[SOLVED] PC bootlooping/powercycling after reseating ram

kirsion

Honorable
Jun 21, 2015
7
0
10,520
PC specs:
R5 3600 CPU,
Asrock b450m Steel Legend mobo,
V-color 3200mhz ram,
evga gtx 1070 GPU,
600 watt evga b1 bronze PSU.
Intel nvme, a ssd and hdd
6 rosewill rgb fans and a rosewill tempered glass case.

I always wear an electro-static bracelet grounded to the ground prong on an outlet or pc case with psu switched off. Mobo was mounted on brass standoff in the case.

The main problem I have is that the PC does not post and infinitely bootloops or powercycles after every 15-20 seconds. The lights and case fans turn on but there is not display or boot/splash screen. The occurred exactly right after I tried to re-seat the ram into the 2/4 lots instead of the 1/3 slots. I was super confused why simply re-seating ram modules would cause this.

Context, the reason I even considered re-seating the ram was that I had some problem OC’in and XMP profiles. So back when I built my PC about 8/9 months ago it was mostly fine. I had mild OC of 4.2 ghz on the cpu, enabled XMP and it ran fine for some months. Later, I tried to OC ram as well but that did not work very well so I stopped that. Some games started to crash abruptly and reset any overclock setting so I assumed it was the OC settings was bad, so I toned them down, and later left them on auto mode in the bios. Until recently, I founded that XMP does not work. When I tried to simply enable it, the PC will go will not boot(I think it displayed a bootloops behavior similar to what I have now, but it goes away), cpu fan doesn’t turn on until the it reboots with default settings. That’s why I tried to reseat the ram just now because I thought there might be a ram issue because I could not enable XMP.

Now the situation is pc bootlooping, the cpu fan doesn’t turn on but the case fans, which are not connected to the mobo direct are on with lights. The case fans spin with lights, the mobo’s rgb lights up too. I tried putting the ram into the previous spot and it was still powercycling. I tried using a single stick in different slots and nothing. I borrowed a 2x4gb crucial ddr4 from a working pc to test the same combinations as the v-color ram and it still didn’t work. After that barrage of test, I come to think it may not be the ram even though me reseating the ram seemed to cause it somehow.

The next thing I tried was to reseat the cpu and cpu cooler, which is an arctic freeze esports duo (noticed some red/brownish corrosion or paint on the top cooler where the bulbous pointy parts are, idk if relevant). I took out and noticed that was a tiny bit of extra thermal paste around the edges or pcb part of the top of the cpu but nothing crazy, I clean it and put a lesser amount of paste on it. Nothing wrong with the pins from what I could tell. At this point too I also removed cmos battery and put it back in to reset the bios. I turned on the pc and the cpu fan turns on this time but it all still bootloops. I think at some point here, the ram rgb lights stopped showing on slots 1/2, or something, only worked on slot 3 but after I think removing the cmos battery it began lighting up when powered on (still bootlooping) like normal.

The next thing I did was to take the 450-watt antec power supply from the working pc to test on this pc. I removed all components and cables besides the mobo, cpu, ram, and cpu cooler. I then connected the working PSU and it still bootlooped. I removed the ram and still nothing. I put all the parts in the working pc back and tried to remove the cmos battery for a longer period of time, about 24 hours and see if that worked. I removed the power plug, pressed the power button to clear the capacitors, shorted the cmos jumpers too. After about a day, I tried it again with putting back the cmos battery, which I check on a voltmeter was at 3.22v, not dead, it still power cycles.

One thing I did notice that was different was when I removed the 8-pin power cpu connector from the cpu header on the mobo, the power cycling stopped completely and stayed on continuously. But there was still no post obviously. I also tried using different power outlets with and without surge protectors and that did nothing.

At this point, I don’t think it’s the PSU because I tried a different psu and it had the same effect. I don’t think it was the ram since I tried working ram and all different combinations of slots and no ram at all and it still didn’t work, even thought reseating the ram seemed to cause all of this in the first place. I don’t think it’s the cpu or I can’t really tell because people rarely report cpu failures. My best guess here is the motherboard. Not sure if it’s a hardware problem or a bios issue (could be a bios since this asrock was flashed to work with 3000 series cpus, but it was working fine for 8-9 months so Idk how that would stop working).

I have been at a lost, searching online, I’ve seen some people with similar problems but at no avail to my own. If I do get a new mobo, it will problem have to be the same model (warranty probably) since I had some data on my windows install storage I want to save and I think getting a different brand would cause drivers conflicts which I can’t resolve if since I can’t boot the machine.
 
Solution
Update, probably dead thread and buried but anyone in the future who has the same problem, I found the solution. The bios for the b450m basically got corrupted or reverted to and older version from my messing around with xmp or overclocking. The b450m does not natively support 3000 series as I suspected before. Therefore I had two solutions, either get apu that is not 3000 series to update the bios or get a b550 or x570 mobo. I decided to get a new b550 mobo, gigabyte auros elite. That fixed the issue. I will probably try to get a boot kit from amd or buy a 2200g to make the steel legend usable in another pc or sell it on ebay as it.

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
Slots A2 and B2 are what need populating per your motherboard manual, page 22. Might want to power down the entire system, disconnect from the wall and remove the CMOS battery before replacing after 15 mins, then power up system and see if the issue persists.

Do you have access to a 650W unit that is reliably built? EVGA tend to have bad and good units in the same series(read bad QC). The Antec won't count as a PSU since it lacks the necessary power for your entire system.
See if the sticks of ram you have work on another (donor) system.
 

kirsion

Honorable
Jun 21, 2015
7
0
10,520
Slots A2 and B2 are what need populating per your motherboard manual, page 22. Might want to power down the entire system, disconnect from the wall and remove the CMOS battery before replacing after 15 mins, then power up system and see if the issue persists.

Do you have access to a 650W unit that is reliably built? EVGA tend to have bad and good units in the same series(read bad QC). The Antec won't count as a PSU since it lacks the necessary power for your entire system.
See if the sticks of ram you have work on another (donor) system.

I did use slots A2 and B2 several times and it didn't work.

I would think a ~450 watt PSU would be fine since booting should not draw a lot of power, not use the peak load of the cpu and gpu. r5 3600 +1070 is 250 watts at peak, plus all the other smaller power draw should < 300 watts.

I tested the v-color onto my working pc and it worked, so I know the ram isn't the issue for sure.

Anyway, since I can't find a fix I went ahead and decided to get a new mobo, gigabyte b550 auros elite, seasonic 750 watt gold psu, crucial 3200 ram for good measure.
 

kirsion

Honorable
Jun 21, 2015
7
0
10,520
Update, probably dead thread and buried but anyone in the future who has the same problem, I found the solution. The bios for the b450m basically got corrupted or reverted to and older version from my messing around with xmp or overclocking. The b450m does not natively support 3000 series as I suspected before. Therefore I had two solutions, either get apu that is not 3000 series to update the bios or get a b550 or x570 mobo. I decided to get a new b550 mobo, gigabyte auros elite. That fixed the issue. I will probably try to get a boot kit from amd or buy a 2200g to make the steel legend usable in another pc or sell it on ebay as it.
 
Solution

kirsion

Honorable
Jun 21, 2015
7
0
10,520
Update, probably dead thread and buried but anyone in the future who has the same problem, I found the solution. The bios for the b450m basically got corrupted or reverted to and older version from my messing around with xmp or overclocking. The b450m does not natively support 3000 series as I suspected before. Therefore I had two solutions, either get apu that is not 3000 series to update the bios or get a b550 or x570 mobo. I decided to get a new b550 mobo, gigabyte auros elite. That fixed the issue. I will probably try to get a boot kit from amd or buy a 2200g to make the steel legend usable in another pc or sell it on ebay as it.

So my RMA my asrock board and they sent me replacement that claimed to have the latest bios. I bought a brand new 3200g for it and it laughably did not work. Same powercycling crap. Except this time it was even worse because the replacement mobo's rgb lights did not even turn on. Bought an MSI b450m pro max 2, and see if it works, never buying asrock ever again.