[SOLVED] Cannot boot, DRAM Q-LED on - Asus X570-Plus Wi-Fi

[bgeo25]

My build is a year old (built in December 2020) and has been running fine until today. I tried to turn it on like usual and immediately realized that something was wrong since my keyboard was not lighting up and nothing showed on my screen.

All fans are running when it turns on, but the boot process cannot complete. There are four LEDs that indicate POST status, and the DRAM Q-LED is solid ON in an amber (?) color. That is the first LED that turns on during a normal boot.

I tried to access the BIOS by pressing F2 and Delete when it first turns on, but I'm unable to access it.

Things I tried so far:

• Unplugging, plugging back in
• Disconnecting everything except power
• Removing RAM modules and reinserting them
• Booting with 1 out of 2 RAM modules
• Booting with no RAM installed

All of the above have not changed a thing.

There are suggestions out there, like clearing CMOS RTC RAM or reinstalling the CMOS battery, but those are beyond my comfort zone.. I wanted to get an opinion here first for this specific case.

What can I try? Help is greatly appreciated, as I need my PC.

System specs:

• ASUS X570-Plus Wi-Fi
• AMD Ryzen 7 3700X (w/ Wraith Prism Cooler)
• 2 x G.Skill Ripjaws 8 GB RAM @ 3200MHz
• MSI Radeon RX 5500XT GPU
• Samsung 970 Evo 500GB SSD
• Seagate Barracuda 2TB HDD
• EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G3, 80 Plus Gold 650W, Fully Modular PSU

 

[Darkbreeze]

EXACT power supply model?

I tried to turn it on like usual and immediately realized that something was wrong since my keyboard was not lighting up and nothing showed on my screen.

What, IF anything, might you have done "differently" or did you install, modify, change, delete or otherwise out of the ordinary-ish behaviors, do anything new, on the last occasion you remember it working normally?

If I'M being honest, I have to be truthful and say that if you are stressed by the idea of removing the CMOS battery in order to do a hard reset of the system (Which I will outline below just in case you decide at some point you need to do one, which right now for this problem, without knowing more, I don't think you do.) then likely you didn't build this system and there may not be much you can do to try and fix your system since that's likely one of the least complicated troubleshooting procedures, and most anything hardware related is going to be an even more complicated process, so to speak. Not that any of it is really "complicated" when it comes to installing, removing or otherwise fiddling with, hardware. Software is vastly more complicated.

In any case, if you had somebody build this for you, then it MIGHT be wise to try and get them involved since it would seem, in that case, that they would have the experience to not be bothered by some of the probable troubleshooting steps that might need to be followed.

In case you decide at some point to do a hard reset, here is that procedure.

BIOS Hard Reset procedure

Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.

Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for about three to five minutes. In some cases it may be necessary to remove the graphics card to access the CMOS battery.

During that five minutes while the CMOS battery is out of the motherboard, press the power button on the case, continuously, for 15-30 seconds, in order to deplete any residual charge that might be present in the CMOS circuit. After the five minutes is up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.

If you had to remove the graphics card you can now reinstall it, but remember to reconnect your power cables if there were any attached to it as well as your display cable.

Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.

Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP, A-XMP or D.O.C.P profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.

In some cases it may be necessary when you go into the BIOS after a reset, to load the Optimal default or Default values and then save settings, to actually get the hardware tables to reset in the boot manager.

It is probably also worth mentioning that for anything that might require an attempt to DO a hard reset in the first place, IF the problem is related to a lack of video signal, it is a GOOD IDEA to try a different type of display as many systems will not work properly for some reason with displayport configurations. It is worth trying HDMI if you are having no display or lack of visual ability to enter the BIOS, or no signal messages.

Trying a different monitor as well, if possible, is also a good idea if there is a lack of display. It happens.


And here is a link to a couple of guides that might be fairly useful in trying to find the issue.

"No POST", "system won't boot", and "no video output" troubleshooting checklist

"No POST", "system won't boot", and "no video output" troubleshooting checklist This checklist is a compilation of troubleshooting ideas from many forum members. It's very important to actually perform every step in the checklist if you want to effectively troubleshoot your problem. 1.Did you...

forums.tomshardware.com

How To - Motherboard bench testing

Finding the problem through bench testing If you are here then it’s likely you have encountered a serious hardware issue and have been unable to resolve it using the standard no-POST troubleshooting procedures. If you have not yet attempted to resolve your issues using the no-POST...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[bgeo25]

EXACT power supply model?

I updated the original post with the power supply model.

I realize that I didn't try everything I could have, but I took it to Micro Center today for a diagnostic. That should take 3-5 days and they will cover any new parts needed since I had a warranty with them.

If nothing comes out of that, I will try some of the above steps.

 

[Darkbreeze]

👍

 

[bgeo25]

Micro Center diagnostic determined that the motherboard had failed, but without further information. They are in the process of replacing it.

My question is.. does this just happen or could it have been avoided? My mobo had been fine for a whole year. The only thing that I had done after building was update the BIOS and enable D.O.C.P to allow my RAM to run at its rated speed of 3200 Mhz. Could that have caused degradation to the motherboard? Or was it a defective unit all along? I don't know how else to explain it.

 

[Darkbreeze]

That could not cause that to happen. It was either defective all along or something, like a capacitor, failed along the way.

If you had a pretty crappy PSU I'd say that that could certainly have been to blame for killing the board over time, but your G3 is pretty good, so that's entirely unlikely unless there is something specifically "wrong" with it and it's bombarding your caps with high levels of ripple which can cause them to overheat and fail. Unlikely in this case. Likely, just a bad board OR they were not particularly careful when building it and did something that caused minor damage to the board which eventually led to failure. Either way, no way to really know. Suffice to say, dead board is dead board regardless of the reason and the only solution is the same either way.