[SOLVED] CPU Red Light + Blue Screen. Am I missing the obvious?

[lepushominis]

Hi,

I built a new system recently, and had been using it for a couple of days (light use), and all of a sudden mid-way through a random youtube video the PC powered off, and now bluescreens every time I turn it on.
Without changing anything physically to the PC, it seemed to go from completely okay and working to then being completely broken! Each bluescreen gives different messages, and often it doesn't reach the blue screen. It always powers off upon a red light for CPU. It also gives an amber light for DRAM, but that doesn't seem to be the main issue.

I've looked at many threads on similar issues, so I've updated the BIOS to the latest version, messed around with XMP/DOCP settings, reseated the CPU (with new paste), reseated the ram (many times) and checking they were in correct slots, made sure every PSU cable was plugged in correctly. I'm at a loss at this point!

I'm not very experienced building PCs from scratch, so I was wondering if I was missing something obvious? What can I do?


Specs:
Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800x
CPU Cooler: Be Quiet Dark Rock 4
Graphics Card: Geforce GTX 1080 ti
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200mhz
PSU: Corsair RM650 650 watt gold plus
Storage: Samsung 870 QVO 1TB

 

[joaoneto.14]

Hi there,

I have the same problem with the 3700x and same board.

I suspected it was my disks but I tested it with 10 different disks and the problem persisted. I was reviewing my steps and this started happening after I updated my computer to windows 11. What I did: I updated the bios to version 4021 -> I updated windows to version 11 -> The problems started to appear.

I just installed the new version of bios 4204 and so far it is working correctly.

If I have any news, I'll report it here.

EDIT:

Version 4204 crashed too. I'm trying 3603

 

[lepushominis]

Hi there,

I have the same problem with the 3700x and same board.

I suspected it was my disks but I tested it with 10 different disks and the problem persisted. I was reviewing my steps and this started happening after I updated my computer to windows 11. What I did: I updated the bios to version 4021 -> I updated windows to version 11 -> The problems started to appear.

I just installed the new version of bios 4204 and so far it is working correctly.

If I have any news, I'll report it here.

EDIT:

Version 4204 crashed too. I'm trying 3603

Sorry to hear it, let me know how your progress goes. I did try different BIOS updates but it seems to have no effect

 

[joaoneto.14]

Sorry to hear it, let me know how your progress goes. I did try different BIOS updates but it seems to have no effect

With version 3603 (last before asus implemented the w11 definitions) I was able to finish a test on Prime95 without any problem.

I'll leave the computer until tomorrow to test on aida64

 

[lepushominis]

RM series is decent enough, but obviously if you can score something even better (like RMx series) at same price then go for it.

Returned and got an identical new power supply, plugged it in, and the exact same issue persists . I tried messing around trying all the different drives and sata connections again, still same problem.

One time I got onto the USB Windows 11 installation screen, and started going through it. All was going well until I tried to delete the partition of my 500gb SSD, when which the PC crashed and restarted immediately after pressing the delete button, Definitely seems to be an issue between my motherboard and reaching the drives.

I briefly considered maybe it was the SATA cables, but what's the chance of two new SATA cables being broken? Probably not

 

[DRagor]

Returned and got an identical new power supply, plugged it in, and the exact same issue persists . I tried messing around trying all the different drives and sata connections again, still same problem.

Damn. Running out of ideas at this point. Let's check RAM then - disconnect the drives again and run bootable version of memtest86 from USB.

 

[lepushominis]

Damn. Running out of ideas at this point. Let's check RAM then - disconnect the drives again and run bootable version of memtest86 from USB.

I did the memtest86 (wow it took a long time to go through all the tests!) and it passed everything 100%.

I'm trying to think of any more ideas, and I came up with one thing. Is it okay to be using a converter for my cables going to my GPU? My GPU requires 1x 6pin and 1x 8pin. I didn't have an 8 pin PCI cable, so instead I used 2x 6 pin PCI cables with a converter to a single 8 pin I took from my old PC. Could that be an issue? I Have no idea about its compatibility

https://imgur.com/a/zcc9MV5

View: https://imgur.com/a/zcc9MV5

 

[DRagor]

I didn't have an 8 pin PCI cable, so instead I used 2x 6 pin PCI cables with a converter to a single 8 pin I took from my old PC. Could that be an issue?

How? Surely Corsair RM has plenty of 8-pin PCIe cables. Or to be exact, they are 6+2 cables. Don't tell me you are using PSU cables from some other model? But to answer your question directly, while such converters are not recommended, they should work.

Back to main problem: since RAM passed the test we can assume it is fine. I don't really know what else could cause such problem. Maybe short on case? But why it works with no drives? Just drives shorting? You try connecting SSD but leaving it outside the case so it does not touch any metallic things.

 

[lepushominis]

How? Surely Corsair RM has plenty of 8-pin PCIe cables. Or to be exact, they are 6+2 cables. Don't tell me you are using PSU cables from some other model? But to answer your question directly, while such converters are not recommended, they should work.

I was using the 6+2 pins with a converter into an 8 pin from my old pc. I only saw 6pin and didn't realise it there was the +2 part of it to also plug in. Upon learning about the +2 part of the cable I became convinced this must have been the issue. But now I've removed the converter and instead am using a single 6+2 pin cable it hasn't seemed to change anything

Although I can't even seem to get it to boot from my USB anymore. Which is weird. Memtest86 worked fine from my USB, however now I'm trying to launch windows 11 installation from my USB it crashes the moment it tries booting from the USB. This is all with a fresh install of the boot drive using the media creation tool

Back to main problem: since RAM passed the test we can assume it is fine. I don't really know what else could cause such problem. Maybe short on case? But why it works with no drives? Just drives shorting? You try connecting SSD but leaving it outside the case so it does not touch any metallic things.

I just tried moving the SSDs around, leaving them outside the case and it doesn't seemed to have changed anything

 

[lepushominis]

What works 100% perfectly:

• BIOS
• Memtest86 from USB

The PC can stay on no problems for hours inside USB or memtest

What always crashes the PC:

• Booting windows from SSD
• Booting windows from USB Installation with SSDs plugged in
• Booting windows from USB Installation without SSDs plugged in

 

[DRagor]

I just tried moving the SSDs around, leaving them outside the case and it doesn't seemed to have changed anything

I'm honestly out of ideas. All hardware seems to work fine so I don't know what could it be. Sorry.

 

[lepushominis]

I'm honestly out of ideas. All hardware seems to work fine so I don't know what could it be. Sorry.

No problem. You've been very helpful to me and I greatly appreciate you giving up some of your time to give me advice.💙

I'll update this thread when I eventually hopefully fix it