Question Is my motherboard dying ?

[slippy24]

Motherboard: ASRock B650 PG Lightning

Built the system myself, not even 2 months old. Rock solid with not a single hiccup although EXPO was the extent of my tinkering. Then one evening when I shut down from Windows, the fans went crazy and it wouldn't power off, so I had to force it by holding the power button down. Next time I booted it everything worked normally, played some Cyberpunk, and then it happened again mid-game. Now it very rarely posts (fixed CPU and DRAM leds) and when it does I'm lucky if I can make it to the BIOS before it fails again. I got to windows once, checked some stats, temps and voltages were normal, reported my full 64GB of RAM, etc. And then it failed again after a minute.

Tried each memory stick separately on B2, no change, so unless both sticks failed simultaneously I don't think it's that. Removed 7900XT as I have an iGPU on my 7800X3D, but no change. Tried resetting the BIOS, no change. Flashed the latest BIOS via USB, no change. Made sure all connectors were properly seated.

There have been some developments since this first happened. I could power off by holding the power button down, but no longer. Sometimes the fans would run full speed at random, but now they mostly just idle. And as I was writing this post, after an eternity with fixed PSC leds, it posted and went straight to the BIOS, where it's been sitting for well over 15 minutes.

Really at a loss as to what to do now. I have no spare parts, and don't know any gamers in my area. Thankfully all the components which I think could be at fault (mobo, cpu, psu) were bought from the same store, which is fairly close by. Should I pay them to diagnose this?

Oh yea, the PSU is an MSI A850GF, and the mem sticks are 2x32 GB Corsair Vengeance 6000MHz.

Please help. I'm starting to regret building my own PC.

Tried to attach an image but wasn't able to.

 

[Moonstick2]

Don't regret it. Buying a pre-build doesn't guarantee against problems, and issues like this are rare.

It helps a lot that you got so much from the same store, and you shouldn't have to pay them anything.

Go along, explain the situation and everything you've done, and see if they'll exchange the motherboard for a new one for you. Otherwise you give them the option of taking your PC and tracing and replacing the faulty component themselves. The chances are they'd much rather do the option that's less time and effort for them.

 

[slippy24]

Don't regret it. Buying a pre-build doesn't guarantee against problems, and issues like this are rare.

It helps a lot that you got so much from the same store, and you shouldn't have to pay them anything.

Go along, explain the situation and everything you've done, and see if they'll exchange the motherboard for a new one for you. Otherwise you give them the option of taking your PC and tracing and replacing the faulty component themselves. The chances are they'd much rather do the option that's less time and effort for them.

Thank you.

There has been another development. The PC now always posts, but goes straight to BIOS. The boot option priorities section is empty and I can't see my NVMe drive anywhere on the BIOS pages. So was the drive dying, which was causing the post issues, and now that it's proper dead, it posts normally?

edit: I'm going to try a linux live installation and see if the PC works normally. Will update shortly.

 

[slippy24]

>I have no spare parts, and don't know any gamers in my area.

OP, you'll have to spend some money to buy parts. There's no way around it.

>I could power off by holding the power button down, but no longer.

BTW, "holding the power button down" to power off is a good way to corrupt Windows. You're not doing a proper shutdown.

When I started the PC and it entered that fail state of fixed CPU and DRAM leds, I could shutdown the PC via the front panel, but no longer. Obviously I'd never use it in windows unless the PC locked up, which it never once did.

Linux live boot got me as far as the menu, but wouldn't load the OS. Same debug leds on the mobo. Reset, it tried to load windows, quickly failed and now it's gone back to not posting. Going to contact ASRock; what an adventure that will be.

 

[Moonstick2]

The store may or may not have a return window for parts. However, OP has had said parts for 2 months, which means return window is gone, and OP will have to RMA any defective part to the manufacturer. Again, store no longer has responsibility.

Wow, didn't know that's how things worked in (presumably) the U.S.

Here in the UK, when you buy something it has a statutory one year warranty and the contract is with the seller, not the manufacturer. If something fails within a couple of months and the seller tells you to contact the manufacturer, you have zero obligation to do that; you can insist that the seller sorts it all out.

So (without wanting to derail the thread), if on RMA the manufacturer can't fix it and can't repair it, it's the manufacturer who pays the refund, and the seller keeps whatever was paid?

 

[Moonstick2]

The manufacturer wouldn't pay a refund. Assuming the part is determined to be defective, and the defect wasn't caused by the user, then most likely it'll be exchanged for a refurb. Repair probably isn't cost-effective as the board's value doesn't warrant labor cost.

Sorry, I meant if they can't fix it or replace it. I guess the onus is on the manufacturer to refund the money if they can't do either.

Very different over here. A failure within 30 days and you can insist on a full refund no matter what. After that the seller can opt to either repair or replace, but they only get one shot at it; if the repair/replacement is no good, you can insist on getting your money back (as I had to once). And they'd be hard pushed to get away with providing a refurbished part to replace one that was bought brand new, although it might turn on the particulars of the case. (There are more complications beyond six months, but that's getting well off topic.)

Anyway, I'll consider my questions answered and not clog up the thread more.

 

[slippy24]

Final update guys. I decided to check all the cables again, and sure enough, there was a slightly loose power cable hidden behind a braid of case cables which I'd totally forgotten about. That's all it took to cause all that mayhem. It must have happened when I dusted the PC a little a couple days prior. Two hours of Cyberpunk later and I'm breathing easy again.

Thanks everyone for the help!