Question AsRock B450M Pro Multiple Issues After RMA Replacement

peptobismal

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Feb 16, 2019
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So... I failed a BIOS update due to impatience and my monitors no longer turning on until Windows booted. I was having this issue prior to the update, making it impossible to get into the BIOS. Stupidly, I re-set and then had to go through the headache of RMA'ing the whole board.

Problem is, that I was having issues with the newer BIOS's on my Ryzen 5 1600, so support had given me a tool to downgrade my BIOS/firmware (you are unable to do so without it). I wasn't happy because I remember the BIOS saying that Auto on ECC meant it enabled ECC on the RAM and the later versions did not have this option. Yadda, yadda... after pulling some teeth he gave me a tool to downgrade.

Now, after a few weeks without a computer I set everything up and prepared to boot up my new motherboard... which had an even newer version than I had seen yet. Nothing. Hard reboot it. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes. Nothing. Then AsRock Repair would load forever and then Windows 10 Repair which couldn't do anything. Boot. Nothing. Hard reboot. Nothing. Each time it just sat at the BIOS logo screen.

When I was actually able to get into the BIOS it showed my NVMe, 1xSATA SSD, and 2xHDDs. So, I didn't think that was the issue; however, after disconnecting the SATA drives and re-booting all went well. I asked AsRock if this motherboard had been RMA'd for the SATA ports being hit/miss and their answer was "It was tested on our hardware with a fresh Windows install to be working."

Now this is my first jump into Ryzen from FX and I think anyone that has made this transition knows how big of a difference there is between the two architectures BIOS/terminology.

TL;DR is there anything in the BIOS that could be halting the system from booting to Windows and/or making it what feels like 10-30 minutes to do anything? Or should I buy a new board or RMA this one? All 3 of these SATA drives were working flawlessly prior to getting this replacement motherboard.
 

peptobismal

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Feb 16, 2019
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You are booting to the NVMe or SATA drive? None of the SATA drives should be interfering with your NVMe drive in M2_1. M2_2 and SATA3_3 are shared. If either one of them is in use, the other one will be disabled.

I am booting to the NVMe drive, which by itself boots fine. And it is indeed in the M2_1 slot above the motherboard.

he is quite right. I have a ASRock b450m steel legend and it does the same thing. You can't use the SATA 5,6 ports if you use the SATA m2 port.

Yeah... I do remember reading that, but I am using the M2_1 slot, so I must have just never gave that a second thought, I can't remember if I was previously using the SATA drives in SATA3_1/2/3 or not...? I was trying to use SATA3_1/3/4, because of the colors of the cords.

Hopefully, that'll solve it, but I don't know there are other issues with this thing like Windows not being able to reboot or fully shut down the computer. Also, the power light blinks when it is turned off. I think there are some issues with the front panel pins/led on the motherboard, because when I unplugged the HDDLED it seems to boot quicker than with it actually plugged in. Otherwise it takes a few hard power cycles, sometimes even switching off the PSU, to get the thing to actually boot. This is even with all the SATA drives disconnected, but with them so far it has been... an unbarable wait.

EDIT: Have tried every configuration of the hard drives I can think of as far as plugging them into the SATA ports on the motherboard. But no matter what it seems that the board is taking an extraordinary time to boot or do anything at all... only after AsRock does it's scan and repair does the system seem to want to boot to Windows. Prior to this these same drives booted along with the NVMe in about 10-15 seconds, if that... if I extnay the going loading of the OS with the drives connected and go into the BIOS the drives are shown.
 
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Try downloading and running a program called Hard Disk Sentinel to check the health of your HDD's.

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