[SOLVED] New system failing - need help.

[Drown1ng]

I just built a new system in my old case. It is a Gigabyte B550 Aorous Pro V2 with 16 G of RAM and AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with WIndows 10 loaded on M.2 NVME SSD 1 T. It has worked for a few days and then I came down yesterday and neither monitor would come on. They were powered up and the computer was running, but I couldn't get anything on the screens. I tried shifting where the cables were plugged in and eventually removed the video card (Radeon HD 5770). The fan in the card was unusually loud when I first discovered the situation. I have been able to boot to BIOS a couple of times and reset the CMOS twice. After the first time I reset the CMOS, I was able to enter the BIOS settings and confirmed that the boot order was correct. I set it back to Fast Boot because I had read that the M.2 wouldn't work properly if that wasn't set. However, it still didn't work. At least twice it got as far as the Windows troubleshooting options, but the first time I just told it to reboot and it returned to the same problem. The next time I attempted to have Windows diagnose and fix problems, but when it rebooted it would not go to Windows and only showed the opening BIOS screen. I have reseated the RAM, disconnected USBs except for the mouse and keyboard and I removed two cards I had installed for extra USB ports and TV. Initially the reset button on the computer would flash after I tried to reboot, but it eventually stopped doing that. Most recently, when I plug the computer back in and press the power button, it lights up and runs the fans, but the LEDs along the bottom of the board do not light and the power switch will no longer power down the computer when I hold it down. It is all powered off right now and unplugged. I tried using the install flash drive to boot to, but it isn't even going to the BIOS screen anymore, so no good. The power supply is a Thermaltake TR2 RX 850W and it is probably 10 years old, but it should have more than enough power and has shown no signs of failure until now.

I am not sure what else to try at this point - it seems to get worse as I do troubleshooting. Any ideas will be appreciated.

 

[rocktalkrock]

What do the CPU/DRAM/VGA/BOOT status LED's show when you boot?
Can you identify the RAM you are using?
Have you tried running the RAM at 3200 MHz?
Have you tried booting with just 1 stick of RAM?

 

[Drown1ng]

Thanks for the reply.

The DRAM light comes on when I try to power up the system. If I press the power switch to turn off the system, the Boot light comes on and then goes off again when I let go of the power button. The DRAM light comes back on when I do that. The system does not power down with the button, so I unplug it.
The RAM is Corsair Vengneance LPX 2 x 8gb DDR4 3200 Mhz. I haven't changed the speed of the RAM at all and I can no longer access the BIOS to do so even if I wanted to.
I had not tried booting with just one stick of RAM, but I just did that and it made no difference.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Thanks for the reply.

The DRAM light comes on when I try to power up the system. If I press the power switch to turn off the system, the Boot light comes on and then goes off again when I let go of the power button. The DRAM light comes back on when I do that. The system does not power down with the button, so I unplug it.
The RAM is Corsair Vengneance LPX 2 x 8gb DDR4 3200 Mhz. I haven't changed the speed of the RAM at all and I can no longer access the BIOS to do so even if I wanted to.
I had not tried booting with just one stick of RAM, but I just did that and it made no difference.

Have you tried booting with no drives connected to see if you can get into the BIOS?

 

[Drown1ng]

I only have one regular hard drive and I haven't tried disconnecting. I also have an optical drive.

A few minutes later:
I just tried it with only the monitor connected to the HDMI port on the board and the speakers. Everything else is disconnected, including the M.2 drive. The monitor didn't even show evidence of anything - it is blue when getting a signal and yellow when not - it remained yellow.

 

[rocktalkrock]

I only have one regular hard drive and I haven't tried disconnecting. I also have an optical drive.

A few minutes later:
I just tried it with only the monitor connected to the HDMI port on the board and the speakers. Everything else is disconnected, including the M.2 drive. The monitor didn't even show evidence of anything - it is blue when getting a signal and yellow when not - it remained yellow.

The Status LED's seem to indicate a problem with the RAM. When you booted with 1 stick of RAM was it located in slot DDR4_A2? Did you try both sticks? Did you unplug the PC and clear the CMOS for at least 30 seconds beforehand?

 

[Drown1ng]

I just removed all the RAM, then put the RAM from DDR4_A2 into the slot at DDR4_B2 and cleared CMOS. I then tried to boot and it went into the BIOS. I then put the other RAM back in the available slot and it was still able to boot to BIOS. I then put back the M.2 and it booted to the Windows Recovery options. I tried to use a Restore Point, but I don't have any yet, so I just went with restarting to Windows. It passed the BIOS and the monitor blanked again. While I was doing the changes with the RAM, the LED lights were moving around, but eventually only the BOOT LED seemed to be lit. It looks like I was reading the LEDs wrong before. The main one that was lit was DRAM, but it would switch to CPU when I tried to power down the system. When I booted to BIOS, the BOOT light was on, but now that I put the M.2 back, none of them are on. I did try powering down and booting again with the same result of going through the BIOS screen and then going blank. Also, now the button to power down is working again.

I just moved the M.2 to the other slot and no change. I decided to try the install flash drive for Win 10 and it went into the recovery mode again. I opted to reinstall Windows this time and it is doing that until a moment ago. I was typing this and when I turned around the monitor is down again. I am going to put the M.2 back in the original slot and wait for further suggestions. At least there was some improvement.

 

[Drown1ng]

A quick update: I realized that the RAM in my old system is the same as the RAM in the new system, so I took one stick and put it in the new system after removing the newer RAM that was there. It made no difference. The system continued to boot to BIOS and then seemed to attempt to boot to Windows, but the monitor died out as usual. I am still able to shut it down with the power button and none of the trouble LEDs light up, but it won't boot Windows. I have usually been able to sort these kinds of things out, but I am stumped on this one. It doesn't seem like bad RAM, bad CPU or even a bad board, so I just don't know what to do next. Again, any further ideas will be appreciated.

 

[rocktalkrock]

A quick update: I realized that the RAM in my old system is the same as the RAM in the new system, so I took one stick and put it in the new system after removing the newer RAM that was there. It made no difference. The system continued to boot to BIOS and then seemed to attempt to boot to Windows, but the monitor died out as usual. I am still able to shut it down with the power button and none of the trouble LEDs light up, but it won't boot Windows. I have usually been able to sort these kinds of things out, but I am stumped on this one. It doesn't seem like bad RAM, bad CPU or even a bad board, so I just don't know what to do next. Again, any further ideas will be appreciated.

Your motherboards CPU Support list says the Ryzen 5 5600G requires at least BIOS version F13 released on 2021/07/13. Which BIOS version does your motherboard currently have?

 

[Drown1ng]

I did not see that when I looked earlier and I appreciate you finding it. I have F11 and I have downloaded F14e, but I have not been able to load it. I tried the Qflash with the computer off, but it didn't seem to be doing anything and I eventually put a RAM stick back and booted into BIOS. I tried to use the Qflash option in the BIOS and it said it couldn't read the flash drive. I had formatted the flash as FAT32 as specified in the instructions that I found, but it didn't seem to work anyway. I just shut down the computer again and pressed the Qflash button for a longer time to see if that would make a difference. The flash drive was flashing before, but wasn't until I pressed the button again. I am not sure how long to wait before trying the computer again.

It has gone to the Windows recovery screen a couple more times, but it fails regardless of what option I choose. I suspect it will continue to fail until I get the BIOS updated. I am puzzled that it worked for a few days without the update.

Thanks again for your help and for any further suggestions.

 

[rickypicky5]

I just built a new system in my old case. It is a Gigabyte B550 Aorous Pro V2 with 16 G of RAM and AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with WIndows 10 loaded on M.2 NVME SSD 1 T. It has worked for a few days and then I came down yesterday and neither monitor would come on. They were powered up and the computer was running, but I couldn't get anything on the screens. I tried shifting where the cables were plugged in and eventually removed the video card (Radeon HD 5770).

You're using the 5600G's integrated graphics, correct?

 

[rocktalkrock]

I did not see that when I looked earlier and I appreciate you finding it. I have F11 and I have downloaded F14e, but I have not been able to load it. I tried the Qflash with the computer off, but it didn't seem to be doing anything and I eventually put a RAM stick back and booted into BIOS. I tried to use the Qflash option in the BIOS and it said it couldn't read the flash drive. I had formatted the flash as FAT32 as specified in the instructions that I found, but it didn't seem to work anyway. I just shut down the computer again and pressed the Qflash button for a longer time to see if that would make a difference. The flash drive was flashing before, but wasn't until I pressed the button again. I am not sure how long to wait before trying the computer again.

It has gone to the Windows recovery screen a couple more times, but it fails regardless of what option I choose. I suspect it will continue to fail until I get the BIOS updated. I am puzzled that it worked for a few days without the update.

Thanks again for your help and for any further suggestions.

Are you using the correct Qflash USB port? It's the lone USB port between the Qflash button and the HDMI port, labeled "d" in your motherboard manual.

 

[Drown1ng]

Yep, that is the one I am using. Maybe I will try a different flash drive to see if it makes a difference. Do you know how long it should take if it is working?

 

[Drown1ng]

I found this manual from Gigabyte and there are some things I don't quite get here. It says: "2. Uncompress the downloaded BIOS file, save it to your USB flash drive, and rename it to GIGABYTE.bin. Note: The USB flash drive must use the FAT32/16 file system." I don't know if they are referring to renaming the file or to renaming the flash drive.

I also found this which explains why Qflash won't work: "Q-Flash Plus will update the main BIOS only if run without the CPU installed. The system will shut down upon completion. " I have the CPU installed and I really don't want to take it out. However, unless the issue has to do with renaming the file or flash drive, it really should have worked to run it from the BIOS. Here is a link to the manual if you want to look at it:

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_x570-features.pdf

Since it won't hurt anything to rename the flash drive, I will do that and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Drown1ng]

Another update: I decided to change the name of the file since I figured it wouldn't do anything if that isn't what they meant and I could just replace it with the file I downloaded again. When I switched on the computer intending to go into the BIOS to run the Qflash again, it didn't light up the monitor, but the flash drive started flashing and red light between the flash drive and the Qflash button started blinking. It stopped blinking as I typed this and I rebooted into BIOS after removing the flash drive. The BIOS now says version F14e and I told it to reset to optimal defaults. I did a save and reboot, but it went to the dead monitor again.

@rickypicky5 - I just saw your question and the answer is yes - I removed the graphics card and plugged one monitor into the HDMI on the board.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Another update: I decided to change the name of the file since I figured it wouldn't do anything if that isn't what they meant and I could just replace it with the file I downloaded again. When I switched on the computer intending to go into the BIOS to run the Qflash again, it didn't light up the monitor, but the flash drive started flashing and red light between the flash drive and the Qflash button started blinking. It stopped blinking as I typed this and I rebooted into BIOS after removing the flash drive. The BIOS now says version F14e and I told it to reset to optimal defaults. I did a save and reboot, but it went to the dead monitor again.

@rickypicky5 - I just saw your question and the answer is yes - I removed the graphics card and plugged one monitor into the HDMI on the board.

Have you tried your video card again to see if that might work?

 

[Drown1ng]

I put back the install flash drive and it booted to it, I am now installing Windows again and will see what happens.

A few minutes later - I seem to now have Windows on 2 partitions and I am waiting for one of them to finish installing.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Your motherboards display output "Default" is PCIe 1 Slot, not the onboard graphics. You will need to change that setting in the BIOS first.
Check page 30 of your motherboard manual.

 

[Drown1ng]

I got as far as starting to sign into Windows and it blanked out again. I removed the install flash and tried rebooting, but no progress. I saw what you said about the onboard graphics, so I opened the BIOS and changed that. On reboot, it failed again. On the next reboot, it went into the recovery options and I selected the other partition (which I think is the original install) and it failed as well. I put the install flash back and after a couple of tries, it booted into recovery and I was able to set up the new partition. I just turned the system off so that I could put back the other stick of RAM and the video card, then install drivers. Hopefully it won't fail again as I do that.

 

[Drown1ng]

I have reinstalled the video and my other drives. I am setting up my new (and 2nd version) of Windows now. The first version was a bit wonky, so maybe this new one will be more stable. I will report back if it looks like it is fixed. Thanks again for all the help thus far.

 

[rickypicky5]

Why do you have two versions of Windows on your boot disk? This can only cause problems.

 

[Drown1ng]

I didn't intend to and I will eventually remove one of them. It was the only way to get the computer going at that point and it appears the first install was corrupted. Once I get what I need from the first install, I will remove it and have only one left. I have had multiple boots before, but not the same version of the OS.

So far my build is still working, but the first one lasted for a few days before it failed, so I am cautious.

 

[Drown1ng]

Thanks for all of the help. My system appears to be stable now and the BIOS seems to have been the main issue.

I believe I saw something about how to close a topic, but I can't find the setting for it, so please close this topic for me.