Question ASUS B450-F Gaming | Boot/BIOS failure

[SaumonDoDouce]

Hi, I'm in need of assistance please:

SPECS :

R7 2700x Ryzen
VEGA 56 8gb (HDMI)
2x8gb RAM 3200Mhz Corsair
B450 F Gaming MB
PSU Cooler Master MWE 230V 700W
SSD M.2 Crucial 1To

ISSUES:

I had build this PC for my gf back in August and she didn't have a single problem with it since until a few days ago. She was playing Stardew when the display just crashed to a black screen while the PC tower kept running however with a blinking orange light on the motherboard. The GPU fans were still running too at that time.

Since the light came from the RAM led I tried reseating them, running only one, then the other, changing the slots but nothing. I removed the CMOS battery and attempted to reset the BIOS settings and the pc started again, ran great for an hour and then crashed again.

Now when I turn it on, there is a solid white VGA led instead of the blinking orange one and no display still. I can only turn it off by holding the power button until it stops. Then out of the blue, the day after I can just boot it normally, I checked each components/drivers but all is in order. She uses it without issue for an hour before it crashes again. Solid white led, no boot, just like before.

The next day I start it up again like nothing was wrong and I immediately prepare a flash drive for a BIOS update. I proceed with the USB Flash update and halfway through the update the screen shuts down again but the fans still spin. I wait for about 30min but no changes so I decide to reboot (terrible I know but I had no other choice) and now impossible to boot it again, it gets stuck with no display and a solid red mb light. The manual says it's the processor but I highly doubt it as the components ran just fine before. I think it's the motherboard that's completely bricked.

Is it fixable or should I just ditch that mb all together and get her a new one ? The other components GPU, PSU, SSD Drive and processor are fairly recent while the mb is an old one (~4/5 years old)

THINGS I TRIED:
-all the tests I mentioned with the RAM
-to move the GPU on another PCIE slot
-to change the PSU cable for the GPU
-to turn on the screen before starting the computer
-to reset/reseat the CMOS battery (several times)
-to drain power from the PC tower and then connect it again
-flashing the BIOS with an USB drive (failed)

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

I had build this PC for my gf back in August
You say the build was back in August, which is 9 months though I have a suspicion that you purchased the system second hand. If so, how old is the build in general? Asking to understand the age of the PSU.

the blinking orange one
You sure you're not confusing the drive activity LED with a diagnostic LED on the board(near the chipset) located close to the 24pin connector?

You might want to try and work with a donor PSU with at least 650W of power for the entire platform. Please make sue to source(borrow, not buy) a reliably built unit.

I think it's the motherboard that's completely bricked
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...MING_UM_WEB.pdf?model=ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
Page 3-26, section 3.11.3, CrashFree BIOS 3, you should be able to recover your BIOS, if not, you can use a CH341A BIOS programmer to reflash your BIOS with the latest version.

 

[SaumonDoDouce]

The processor and mb were mine before, I gave them to her when I upgraded. The motherboard, as I mentioned, is about 4yo and the CPU is a bit more recent, bought it in 2022(new). Apart from that, everything is less than a year old, including the 700W PSU. The system ran flawlessly until now, even on much more resource intensive programs.

No, I'm not talking about the drive activity LED but the diagnostic LED on the mb between the heatsink and DIMM slots (see linked image) they respectively light green(boot), white(VGA), yellow/orange (the one that was blinking - RAM) and red (CPU).
https://i.postimg.cc/bN0rd5PH/20240509-181928.jpg

I'd like to try the method you proposed to recover the BIOS but I'm not sure I'm able to do anything as long as nothing appears on the display.

Thank you for your answer btw