into monitor, I tried Display port and HDMI cables. I looked on the compatibility for the memory Patriot viper 16GB 2400 and its there should be ok on memory.

Here's a pic

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Q...je5cBPTNHmguCYSf8CsU=w1292-h969-no?authuser=0
 
That's not the 4-pin cpu power connector in the corner there, is it?
 
From the product page (x570-plus tuf gaming?):

1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)
1 x 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)

I'm guessing the 4-pin is required. Dunno if the 8-pin is also, but it may be.
 
IMG_0364.JPG
 
I just connected the additional 4 pin cpu power connecter. And same thing. Good greif.

when it was in the case I had the 8 pin and 4 pin power connectors for cpu
 
Good grief is right. You have to eliminate any possible issues, or you aren't going to get anywhere troubleshooting. There's no way for me to know what your setup was aside from you telling me, either...

What does the manual say about the little blinky LEDs on the board. Probably nothing useful, but worth a look.

Also, check to make sure that's the right slot for a single stick of ram. Some boards want it in the second slot from the CPU (check the manual to be sure).
 
I can see the video card is getting power the fans are spinning. But not getting any heat from the cpu. When I had it in the case I had the two memory sticks in the grey slots for dual channel.
 
Motley said:
View attachment 358522
Click to expand...
I checked your motherboard's manual, and it says that a red light indicates an issue with the CPU. I think it's possible that either the other board was fine, or whatever power surge-type event killed it took the CPU with it so you lost both. :/

Anyway, the legend was this in the manual:

BOOT (YELLOW GREEN)
VGA (WHITE)
CPU (RED)
DRAM (YELLOW)

I managed to have something go wrong while building a computer once that caused me to lose both my CPU and motherboard, and worse... any motherboard I put the CPU in would kill that motherboard. I don't want to scare you, this was ages ago when there was a lot less protection on these boards, but it happened to me so... yeah.

EDIT: Also, it's possible that the code on the original motherboard, if it was saying 00 on the LED... that's not used, it might have been D0, but that can look like 00 on a segment LCD. D0 would be a CPU initialization error.
 
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find a little piezo buzzer or speaker and connect it to the motherboard spkr pins - it's very likely you have on lying around. they are ageless and any speaker from any computer since the 1990's should suffice
that reassuring single 'BEEP' can help to determine if it's a motherboard ram or other issue
you can look up the beep sequence you hear to help troubleshoot
the pic you show does not show a spkr connected which is very helpful in troubleshooting
 
athenian200 said:
I checked your motherboard's manual, and it says that a red light indicates an issue with the CPU. I think it's possible that either the other board was fine, or whatever power surge-type event killed it took the CPU with it so you lost both. :/

Anyway, the legend was this in the manual:

BOOT (YELLOW GREEN)
VGA (WHITE)
CPU (RED)
DRAM (YELLOW)

I managed to have something go wrong while building a computer once that caused me to lose both my CPU and motherboard, and worse... any motherboard I put the CPU in would kill that motherboard. I don't want to scare you, this was ages ago when there was a lot less protection on these boards, but it happened to me so... yeah.
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That's kinda where I was leaning. If the RAM wasn't the issue, then it's probably the CPU.

One thing you could try, is lift the cpu locking lever, press lightly with one finger in the center of the cpu, and simultaneously lower the lever again.

Some have reported doing this resolved some issues with their systems, although I don't remember if it involved an altogether non-functioning system.
 
Ok thanks Athenian200. Some great news, its working! I removed the cpu, and re-reinstalled it. Not sure what happened but must have not put enough pressure on the cpu when I inserted it closed the lever.

Got it to post and everything looks good now. CPU even got hot.

Thanks everyone for all the help, I was losing my mind for a while there. LOL
 
Motley said:
Ok thanks Athenian200. Some great news, its working! I removed the cpu, and re-reinstalled it. Not sure what happened but must have not put enough pressure on the cpu when I inserted it closed the lever.

Got it to post and everything looks good now. CPU even got hot.

Thanks everyone for all the help, I was losing my mind for a while there. LOL
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's supposedly a zero insertion force socket, but...

Anyway, glad you got it sorted.
 
Keep in mind that the memory has to be on the 2nd / 4th slots. Those are your primary memory slots on AMD setups, aka the grey ones in this case. In the pic, you have it plugged to the first slot. As for the second 4-pin for CPU, it's not necessary. You won't be getting anywhere close to the first EPS cable's limitations using normal methods of cooling and PBO / clock walls of Ryzen. It's for extreme OC.
 
Hallyday said:
Keep in mind that the memory has to be on the 2nd / 4th slots. Those are your primary memory slots on AMD setups, aka the grey ones in this case. In the pic, you have it plugged to the first slot. As for the second 4-pin for CPU, it's not necessary. You won't be getting anywhere close to the first EPS cable's limitations using normal methods of cooling and PBO / clock walls of Ryzen. It's for extreme OC.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing about the memory. I've had wacky results if I don't have the 2nd slot populated.
 
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