Question New Ryzen 7 3700X + ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4 boot looping

Jul 2, 2022
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I have a problem with my Ryzen 7 3700X. My system is

  • ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4
  • 1x SK Hynix hma82gu6afr8n / 2x some Samsung ECC-RAM (probably M391A2K43BB1-CTD)
  • MSI RTX 2060 Super Ventus OC / Gigabyte GT 710 (GV-N710D3-1GL)
  • bequiet Pure Power 11 400w / bequiet Pure Power 11 500w
  • Wraith Prism boxed cooler / bequiet Shadow Rock low profile
  • nothing else is connected, except sometimes a USB key with my operating system (a Linux live system) and/or a USB keyboard
  • CPU, Motherboard, Samsung RAM, larger power supply, MSI graphics card were brand-new, the remaining parts were used, but known good because they ran for months in my Intel system without problems

Usually the system does not boot at all, i.e. it shuts down after
about 3 seconds and then immediately restarts, doing the same thing
until it gives up and remains off. After that, it does not react to
the power button, but immediately restarts (without pressing the
power button) after turning off and turning on the power via the
power supply button, doing the same reboot loop again. After not
touching the system for a day, it might boot into the OS, but then
randomly shuts down again while idling after only 1-2 minutes (it
remained on long enough for me to see the CPU temperature - it was
< 60°C and thus not overheating). I switched all components except
for CPU & Motherboard and thus hopefully excluded all error causes
except these two. I once "fixed" the problem by not touching the
system for > 1 week - after that, it ran for hours continually and
through multiple normal user-initiated reboots. But eventually it
shut down again while I was asleep, possibly due to overheating. I
suspect overheating, because I fully loaded 8 CPU threads (GPU was
idling), let them run for hours to test the system stability,
eventually saw the CPU temperature slowly creep to 90° (the
temperature in my room was probably rising), but went to sleep before
anything out of the ordinary happened.

I built/repaired over a dozen working PCs for myself and
professionally and the only thing out of the ordinary here was the
CPU temperature. I used the same bequiet cooler (have it twice) on an
i7-8700k (which has a 30 watt higher TDP) and never had any problems
with it - the Intel CPU idled at slightly above 30°C, never came
close to 90° even under full load, and changed temperature very
gradually. The Ryzen on the other hand idled at between 45°C and
60°C, fluctuated between these values in under 2 seconds constantly
and reached 80°C with just 1 thread loaded, still quickly
fluctuating about 10° C. That behaviour was consistent with both
coolers and both inside and outside a PC case. I cleaned the CPU
thoroughly with isopropyl alcohol before installing the new cooler. I
never overclocked anything (including RAM), I only changed fan curves
in UEFI. The motherboard unfortunately has no useful troubleshooting
tools (hex code display, piezo buzzer or something like that).

Any hints for the cause of the behaviour? I'm at a point where RMA
for the CPU or motherboard seems like the only option and I would
like to avoid that.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Fixed formatting
 
Last edited:

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

At this point I'd point a finger at the motherboard but in order for you to do the same, you would need to test each component on your build on a known working motherboard, with the right BIOS version that supports your processor. There have been instances of Ryzen 5 3600's and 3600x's croaking, leaving many to think that the board was bad but in fact the processor had given up the ghost. Those issue have also been with a dead memory channel/memory controller. Sadly your motherboard doesn't have a BIOS flashback/update option, meaning you don't have the option to use a flash drive with the latest BIOS version in hopes of updating the BIOS version and perhaps reviving the board. If you have access to a BIOS programmer then that's a possible route to pursue, provided you're outside of warranty period. If you're in a warranty period/scheme, you should RMA the board, provided you've ruled the CPU, rams and PSU to all be more than healthy.

I'd advise on keeping the higher wattage PSU though for your build, if possible return the 500W unit and pick out a 650W unit for headroom.
 
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Jul 2, 2022
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Yeah, I would have liked to update the BIOS, but that's not an option now. I can't exclude the CPU or motherboard as faulty because I don't have a replacement for either. Both issues (high temperature, random reboots) have been reported by others for the 3700x, but all the non-RMA solutions require getting into BIOS/UEFI, which doesn't seem possible right now.
 
Jul 2, 2022
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what about the RAM? I know that both RAM kits I tested are not on ASRock's QVL list. In other forums it was mentioned that Ryzen is really picky about RAM. Buying some cheap RAM for debugging and reselling it again after I found the problem is within my budget.