Question Aorus Z390 Pro will not boot

[dpease90]

Hello. The day before yesterday I was playing Metro Exodus on an overclocked 8700k at 4.5ghz with a Gigabyte 1070 Xtreme Gaming gpu, at stock clock speeds. My computer had a sudden shutdown about 10 minutes into the game and upon trying to reboot it would not start at all.

Full specs:

8700k@4.5ghz
Corsair H100i V2 AIO cooler
Aorus Z390 Pro motherboard
GIgabyte GTX 1070 Xtreme Gaming gpu
Corsair CX750M PSU
16 gigs of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4
250 gig 960 EVO NVME for OS
1 terabyte Samsung 860 EVO for games
1 terabyte WD HDD for programs/media
NZXT H700i case

I did all the standard tests like checking the psu by jumping it, jumping the board manually, checking the cpu/socket for damage and bent pins, etc and I do not know.

What I do find funny and I think I should mention is that while the board does not boot, it does however provide power to USB as my keyboard and mouse light up. When I flip the switch on the psu to provide power, the board's led's flicker white for a split second. So I know the board is receiving power but apparently only at the rear ports.

Any help would be appreciated before I decide to go the RMA route. If anything I would just like to know from someone with experience in this kind of issue what the cause is or most likely could be.

Thanks

 

[Darkbreeze]

When you jumper the power supply, that turns on?

When you jump the motherboard pwr on pins, NOTHING comes on, except a momentary flicker of the LEDs? No other lights, no case fans or CPU fans or GPU card fans?

Have you tried removing the graphics card and moving the display cable to the motherboard output to see if the problem is related to the graphics card or a PSU that can't supply the graphics card but CAN supply the much lower requirements for the iGPU?

Tried pulling the memory and reseating it? Tried each stick separately?

If you'd done ALL of that, then I'd say you have a bad motherboard, probably, but there could still be other explanations.

How long ago did you build this system and been running it for?

Have you benched the motherboard, checking to make sure that when you built it nothing was trapped between the motherboard and the case like a standoff that was in the wrong place or a loose fastener?

How to properly bench test your motherboard​

 

[dpease90]

The computer has ran fine since I built it last Christmas. Yes, the power supply runs when I jump the pins to start it so I know the power supply is not the issue. Its 750 watts so I have enough power. The ONLY sign of power coming from the board at all is from the usb ports powering the keyboard and mouse led's.

I also tried each stick of RAM seperately in different slots and nothing changes on that either.

As for benching the board, the h700i came with the standoffs preinstalled, and all the fasteners are tight.

The board has integrated graphics so I also removed the gpu and tested it with HDMI plugged into integrated graphics, no change.


I have read similar threads from people who had this kind of issue and at this point and I agree that the most likely cause is the board being faulty and just now being affected by it.

 

[Calvin7]

When overclocking fails, it's usually because your BIOS settings are wrong. You clear CMOS to restore BIOS settings to default values. You can then boot into the BIOS and adjust any custom settings you have.

If you are using Gigabyte software overclocking, it may use excessively high voltages to overclock. I suggest using your manual BIOS settings to overclock and not using software OC. You can usually search for other people on the internet who OC for tips on what settings work for similar PC setups.

 

[dpease90]

When overclocking fails, it's usually because your BIOS settings are wrong. You clear CMOS to restore BIOS settings to default values. You can then boot into the BIOS and adjust any custom settings you have.

If you are using Gigabyte software overclocking, it may use excessively high voltages to overclock. I suggest using your manual BIOS settings to overclock and not using software OC. You can usually search for other people on the internet who OC for tips on what settings work for similar PC setups.

Thanks for the advice but I also tried clearing the CMOS by removing the battery and also by jumping the CMOS pins and no dice.

 

[dpease90]

I can't view any physical damage to any of the VRMs or anything at first glance. Tomorrow sometime I will check the board over again and see if I overlooked something.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes, the power supply runs when I jump the pins to start it so I know the power supply is not the issue.

So, I won't SAY that the power supply IS the issue, however, THAT statement is patently wrong. Just because a power supply will start up does not mean there are not other issues with it. The paperclip test ONLY gives you an indication of whether the unit is completely dead, nothing more.

If you want to be SURE the power supply is working correctly, you would need to either get a PSU tester, or test it with a volt meter as follows:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac7YMUcMjbw



However, it's less likely to be power supply issue than something else at this point. Testing the PSU properly WOULD be a good idea though in order to avoid spinning your wheels trying to find a problem that is simply due to a power supply than can start, but is weak or has other problems.

PROBABLY, this is a faulty motherboard, but considering the five bucks it would cost (Or nothing, if you have a volt meter or can borrow one) to buy a cheap volt meter, it might be worth your time to make sure it's not the power supply first. Worst case scenario, then you have one for use in the future which isn't a bad thing anyhow. All things considered though, the fact that nothing happens is pretty indicative of a failed motherboard. Whether the motherboard failed because of a defect, or because something else caused it to fail is a whole other story though.