Question Need help figuring out the problem for no POST/display on power up

[splat9]

Currently unable to achieve POST (no display at all?) with motherboard GIGABYTE B650 Aorus Elite AX. Unsure if it is entirely the Mobo since I've never troubleshooted an open PC. But I get LEDs and fan use for only a moment- only when pressing the BIOS 'Q FLASH PLUS' button that is in the back (NO Q FLASH LED showing up even with USB drive in).

When I press the flash button, MOBO red CPU LED lights up for a moment (regardless of CPU being on the board or not) then the LED turns off. My PSU fan rotates a few times on button press, as do my CPU cooler fans. The memory card RGB flickers on and then off. After a few seconds the fans are stopped but the memory-stick RGB is then fully on and waving in colors until I power down the system. Still no display.

Tried testing the full build out-of-case on top of the cardboard box the mobo is supplied in. Could this have caused the problem? Would a shorted MOBO even light up/jolt to life for a moment like mine is?

Corsair HX850 PSU, AMD Ryzen 7600x CPU, G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series 2x16GB DDR5 6000 RAM, Noctua NH-U12A CPU Cooler (dual fan + heatsink), Samsung 980 Pro W/ Heatsink 2tb ssd, GTX 1070 (until I get a new gfx card) and again the GIGABYTE B650 Aorus Elite AX motherboard.

This board has integrated graphics and the ability to flash the bios w NO other parts connected besides PSU. I've tried everything so far, taking off piece by piece after my first initial attempt w the full build and turning on PSU. Lots of reviews mention BIOS updates being necessary but I am unable to get any display or response from monitors at all. Still happens even with ONLY the psu attached.

I've tried various different component combinations in different power ups with no different results. 2 ram sticks, 1 ram stick (swapping positions), 0 ram sticks, cpu, no cpu, only cpu fans... etc. Even though there are instructions to flash the BIOS with no components, I fear that perhaps the board just flat out is unresponsive. But would the RAM RGBs contradict this worry?

Tried flashing the bios with a flash drive, no effect.

 

[Darkbreeze]

There is no "tried to flash the BIOS".

Either you flashed the BIOS successfully or you didn't. Did you follow the EXACT process shown here? And what EXACTLY was the outcome of that process?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cQLYROKJ_Q


You should not have needed to do anything with the BIOS anyhow, since that CPU is supported from the initial BIOS release. So if you couldn't POST to start with then there was already something not BIOS related involved.

Try this.

Flip the switch to the "0" position on the back of the PSU. Then install only a single DIMM in the A2 memory slot. No graphics card installed in the board at all and video cable plugged into motherboard. CPU cooler fan connected to CPU_FAN header. 24 pin ATX and 4+4 pin EPS/CPU power cables plugged into motherboard. No storage devices installed or connected to the board in any way including your M.2 drive.

Remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard for five minutes. During that five minutes press the power button on the case for about ten seconds continuously then release it and when the five minutes are up put the CMOS battery back in the motherboard the same way it came out.

Plug the PSU back into the wall and flip the switch back to the "I" position. Power the system on and see if it will turn on and/or POST.

 

[splat9]

There is no "tried to flash the BIOS".

Either you flashed the BIOS successfully or you didn't. Did you follow the EXACT process shown here? And what EXACTLY was the outcome of that process?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cQLYROKJ_Q


You should not have needed to do anything with the BIOS anyhow, since that CPU is supported from the initial BIOS release. So if you couldn't POST to start with then there was already something not BIOS related involved.

Try this.

Flip the switch to the "0" position on the back of the PSU. Then install only a single DIMM in the A2 memory slot. No graphics card installed in the board at all and video cable plugged into motherboard. CPU cooler fan connected to CPU_FAN header. 24 pin ATX and 4+4 pin EPS/CPU power cables plugged into motherboard. No storage devices installed or connected to the board in any way including your M.2 drive.

Remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard for five minutes. During that five minutes press the power button on the case for about ten seconds continuously then release it and when the five minutes are up put the CMOS battery back in the motherboard the same way it came out.

Plug the PSU back into the wall and flip the switch back to the "I" position. Power the system on and see if it will turn on and/or POST.

Still nothing after this. Waited 10 minutes after turning it back on, same response as always without pushing Q flash plus. No lights, no fans, no sounds. Turning the power on does nothing.

I didn't mention in my initial post but I've tried the same mobo w/ my ~6 year old 500W psu just to see if I got a response without the CPU- but nothing happened (except for the normal jolt of fans turning and RGB light up when pressing Q flash plus)

And when it came to actually pushing the button when I had the proper files and USB plugged in, I never got an LED to light up but still waited like 45 minutes after pressing the q flash plus button with the power on and it didn't affect the system.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Well, your old 500w PSU probably isn't capable enough to run this system anyhow, besides which if you replaced it it was probably because it was too old to be trustworthy anymore or it already had a problem itself, neither of which lends a lot of weight to the idea that it might work where the HX850w isn't, if it were a PSU problem. I can't tell you how many people I've seen do this and then turns out, it IS a PSU problem in the end. Not saying that's the case here, just saying, it happens ALL the time.

Since you say you've tried with CPU and with NO CPU, I have to at least tentatively assume you've checked for bent pins on the CPU, but if you haven't, that would be a really good place to start. Even one slightly bent pin can cause a complete failure to work.

Most likely this is a motherboard issue, but you might want to bench it using my guide just to be sure.

How To - Motherboard bench testing

Finding the problem through bench testing If you are here then it’s likely you have encountered a serious hardware issue and have been unable to resolve it using the standard no-POST troubleshooting procedures. If you have not yet attempted to resolve your issues using the no-POST...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[splat9]

Well, your old 500w PSU probably isn't capable enough to run this system anyhow, besides which if you replaced it it was probably because it was too old to be trustworthy anymore or it already had a problem itself, neither of which lends a lot of weight to the idea that it might work where the HX850w isn't, if it were a PSU problem. I can't tell you how many people I've seen do this and then turns out, it IS a PSU problem in the end. Not saying that's the case here, just saying, it happens ALL the time.

Since you say you've tried with CPU and with NO CPU, I have to at least tentatively assume you've checked for bent pins on the CPU, but if you haven't, that would be a really good place to start. Even one slightly bent pin can cause a complete failure to work.

Most likely this is a motherboard issue, but you might want to bench it using my guide just to be sure.

How To - Motherboard bench testing

Finding the problem through bench testing If you are here then it’s likely you have encountered a serious hardware issue and have been unable to resolve it using the standard no-POST troubleshooting procedures. If you have not yet attempted to resolve your issues using the no-POST...

forums.tomshardware.com

Pins on motherboard CPU socket look real good, no misalignment to the naked eye under close inspection. Swapped memory and tested in A2 slot.

I originally tested the old PSU with just the mobo since I figured the PSU would never come close to full system power with how much efficiency it's lost over the years (and that the system is probably 550W+). Thought maybe it would have enough juice to let me know if its a PSU problem or not, but maybe im one of the dummies.

Out of ideas at this point with the new system. Case came in so I even raised the mobo on its cardboard box, no difference. Still mixed on which part to return/replace.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I totally forgot AMD was switching to LGA for the 7000 series. Since I haven't yet worked with any of these parts, I spaced it entirely. In other words, I totally was thinking the pins were on the CPU as with most other AMD architectures. So, anyhow, if the pin structure on the board looks good, then that's great.

As far as "testing" goes, with just the motherboard, that will NEVER tell you anything. You MUST, ALWAYS, have at least the CPU and one stick of memory installed in order for it to even be remotely worth bothering with. Otherwise, nothing is going to happen.

I mean, if you have a brand new CPU, memory and motherboard, and there's a problem, and clearly ALL of those parts had never been opened before, then I am going directly after the motherboard in almost all cases.

Is that PSU brand new or has it been in service for a while? Did you have problems with your previous system and that's what prompted you to do a new build, or it was just time?

 

[Starthemel]

Had the exact same problem. Returned the G-skill memory and bought kingston beast 6000mhz which solved the problem. You really need to check that your memory is supported on the gigabyte website

 

[Darkbreeze]

Kingston, in general, has proven to be a lot more problematic on most Ryzen platforms, much like the Corsair Vengeance kits, which none of the Ryzen platforms up through Zen 3, have much liked. With Zen 4 though, which is an entirely new platform, who knows. If the Kingston kit is on the motherboard QVL then I'm sure it's probably fine. Anybody buying memory for ANY system should make sure that it is either listed on the QVL list for that board OR on the memory manufacturer's board specific compatibility list. Which is why I generally tend to stick to Corsair, G.Skill and Crucial when buying memory for any build, because they actually HAVE compatibility lists, known as the Corsair memory finder, G.Skill memory configurator and Crucial memory advisor, whereas most other memory manufacturers are smaller operations and do not have the resources to conduct the kind of compatibility testing that those three companies can, which makes all the rest of them a bit more of a crapshoot.

Kingston obviously is a big player that's been around for a while but they don't offer that same level of assurance through their own compatibility testing, so I'd avoid them except where a kit they sell IS listed on the motherboard QVL list OR where it's been fully validated by somebody else such as another forum member that's knowledgeable or a reviewer.