Question New build not working ?

[Teknoman2]

Build specs:
MSI B650 Mag Tomahawk WiFi
Ryzen 7700X
MSI RX 6600 XT
2x16GB G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 6000 (TZ5NR)
Seasonic Focus 650W PSU
1 x Samsung 970 EVO M.2 SSD
2 x Samsung SATA SSDs (860 QVO and 850 EVO)

After assembly i got into Windows and it seemed fine (i hadn't yet gotten into the BIOS). I restarted, entered the BIOS and activated EXPO and that's when things started going wrong.

It failed to load Windows and restarted on its own. After getting into Windows again i had laggy mouse, unresponsive or stuck keyboard inputs and broken sound. I managed to open CPU-Z and it showed that the memory was not at 6000 but at 4800, HW Monitor showed that the temps were ok on everything (60C on the CPU and 20-30C for everything else) and after a while i got BSOD.

Tried to turn EXPO off and the BIOS crashed. After unplugging the power and booting it up again, i got into the BIOS to verify that it was off and proceeded to windows where the same thing happened.
I updated the BIOS to the latest version and booted it with EXPO off,,. It seemed to work fine. I ran a game and nothing seemed off. No laggy inputs, no distorted sounds, much smoother fps and though that it was fixed. Then i turned EXPO on again and all hell broke loose.

I ran memtest86 (i unplugged both the GPU and all SSDs and run it lean with just CPU and RAM using the on board graphics of the 7700X ) with both EXPO off and on and it passed both times but with EXPO on the keyboard was dead during the test. The keyboard shenanigans and mouse being laggy or dead also happen in the BIOS... tried 2 keyboards and 3 mice just in case there is some crazy 1 in a million situation.
I'm almost certain that its a defective mobo but is there any other test i can run to make sure before i send it back?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

With all the bios changes, did you clear CMOS at any stage? This is one of the final steps in a bios upgrade.

 

[Teknoman2]

I did. After that i reinstalled windows using the "no internet" trick to make an offline account and it seemed to not have any obvious problem. But as soon as i connected the internet cable the choppiness began again. and it got worse when i tried connecting more USB devices (other than the mouse and keyboard).

 

[Teknoman2]

After wasting my entire weekend testing and retesting everything that i could think of i guess the only option is to RMA the board. There is still a 5% chance it may be the CPU but that can't be tested properly on a faulty board because the board will cause the same crash as the CPU would.