Question 4 years old PC. Not posting, no beep, VGA red light on.

[salawow]

AMD 2700X

MSI B450 Tomahawk

RTX 2070

2x8GB ram, Gskill TridentZ 3200mhz

PSU EVGA Supernova 650w P2

Problem: No post, No beep, No display, VGA red light on motherboard lights up 5 seconds after power on, then GPU fans stop spinning.

What happened prior: Morning, accidently unplugged surge protector from wall with PC running. Plugged it back, everything was fine. Evening, left PC running and took a nap. Came back, typed password and got a error, windows telling me password needed to be reinitialized. Decided to reboot instead. No post after that. Found out i plugged surge protector wrong in the morning. (It was plugged half way into the wall).

What i was able to try to troubleshoot: Put a different GPU and power supply. Tried both stick of ram individually in each 4 slots. Unplugged all HDD and SSD. Tried 2nd pci express port for GPU. Tried with another monitor. Cleared CMOS by removing the battery for 2 minutes.

To me it sounds like a dead motherboard. Do you think it could be something else ? Or more ? The half-plugged surged protector makes me think more parts could be affected and i have no way of testing those in another computer. Also the windows password situation that happened just before makes me scratch my head.

If it is more likely to be just the motherboard i will buy another one and replace it, but if there are good chances that more parts died i would consider a new build instead.

What do you think ?

 

[helpstar]

replace the cmos battery
reflash the bios using flash bios button and BIOS file on USB flash drive

 

[salawow]

replace the cmos battery
reflash the bios using flash bios button and BIOS file on USB flash drive

Just tried on 3 different USB flash drive, all fat32. first one wouldn't work at all, and the other two i get a solid red light that stays forever (i waited 30 minutes) instead of a blinking one.

 

[helpstar]

remove all peripherals (RAM, GPU, drives) and check the power connectors again on both sides (PSU and motherboard)
ATX12V/EPS with 8 pins plugged in and 24pin main connector

Did follow these steps?
Please download the latest BIOS file

MSI Global - The Leading Brand in High-end Gaming & Professional Creation

As a world leading gaming brand, MSI is the most trusted name in gaming and eSports. We stand by our principles of breakthroughs in design, and roll out the amazing gaming gear like motherboards, graphics cards, laptops and desktops.

www.msi.com

rename the BIOS file to MSI.ROM. And then, save the MSI.ROM file to the root of USB flash drive.
Only the FAT32 format USB flash drive supports updating BIOS by Flash BIOS Button.
1. Connect power supply to CPU_PWR1 and ATX_PWR1. (No other components are necessary but power supply.)
2. Plug the USB flash drive that contains the MSI.ROM file into the Flash BIOS Port on rear I/O panel. (it´s the one directly next to the button, only this USB port will work)
3. Press the Flash BIOS Button to flash BIOS, and the LED next to the button starts flashing.
4. After the flashing BIOS process is 100% completed, the LED would be off simultaneously.

 

[salawow]

remove all peripherals (RAM, GPU, drives) and check the power connectors again on both sides (PSU and motherboard)
ATX12V/EPS with 8 pins plugged in and 24pin main connector

Did follow these steps?
Please download the latest BIOS file

MSI Global - The Leading Brand in High-end Gaming & Professional Creation

As a world leading gaming brand, MSI is the most trusted name in gaming and eSports. We stand by our principles of breakthroughs in design, and roll out the amazing gaming gear like motherboards, graphics cards, laptops and desktops.

www.msi.com

rename the BIOS file to MSI.ROM. And then, save the MSI.ROM file to the root of USB flash drive.
Only the FAT32 format USB flash drive supports updating BIOS by Flash BIOS Button.
1. Connect power supply to CPU_PWR1 and ATX_PWR1. (No other components are necessary but power supply.)
2. Plug the USB flash drive that contains the MSI.ROM file into the Flash BIOS Port on rear I/O panel. (it´s the one directly next to the button, only this USB port will work)
3. Press the Flash BIOS Button to flash BIOS, and the LED next to the button starts flashing.
4. After the flashing BIOS process is 100% completed, the LED would be off simultaneously.

Everything beside removing ram and cpu. I just did, but it still didn't work.

However, when i removed the cpu heatsink, instead of having to slightly twist and pull, the cpu remained stuck to the heatsink and distatched from the motherboard without any pulling force necessary. The socket, which should have stayed locked, unlocked itself. Or was already unlocked, i'm not sure. Now when i replace the cpu and lock the socket, the force required to push the metal stick into locking position requires much less force than usual. Also, when pushing/pulling the metal stick with the cpu in it, it makes scratching sound (metal to plastic sound) and sometimes clicking sound.

I checked for bent pins, but haven't seen any. However, when looking at the pins, they reflects the light in a strange uneven way.

Also, on the socket, i noticed discoloration, greyish spots instead of being uniformely black.

Definetly looks like physical damage. Do you think it could be the source of the problem ? If it is, why would i get a VGA light instead of a CPU light ?

One last thing to mension, my air conditioning is broken and the ambient room temperature for the past two weeks has been around 32'C instead of 20'C. I monitor GPU and CPU temp, which remained in the acceptable range, however i'm quite sure the air temperature inside the case went much warmer than usual. I don't have good airflow inside and around my PC and i usually let it run 24/7. Could high case temperature have caused the damage ?