MSI Z87 MPower Motherboard Debug Code: 5d - PC not booting

[Sibirian5D]

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen!

I've had problems recently with my computer not booting correctly. I've ignored it the past couple of days since I had work related stuff to do and didn't have the time to troubleshoot but when I came home a few hours ago my PC just didn't boot... not on the 2nd-3rd try like the last couple of days but... yeah not.

My Specs are:
MB: MSI Z87-MPower
GPU: ASUS GTX780
CPU: Intel i5-4770k (i think)
RAM: 2x4GB Kingston HyperX

Now I've opened up my computer and looked at the debug LEDs while booting and it seems to stop at "5d" ... What does this mean? The booklet didn't give me an answer and swapping through different combinations of RAM (only stick 1 / stick 2, slot 1/2/3/4, etc) didn't work either (only no RAM gave me a different code obv.). I also tried disconnecting the power from my GPU but that still gave me "5d"...

Can someone please help me? Has someone had a similar problem and solved it?

greetz
Sibi

 

[Karsten75]

From a quick Google search I found this: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2482696/msi-a88x-g45-debug-code-post.html#15067964

The 5D code is "no memory initialization".

 

[Sibirian5D]

So basically my RAMs fried? Kind of wierd that both sticks died at the same time...

 

[Karsten75]

Could be the board. Not easy to tell unless you can test your RAM in another board.

 

[Sibirian5D]

... Hummm ok then I'll test the RAM-Sticks on my Parent's A88X over the weekend and see from there. So if they work it's definitely my board?

 

[Sibirian5D]

Alright I now have some more testing information to share, maybe this helps:

As I said before I've now tested my RAM at my parents A88X... worked like a charm: BOTH sticks in, hit power, boots like nothing ever happened (except for the "CPU/Memory Changed" message at the start.
Funnily enough, the night I've opened this thread I wanted to show my SO the debug LEDs and that my PC isn't booting so I power it up aaaaaand... the computer booted completely normal. Ofc I had to plug-in my monitor and keyboard, etc. again so I shut it down and re-booted... which worked aswell. So "Evening 4th Feb: Computer working again".

Then yesterday when I got up in the morning I tried again, and again it worked. I worked on the computer for like 4 hours then shut it down since I left the appartment for some errands... Later that day I wanted to transfer some data to a usb-stick before I left for my parents, tried booting it up: 5D.

So apparently something is broken, but not completely and it seems to work sometimes and sometimes it doesn't... kind of like before only more extrem: If it doesn't boot on the first try it won't boot for at least the next hour (that's the longest I've tried booting it).

 

[Karsten75]

Alright I now have some more testing information to share, maybe this helps:

As I said before I've now tested my RAM at my parents A88X... worked like a charm: BOTH sticks in, hit power, boots like nothing ever happened (except for the "CPU/Memory Changed" message at the start.
Funnily enough, the night I've opened this thread I wanted to show my SO the debug LEDs and that my PC isn't booting so I power it up aaaaaand... the computer booted completely normal. Ofc I had to plug-in my monitor and keyboard, etc. again so I shut it down and re-booted... which worked aswell. So "Evening 4th Feb: Computer working again".

Then yesterday when I got up in the morning I tried again, and again it worked. I worked on the computer for like 4 hours then shut it down since I left the appartment for some errands... Later that day I wanted to transfer some data to a usb-stick before I left for my parents, tried booting it up: 5D.

So apparently something is broken, but not completely and it seems to work sometimes and sometimes it doesn't... kind of like before only more extrem: If it doesn't boot on the first try it won't boot for at least the next hour (that's the longest I've tried booting it).

that could be the motherboard. But it's getting harder to test. There's a small likelihood it could be the PSU acting up and unless you can switch power supplies, .....

What's the make/model of the PSU and how old is it? How old is the rig?

 

[Sibirian5D]

Alright, I seem to have solved the problem!

After discussing my problems with a few of my friends one mentioned that he's had a similar problem a while back and that he'd sent in his motherboard. The company then flashed his BIOS and sent it back which did the trick.

So I made myself a BIOS-Stick (Format the stick to FAT and unzip the BIOS download from the MBs downloadpage) and used the M-Flash function in the BIOS-Boot-menu. The only problem was that I had to try and get the PC to boot properly for like 30-40 minutes but hey... once I got it going once I could flash the BIOS and the computer has booted properly ever since.

I just thought I'd post my solution here for future people finding this 😉 like described in this comic: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wisdom_of_the_ancients.png

TL;DR: Once I got my PC to boot once I flashed the BIOS to the newest version and now everything's back to normal!

 

[Karsten75]

Glad you got it sorted.