Question Newly built PC with Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X with booting issues; VGA-LED is red

[Deleted member 2920117]

During the past few days I've been trying to get my younger brother's new computer to work, to no avail. I've tried to include as much relevant information as possible below.

Components:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z690 GAMING X DDR4
• CPU: Intel i9 12900k
• CPU cooler: BeQuiet! Pure Rock 2 Black
• Power: Sharkoon WPM GOLDZERO 750W
• HDD: Seagate IronWolf ST4000VN008 (4TB HDD) & INTEL 730 480GB (SSD)
• Ram: Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO SL 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz C16 Memory Kit\
• Videocard: Asus geforce rtx 3070 TI OC

When we first booted all seemed fine: fans were moving, LEDs on the RAM and MOBO were blinking, we were able to boot the portable USB and started to install windows 10.
During this installation process, your PC reboots several times. As soon as it shut down and tried to start again, the following happened:

1. the motherboard LEDS turn on, but turn off a few seconds later. However: the VGA-LED stays red.
2. The keyboard's LED's (fancy gaming keyboard) turn off
3. There is no input going to the monitor
4. No response whatsoever: LED's on the RAM and Motherboard stay on, fans keep spinning. Seems frozen. Stays like that until power is removed/ power button pressed for 5s.

We forced a reboot multiple times. Nothing worked. One time we got lucky and it continued the installation. We have a working PC! But we also have some strange behavior:

• If we click on restart (start menu), it looks like it shuts down, but when it 'boots' again we don't see the PC start, instead we see the black screen, no signal etc as described above. LED's on the Motherboard and RAM stay on.
• What works is turning it off completely (removing power cable/ power button for 5s) and then start the PC again. If we do that, it boots fine
  
  
• If we shut down (start menu), it shuts down fine. Evertything including fans and LED's turn off completey. However, if we start the pc again, we have the black screen again.
• If we force shut down (pressing power button 5s) after the black screen, it boots fine afterwards.
  
  
• If we do a auto restart (during updates, during installation, when changing something in the BIOS) it doesn't restart either: the fans keep spinning, RAM LED's stay on, VGA LED as well. Long-pressing the power button and then starting again is the only solution.

What is causing this issue?
We have:

1. Done all windows updates, including drivers. Via Windows Update, via Gigabyte's App and manually via the Gigabyte website
2. Checked the device manager: all components are recognized and working fine
3. Manually flashed the BIOS to its most recent version (was 4, now 8b), no success
4. Reset the BIOS using the pins on the motherboard, the reset button and by removing the battery. Each time we got a confirmation that it has been reset, however, no changes.
5. Tried different harddisks (4TB HDD and 480GB SSD) but no success
6. Removed the GeForce external card and used the iGPU (Intel UHD 770) and tried another older videocard as well (Asus DUAL-RX460-2G), same issues with all three GPU's
7. Tried changing the RAM, we tried two sticks in A2 and B2, two sticks in A1 and B2, and only using one stick of 8GB
8. Gone through all of the advanced options of booting (safe mode, UEFI boot mode, repair mode etc), all going to either the black screen forcing us to reboot, or not doing anything.
9. Taken apart and rebuilt the entire PC twice, double-checking every cable/connection
10. Changed the default GPU in the bios to the internal GPU, to the PCI slot (if using an external card) and we even turned off the iGPU, no difference
11. Removed and reinstalled the GPU drivers multiple times via the device manager/safe booting
12. Ran the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool, no errors
13. Turned off the secure boot option in BIOS (it was Enabled, now Disabled, no differences)

My guts tell me something is not shutting down/launching properly, whereas it does when you force it by removing power, or something. I honestly doubt it is the VGA, as it also turns red when only the iGPU is connected and I doubt the iGPU would cause issues like this, no?

Some interesting things:

• During a succesful boot, the VGA LED sometimes turns off, sometimes it stays on
• Sometimes the time to go from turning the PC on to being able to login to Windows was rather long (30sec)
• Sometimes the time between logging in and actually having everything ready in the taskbar (shortcuts etc) was rather long (30sec). Disk was at 100% according to Task Manager.
• The BIOS froze twice when we were browsing to the BIOS update file via QFLASH in BIOS. Note: this is NOT during an installation.

My younger brother has been saving for this PC for over two years and now he has a computer that is still not fully functional. For now he can use it, as everything works like a charm, as long as the power is completely removed before turning it on. However, this is not supposed to happen. Does anyone have an idea? Your help is much appreciated!

 

[Lutfij]

Perhaps try and breadboard the innards, leaving the discrete GPU, storage options off the table as well as one stick of ram. Speaking of ram, with the single stick of ram, populate slot A2 or B2. You might want to source another/donor PSU and see if the issue persists. Along those lines, did you try clearing the CMOS? Disconnect from the wall and display, then remove the CMOS battery for at least 30 minutes. Replace it and then try powering up.

Curious though, how are you cooling that processor?

 

[Deleted member 2920117]

Perhaps try and breadboard the innards, leaving the discrete GPU, storage options off the table as well as one stick of ram. Speaking of ram, with the single stick of ram, populate slot A2 or B2. You might want to source another/donor PSU and see if the issue persists. Along those lines, did you try clearing the CMOS? Disconnect from the wall and display, then remove the CMOS battery for at least 30 minutes. Replace it and then try powering up.

Curious though, how are you cooling that processor?

Could you please link me to some more info about breadboarding the innards? That's something I've never done before.

We have tried resetting the CMOS, left it out for a solid 45 minutes, no change for the better sadly.

I have another 700w PSU laying around, I will try using that one (maybe even without the GeForce GPU as I think 700w might not be enough).

The CPU is being cooled using a 'BeQuiet! Pure Rock 2 Black'! I see I forgot to add that info, so added it to the main post.

If there are any more ideas they're more than welcome. I will give an update after we have changed the PSU!

 

[Deleted member 2920117]

Perhaps try and breadboard the innards, leaving the discrete GPU, storage options off the table as well as one stick of ram. Speaking of ram, with the single stick of ram, populate slot A2 or B2. You might want to source another/donor PSU and see if the issue persists. Along those lines, did you try clearing the CMOS? Disconnect from the wall and display, then remove the CMOS battery for at least 30 minutes. Replace it and then try powering up.

Curious though, how are you cooling that processor?

We removed the battery for 45 minutes, no cables at all connected to the PC so 100% sure no power. Sadly, it didn't solve anything. The same goes for the PSU: we used a 700W PSU instead of the newly purchased one, but the exact same thing happened.

I am starting to really think there is something wrong with the motherboard, hardware or software wise. I saw more topics here and on other websites with people having similar issues with this motherboard (however, none of them identical so I am not 100% sure).

Do you have any other idea? Your help is very much appreciated.

In the meantime I tried looking into breadboards but I am unfamiliar with that concept and got lost. I also contacted the seller to see what options we have in terms of warranty etc.