Build Advice Help troubleshooting my new build

[pchinaski]

Hi! I built my first PC a few days ago (only had prebuilt before) and afterwards ran into some trouble. Can you help me figure out what is the likely issue? Apologies for the long post, I want to provide as much helpful info as possible and don't what is the most relevant. Hope I posted in the right section. See my signature for my specs.

The short version:
I can boot up, but my CPU cooler is a bit loud, and the mobo shows a red CPU light when I start up. CPU seems fine, but temps are maybe a bit erratic.
Also, my PSU fan runs fast and continously while the computer is on. It keeps running for about a minute after I turn off the PC.

The long version with more info:
At first I booted into bios and all the parts were showing up, and CPU temps didn't move above 39-40 degrees celcius. Things seemed fine. I then installed Windows 11, updated the bios to the last non-beta version. Changed memory timings from 4800 to 6000, went into Windows and installed chipset-, audio and wifi drivers and AMD Adrenaline.

On the next boot, the PC seemed loud, fans were spinning fast and loud. Tried to change fan settings in case there was something there, but no luck. Then I booted into Windows, at this point it took about 10 minutes before I got a bluescreen. I turned off by holding down the power button and waited a few minutes, then went into BIOS and tried to change the RAM timings back, but couldn't even save the settings without the PC freezing.

I thought at this point that either the RAM timings, the bios version or the drivers were causing trouble. Regretted having done them all at once. So I flashed the bios into the latest beta version, then reset windows.

This fixed something, as I can now boot and stay inside Windows without the PC crashing on me. I haven't updated any more drivers since then. Did a benchmark (not a stresstest) to make sure the GPU wasn't a problem. But the red CPU light on the mobo blinks on boot, and CPU goes from about 40-68 degrees very quickly while doing things like installing a program (not sure if this is actually normal behavior?). The CPU doesn't go extremely hot though, but it seems erratic and noisy for some reason. Plus that PSU spins constantly, so obviously something is up.

I'm thinking of one or more possible culprits, maybe at the same time:

- The thermal paste that came with the air cooler was a bit old, and I wasn't entirely happy with the spread on it. Does it sound like a likely cause? If so I can remove it and apply new paste, but I don't have any and would need to order some online.
- Maybe the PSU isn't working properly? The fan spinning seems odd. I also had issued with the cables that came with it, many of them didn't seem to "click" into place, not sure if that matters. I've double checked that I didn't put any into the wrong slot though 😉
- Could be a RAM issue, it's not AMD expo ram, but from what I read beforehand it shouldn't actually matter. Or is there possibly anything there?
- Other stuff you might think of?

Thanks for reading.

 

[rickypicky5]

Clear your CMOS (page 41) of your manual. This should reset your RAM settings/timings to their factory default values.

 

[pete_101]

- Could be a RAM issue, it's not AMD expo ram, but from what I read beforehand it shouldn't actually matter. Or is there possibly anything there?

This could very easily be your problem, and I say this with experience.

At the start of the year I built a 7600x system on a B650 and XMP DDR5 5,200MHz RAM. At first I could enable XPM, then I updated the BIOS (as the motherboard had the very 1st BIOS version), then I had all sorts of boot issues and couldn't enable XMP without getting stuck in a boot loop. Even without XMP enabled, I couldn't do restarts, it would get stuck with a black screen and I would have to force a shutdown. The original BIOS was no longer available for download so I waited for the next BIOS version to come out, and I had exactly the same issues with it too.

I then bought some AMD EXPO DDR5 6000 CL30 and all my issues were gone, it was an expensive learning curve.

 

[pchinaski]

Hm. Good to know. I'm tempted to sell this set of RAM and spend $50 extra om Expo RAM instead (they're priced very high here atm, which is why I went with intel ram...)

 

[pchinaski]

Clear your CMOS (page 41) of your manual. This should reset your RAM settings/timings to their factory default values.

Thank you. This didn't solve it unfortunately. However, I also noticed now the yellow DRAM light is on at the same time as the red CPU light. Before it turns white and boots into Windows.

 

[pchinaski]

Small update:
I removed the cpu cooler, and I noticed some of the thermal paste had spilled over the side of the cpu, but none had touched the green part. Guess I had spread it out pretty badly. Will get some new paste and add it with the pea sized dot in the middle method this time, instead of the x and dots.

Also I'm ordering amp expo ram tomorrow for peace of mind, found it for an ok'ish price.

Hopefully this is all that was wrong, we'll see.