Question CPU defaults to 0.54GHz

[MrGiggles25]

I was following a blender tutorial about a week ago and my new RX 5700 XT was crashing the application. I decided to throw my old graphics card in with it (RX 580) to see if the application would stabilize when I used a different GPU. I shutdown the system removed the RX 580 and powered it back up and my system ran about 90% slower. I looked at task manager and it seems that the processor (Ryzen 5 2600x) was stuck at .54GHz even under a load. I decided to go into BIOS and look at the voltages and it had a stable .808 which is normal at idle. Then I rebooted and it was back to 3.9GHz and adjusting for load. I decided to reboot once more to see if it was fixed and it went back to .054 GHz. I have to enter the BIOS and exit to get it to boot at the right speeds, of which i have done repeatedly with success every time. Also, it seems that after long periods of being powered off i.e overnight, it will not POST properly and I have to shut it down and restart twice. My system will also not output HDMI anymore. I can only get into BIOS with Displayport. My Board is a MSI B450 Gaming plus. I had to RMA it when I bought it new and the refurbish worked fine until now albeit it came with a bent power led pin. I'm thinking of buying a new board from a different manufacturer. Before I do I want to make sure this is a board issue and not a Processor issue. Any ideas?

 

[Eximo]

Check the power supply. Odd system behavior can often be explained there.

Not sure why the GPU's ports would be effected during POST, that is before drivers are loaded so it should be all hardware. Can't imagine two GPUs having the same condition.

Could be the CPU or motherboard.

My first step would be to take it apart and make sure everything is properly seated (after checking the voltages coming from the PSU)

 

[MrGiggles25]

HWmonitor shows that all rails are operating at the proper voltages. And it runs fine after I exit bios. My knowledge of Processor problems is that it usually wont run at all or even get to windows if there is a processor error. HWinfo

 

[Eximo]

All it takes is a non-functional sensor/pin to trick the CPU into downclocking itself. If it can't detect the amount of power or temperature it will run throttled. (Such a loose pin could be only observed at a cold boot, after it warms up, might re-connect)

A sign of a short to ground in the substrate would be high temperatures at low speeds. I still have an old Athlon Thunderbird around that is shorted. Still runs, just consumes like 200W and melts ATX connectors on motherboards, or pops power supplies. So not always a guarantee that a CPU will straight up die, sometimes they limp along. Other cases would be heatspreaders coming off/thermal compound shrinkage, so the CPU is still working, looks fine, but doesn't operate correctly.

If nothing else, throw BIOS updates at it, might just have a messed up bit in the BIOS.

 

[MrGiggles25]

I tried flashing the bios and it actually fixed a problem that was causing my ram to run at incorrect speeds. However I'm still having the same problem. This Board is not designed for SLI or Crossfire so is it possible that when I put in the second GPU it shorted it? Is that a thing?

 

[Eximo]

If your power supply isn't up to the task, that could certainly be an issue. But a direct short would be a no start. A short like the one I was referring to was through some sort of circuitry/component with a non-zero resistance. Enough to draw a lot of current, but not enough to outright exceed over current protection on a PSU.

But, there could be something wrong with the motherboard, chipset, or CPU that would cause the use of those additional PCIe lanes to malfunction, certainly. Not really something that you can test for.

 

[MrGiggles25]

Ok here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to buy a new board. Probably the ASUS Prime X470. If that fixes it great. Frankly I'm fed up with MSI. If it doesn't fix it then I will submit the processor for warranty as I should have another year under AMD. My power supply is old but it's still trucking along so until it dies im going to keep it. It's also 800W so unless it has a major problem I think it's fine. I also dont notice any other intermittent problems so I'm ruling it out for now.