asus z-370e not successfully getting through the "boot" post stage

[dbeneidelman]

Asus z370-e not getting through boot post (green post led not going off). I called Asus tech support to see what the problem was, they told me my i5-8400 was not compatible with the motherboard without a bios update, however I have seen other builds use these two together and having no problem with them.

My build:
CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master - Hyper 212 EVO
Motherboard: Asus - ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING ATX LGA1151
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB SC GAMING Video Card
Case: Corsair - Crystal 460X RGB ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA - BQ 500W
SSD: Corsair Force MP300 M.2 2280 120GB

Ive gone through the troubleshooting steps, to no avail, the green (boot led) stays illuminated.

I have also tried to boot using only the SSD or HDD, this hasn't worked either.

 

[Jwpanz]

I don’t see a reason for a BIOS update. The Z370 chipset was made for Coffee Lake chips like your 8400. You could try clearing your CMOS as that could be the culprit. If that fails, let us know. You may need to pull everything out of the case and breadboard it.

 

[dbeneidelman]

I don’t see a reason for a BIOS update. The Z370 chipset was made for Coffee Lake chips like your 8400. You could try clearing your CMOS as that could be the culprit. If that fails, let us know. You may need to pull everything out of the case and breadboard it.

Tried clearing CMOS once by jumping pins and once by taking out the battery like the Asus person told me too. It didn't work. Could it be a problem with power?

 

[Jwpanz]

Usually a power issue would result in the system not even turning on. Try reseating your RAM and CPU (look for bent pins in the socket) and taking your graphics card out and run off of the motherboard IO

 

[dbeneidelman]

Usually a power issue would result in the system not even turning on. Try reseating your RAM and CPU (look for bent pins in the socket) and taking your graphics card out and run off of the motherboard IO

Tried without gpu same issue, also tried it with ram in different slots, nothing. I would think its an issue with the boot drives, but not really sure, its just that everything else seems to be in working order. I took my cpu out just now all pins look the same under unaided eye.

 

[mortemas]

Is this a new build with first time boot? There are 17 updates to the BIOS for your mobo. Do you know what version you had running? Maybe the ASUS tech was right and you need to update it. There was a RAM compatibility update, too. Are your Trident modules compatible?

 

[dbeneidelman]

Is this a new build with first time boot? There are 17 updates to the BIOS for your mobo. Do you know what version you had running? Maybe the ASUS tech was right and you need to update it. There was a RAM compatibility update, too. Are your Trident modules compatible?

yes this is the first boot, i'm not sure what version I have, because I cant see the bios. i'm almost 100% sure the modules work because I've seen other builds utilize them. Im just not sure how I would update the bios if I cant even load it up anyway.

 

[Jwpanz]

Ya a BIOS update really doesn’t make sense. The Z370 motherboard only works with Coffee Lake CPU’s so it should work out of the box with an 8400

 

[dbeneidelman]

Ya a BIOS update really doesn’t make sense. The Z370 motherboard only works with Coffee Lake CPU’s so it should work out of the box with an 8400

plus i'm not even sure i could update it without being in the bios or os in the first place.

 

[Jwpanz]

Try removing everything (including boot drives) and power it on with just the CPU and RAM installed. Make sure your CPU fan is correctly mounted too

 

[dbeneidelman]

I don’t see a reason for a BIOS update. The Z370 chipset was made for Coffee Lake chips like your 8400. You could try clearing your CMOS as that could be the culprit. If that fails, let us know. You may need to pull everything out of the case and breadboard it.

Update: this worked, cleared cmos with the GPU out none of the fans in and one ram module, somehow worked this time.

 

[Jwpanz]

Awesome. Keep putting things back one by one until it works. If a single part causes failure then you may have a defective part.