[SOLVED] How should I approach getting my computer to actually boot?

[wildebeest]

My parts are:
AMD Ryzen 5 3.6ghz
ASRock B450 Steel Legend ATX AM4 Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 2 GB G1 Gaming Video Card
Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case
and Corsair CX 430 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply

When I turn my computer on it boots for a seemingly random amount of time, sometimes up to 5 minutes, and never displays any signal to the monitor. I do not think it is a power issue as I have used that power supply before in a previous build without issue. The only parts that are not new in this build are the case, hard drive, and GPU. I took out the CMOS battery for five minutes and replaced it to no avail. I have also tried booting with nothing but the CPU (without a cooler), one stick of RAM, and the power supply, using onboard graphics.

Sorry if this is a dumb question or a waste of time.

 

[Obakasama]

You really should boot with the CPU cooler installed for safety.

Which Ryzen 5 CPU is it? I'm thinking of potential compatibility issues which may need a BIOS update to resolve.

The other thing is old hard drive, which from the information given I assume is also an old installation of Windows? Ideally with a new motherboard you should fresh install Windows to avoid potential performance issues.

 

[CosmicDance]

Does your PC have a tiny onboard speaker attached and if so are you getting any beeps from it?
They are very useful for diagnosing failed boot problems as each motherboard is set to produce a different series of beeps according to various problems.
You just need to lookup these beep errors to decipher them.

Also have you checked that your RAM is listed on the Qualified Vendors List (QVL) on the motherboard manufacturer's site?
If not it can cause boot problems.

Andy

 

[wildebeest]

Does your PC have a tiny onboard speaker attached and if so are you getting any beeps from it?
They are very useful for diagnosing failed boot problems as each motherboard is set to produce a different series of beeps according to various problems.
You just need to lookup these beep errors to decipher them.

Also have you checked that your RAM is listed on the Qualified Vendors List (QVL) on the motherboard manufacturer's site?
If not it can cause boot problems.

Andy

Hey Andy,
Thanks for the help. I tried booting without RAM in to listen for beeps but heard nothing. I am not sure that it has a speaker. I checked the QVL and PCPartPicker and I think it should be compatible.

 

[wildebeest]

You really should boot with the CPU cooler installed for safety.

Which Ryzen 5 CPU is it? I'm thinking of potential compatibility issues which may need a BIOS update to resolve.

The other thing is old hard drive, which from the information given I assume is also an old installation of Windows? Ideally with a new motherboard you should fresh install Windows to avoid potential performance issues.

It is a 2nd Gen Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7GHz (not 3.6 GHz sorry) and I was aware that there could be a BIOS update issue, but can I update the BIOS considering I cannot even get the computer to send any signal to the monitor? I am sorry I am pretty new to building and thought the BIOS update wouldn't be too much of a problem.

 

[CosmicDance]

No need to apologise for being new to building a pc.
These forums exist to help each other and everyone starts from the basics including myself.

Here is an extensive checklist, from this very forum, to try and diagnose things -

"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

 

[Obakasama]

That's a good sticky to reference.

Sticking with the potential BIOS issue... the Ryzen 5 3400G requires BIOS P2.30, with the latest being P3.20. It doesn't look like that particular motherboard allows BIOS updating without a CPU, which would mean you'd need an older compatible CPU to flash the BIOS to a newer one which does support the 3400G. Depending where you are the options are a shop which offers such a service, or AMD's boot kit loan (and it looks like they've continued it).

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/pa-100

 

[wildebeest]

Ok team, thank you all for all the help! We are moving along now. Unfortunately, once my BIOS had been updated, the computer started blue screening after it passed POST. I have read about some problems that occur when trying to use Windows on a new device and now am struggling to fix them. To preface, I had been running on Windows 8.1, but did the free upgrade to Windows 10 sometime in the past year. I have tried booting off of the Windows 8.1 disk, but the Windows 10 "we have encountered a problem" screen appears and restarts my computer to no avail. I thought that maybe the issue was trying to boot off of a Windows 8.1 disk when the hard drive had a copy of Windows 10 on it, so I tried booting off of a copy of my friends Windows 10 installation media, which resulted in Windows asking me for an activation key which I do not believe I have. I chose the "I do not have option," and it began an install. This ended with a restart which took me to the activation key again. I only had 12 Gb of open space on the drive to begin with, and the second time I tried the installation didn't go through. I was clicking around the available options and ended up formatting the drive which wasn't too big a loss, as I only had redownloadable games on there. I am confused about what to try now though. Thanks.

 

[Obakasama]

Do you know if your Windows 10 licence is digitally connected? You should be able to skip the initial activation request upon installation, but activate it when on the desktop.

At this point I'm a little lost as to where you are with the process. It sounds like you ended up with a fresh installation of Windows 10 now so... what are you trying to do next?