[SOLVED] Need advice on Asus motherboards not detecting VGA

[HypnoticSpeck]

Need to run this by the collective brain trust as it has been driving me crazy all summer. I like to upgrade my PC in stages and I received an Intel i5 LGA 1700 processor last Christmas. Given the past crazy prices for GPU's, I decided to upgrade in phases around my existing GPU, so I assembled a PC with the following components:

Asus TUF Gaming Z690-Plus WiFi (new)
Intel i5-12400F, LGA 1700 (no integrated graphics) (new)
G. Skill Ripjaws S5 DDR5 RAM (XMP ready) (new)
Samsung 2TB 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (new)
EVGA GTX1060 (old)
OCZ 750W PSU (old)
Cyberpower 1500 VA with SineWave UPS

I was sure to upgrade the BIOS to the latest version immediately, and don't do any overclocking, and made no other changes other than to enable XMP in BIOS. Everything worked great for a little over a month, then one day I turned on the PC and got the dreaded white QLED and the long beep followed by three short beeps indicating an issue with the motherboard detecting VGA. As suggested on forums, I tried reseating the GPU and DRAM to no avail, checked all PSU connections, I also tried an older MSI GTX 1050 GPU, but same issue. Then, I read someone else solved their issue by plugging the display port cable into a different display port on the GPU, so I did that with the 1060 and it worked, although the issue would return the next day and I would move the cable again, until finally that no longer worked.

I called Asus support, they didn't like that I was using older graphics cards, so instructed me to purchase a new one and try that, which I did, an Asus RTX 3060 Dual OC, but the same problem occurred. They then instructed me to clear CMOS, after which the PC wouldn't even turn on, so Asus issued an RMA and suggested checking if I could replace the board where I bought it. Amazon graciously let me return the motherboard (would not exchange it) out of the one month return window for a 20% restocking fee and return the RTX 3060 as there was a chance it could have also been defective.

Fast forward a month, after doing a lot more careful research and reading one commentors view the TUF Gaming motherboards are flimsy, I bought a new Asus ROG STRIX Z790-H Gaming WiFi motherboard, and an XPG Core Reactor 850W PSU, all the other components remained the same. Amazon attempted to send me a used motherboard initially, but then sent me a new one after I called. This motherboard felt much more substantial, and everything worked fine for four days until one night I turned it on, the white light came on and I got the VGA not detected beeps. Before calling Asus, I first purchased a new GPU, a Zotac RTX 3060 OC 12 GB, but this had the same issue.

I called Asus, this time they felt from the start I had another defective motherboard and wanted to RMA it, but suggested I try all my components in another motherboard to test them. All I had spare was the used one Amazon sent initially, so no idea if it was even working or not, but I tried it, and had the same problem with it not detecting VGA from the start. However, since I have no idea why someone had returned the spare used motherboard, I'm not sure that proved anything. Asus wanted to RMA the new motherboard, but as I only had it for four days, I ended up returning it along with the second GPU instead.

So, am I the unluckiest person alive to get multiple bad motherboards, do Asus motherboards have a habit of developing a GPU detection issue over time, or, as I suspect (or wildly hope), does it come down to one of the last three new components I have not tried changing out yet - the Intel i5 CPU, the G. Skill DDR RAM or the Samsung SSD? Would one of those being defective potentially cause this issue?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

OCZ 750W PSU (old)
How old is this unit? In all honesty, that should not be in a system, not in 2023.

Might want to inspect the CPU's socket for any bent or broken pins. Which slots are the rams populating on the motherboard?

 

[Dave8671]

I would turn off the XMP that is essentially overlooking the ram. My mobo has that feature disabled. I also have 3060 rtx.

 

[HypnoticSpeck]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

OCZ 750W PSU (old)
How old is this unit? In all honesty, that should not be in a system, not in 2023.

Might want to inspect the CPU's socket for any bent or broken pins. Which slots are the rams populating on the motherboard?

Thanks for getting back to me so fast!

OCZ 750W PSU (old)
How old is this unit? In all honesty, that should not be in a system, not in 2023.
Agreed, this PSU was about 8 or 9 years old. It appeared to work with the Z690 board, as that had a requirement for an 8 + 4 pin power connection, which this power supply had. After carefully examining the requirements for the Z790 board (8 + 8 pin) plus knowing the age of the PSU, I went with the XPG Core Reactor II 850 W PSU moving forward, so the OCZ PSU wasn't present for my second build.

Might want to inspect the CPU's socket for any bent or broken pins.
Yes, I didn't think to do this for the Z690 board that I returned. However, since that one was intermittently failing, I did install and run an Intel utility from the Microsoft Store that tests the CPU while it was in the Z690 board and that passed with flying colors. I wasn't sure what limitations that test may have though, e.g., if there was a bent pin causing an intermittent issue, I figured that may not catch it. In hindsight, especially after receiving an obviously used motherboard later on, I definitely should have checked for any physical issues on that Z690 board before and after installing the CPU.

On the new Z790 board, I checked the CPU socket carefully before and after installation, and I did not notice any bent or missing pins.

Which slots are the rams populating on the motherboard?

I've always used Asus motherboards for my PC's, so I've learned to always check the manual for recommended RAM installation. As there were 2 16 GB sticks, I installed them in slots A2 and B2, as recommended by the manual. Just in case one of the RAM sticks was bad, since I didn't have any spares, I did try just one, and then the other, individually, in the A2 slot, as recommended by Asus when using just 1 stick of RAM, but no luck.

 

[HypnoticSpeck]

I would turn off the XMP that is essentially overlooking the ram. My mobo has that feature disabled. I also have 3060 rtx.

Thanks, that was actually something I wanted to do on the Z790 board, if I could have gotten it to post so I could get into the BIOS to change this setting back. I ended up pushing the button to clear CMOS, but that didn't seem to help.

I did inadvertently test this on the older Z690 board. After upgrading the BIOS on this board, I didn't realize it would reset XMP from On to Off. So, the first time the Z690 had an issue detecting VGA, XMP was actually off. I turned it back on at that time to verify if it would stop the board from not detecting VGA, but the issue still occurred intermittently until it finally died. If I can get past this latest issue, I think I will leave it off.

 

[HypnoticSpeck]

OK, I guess I should have looked at the lowest common denominator first. I reassembled the components, then used a different Display Port cable and everything is working again. I guess I can still blame Asus, as the Display Port cable I was using when I had the issue is less than a year old and came with the Asus Pro Art monitor I bought at the end of last year.