[SOLVED] PC failing to pass BIOS on first try?

[sandijs11]

Hello.
First things first, I have a pretty old components:

AMD FX-6300
Asrock 970 Pro3 R2.0
Old PSU - FSP SP-500-A
New (second hand) PSU - Be Quiet Pure Power 10 700W
GTX 1050ti
1TB WD HDD
128gb Kingston SATA SSD

The problem:
I was thinking about a pc upgrade for a long time. Since I needed a lot beefier components, I decided to get a good second hand power supply.
What I got is a "Be Quiet Pure power 10" 700W PSU.
I decided to test it on my current setup, to prove it was in working condition and everything is alright.
I swapped out the old PSU for the new one. Booted up, nothing. The system sometimes didn't post, sometimes it froze up at BIOS screen. After clearing CMOS, it suddenly booted up to the OS.
I connected all the drives back together, now it didn't post/froze again.
You boot up, press F11, it runs for a few seconds, then freezes and you can't do anything. Or if you just wait to see what happens, it gets stuck on the "Press bla bla to blabla" screen.
Decided the PSU was bad, swapped for my old one. Same problem.
After troubleshooting for quite some time, I figured the problem was, that for each drive I connect/disconnect, I needed to reset the CMOS. That was news to me, but ok.
Finally I got to boot my computer to Windows main screen, now it was time to install the new PSU again. Installed it, reset the CMOS, stress tested, everything seems to be in working condition.
Now I shut down my computer, press the "Power on" button, it freezes up on the POST screen again. "Oh no, not again", or so I thought. I turned it off, turned on again.. Boots up just like nothing happened.

So the problem I am having right now is the PC fails to boot up on the first try. Haven't tested if the same happens with my old power supply yet.
It always gets stuck on the 99/D7 code, although D7 happens rarely. I mostly think the codes are coincidence, as it just freezes the same time they appear. The system always boots normally on the second try.

First try (gets stuck/freezes):

Second try (it continues booting to OS from here):

I have tried:
Resetting CMOS mutliple times
Updating BIOS (I had an older version)
Reseating connectors/components
Updating drivers

I have checked:
If time is correct in the BIOS
Fast boot disabled in BIOS
Fast boot disabled in Windows
Removed all USB devices before first boot

Please help! Is this a faulty PSU? Did I damage my system? Should I open the PSU and check the capacitors?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Try replacing the CMOS battery. On a board that old, it could easily have a dead or weak battery and that could definitely cause those or other boot related problems.

Also, try booting with drives disconnected from the motherboard to see if perhaps there's a problem with one of the drives that's related. You'll only be able to get into the BIOS that way, but if it works on the first try it tells you something you didn't know before. You might also try dowloading and creating bootable Linux (Whatever flavor you prefer) distro like Ubuntu to see if there are any issues when trying to boot to that via USB flash drive ALSO with the HDD and SSD disconnected.

 

[mc_spaceman]

have you upgraded anything else other than your psu?

your bios date isnt listed in the current list for that motherboard. if you are able to, i would download and update it. https://www.asrock.com/mb/amd/970 pro3 r2.0/#BIOS .. I would update it to revision 2.80.

99: The motherboard code 99 on a black screen is triggered by a hardware problem that prevents the OS from loading properly. In order to fix it, make sure that the SATA mode is set correctly in the BIOS. Also, check the time and date in the BIOS as they can cause this problem.
~Check the cmos battery, or replace it as mentioned above.

D7: The ASRock display on the board primarily stops on code d7 when it fails to post. That indicates there is no keyboard/mouse.
~When you get the D7 error code, are your keyboard and mouse plugged in? old ps/2 or usb? ifthey are usb, you may have damaged some circuitry with a surge when changing power supplies. I've had a few asRock boards I've had nothing but problems with; dead usb's being the biggest issue. at that point, id look into a new motherboard instead of going any further.

short of that. the only component you have changed is the psu? I'm kind of wondering if there was a static discharge when plugging in/taking the Molex plugs on/off the motherboard. you could have damaged the circuitry in it, i would say to inspect for any swollen capacitors, but that board comes with solid caps.

if it winds up being the motherboard, and for nostalgic reasons you'd like to keep the cpu, ram etc. my recommendation is to look into obtaining an asus m5a97 : https://www.asus.com/SupportOnly/M5A97_R20/HelpDesk_Knowledge/

or: the asus m5a99fx pro r2.0 (more pricey, but the most stable, and durable motherboard that can support any overclock you can throw at any of the fx series cpus, ive had mine running for coming up to 10 years..)

please update as you can.

 

[Darkbreeze]

How To - Motherboard bench testing

Finding the problem through bench testing If you are here then it’s likely you have encountered a serious hardware issue and have been unable to resolve it using the standard no-POST troubleshooting procedures. If you have not yet attempted to resolve your issues using the no-POST...

forums.tomshardware.com

And for the record, these are the AM3+ boards I'd recommend targeting if you have to look for a board, although, at this point (And honestly, even when the platform was new) it would be money much better put towards something newer considering you can get a CPU, motherboard and memory from the most recent Gen 12 Intel platform for around 300-350 bucks that includes a four core eight thread i3 that outperforms what you have now by about four times.

(Be sure to check when looking for a motherboard that any of the models shown below are either 990fx, 990 or 970 chipsets. A Z170 Extreme6 for example, is not going to work with your FX processor, so, in this example, you want to look for the 990/990fx Extreme6.)

GA-990FXA-UD7
Extreme6
Extreme9
Fatal1ty 990FX Professional
Crosshair V Formula-Z
Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
GA-99FXA-UD5
MSI GD80V2
M5A99FX PRO R2.0
GA-99FXA-UD3
MSI GD65V2
990FX Killer
Extreme4
M5A99X EVO (R2.0 as well)
GA-990XA-UD3
990XA-GD55
GA-970A-UD3P
M5A97 or EVO or PRO (R.2 as well)
GA-970A-UD3
970 GAMING
970A SLI Krait (USB 3.1 supported)

 

[sandijs11]

Try replacing the CMOS battery. On a board that old, it could easily have a dead or weak battery and that could definitely cause those or other boot related problems.

Also, try booting with drives disconnected from the motherboard to see if perhaps there's a problem with one of the drives that's related. You'll only be able to get into the BIOS that way, but if it works on the first try it tells you something you didn't know before. You might also try dowloading and creating bootable Linux (Whatever flavor you prefer) distro like Ubuntu to see if there are any issues when trying to boot to that via USB flash drive ALSO with the HDD and SSD disconnected.

Thank you for the reply! I measured the voltage level on the CMOS battery, it was 2,55V. Definitely will get a new one. It wasn't a part of the problem sadly. When I continued to test the system today, I just did it without the CMOS battery. Every time I plug the PC out, I should have to reset the BIOS anyway. Still no luck. I have Fedora Linux on the SSD, so I tried to boot between the drives to see if I come to a conclusion. I seem to have found the root cause of the problem, I will post it shortly on this thread.

 

[sandijs11]

have you upgraded anything else other than your psu?

your bios date isnt listed in the current list for that motherboard. if you are able to, i would download and update it. https://www.asrock.com/mb/amd/970 pro3 r2.0/#BIOS .. I would update it to revision 2.80.

99: The motherboard code 99 on a black screen is triggered by a hardware problem that prevents the OS from loading properly. In order to fix it, make sure that the SATA mode is set correctly in the BIOS. Also, check the time and date in the BIOS as they can cause this problem.
~Check the cmos battery, or replace it as mentioned above.

D7: The ASRock display on the board primarily stops on code d7 when it fails to post. That indicates there is no keyboard/mouse.
~When you get the D7 error code, are your keyboard and mouse plugged in? old ps/2 or usb? ifthey are usb, you may have damaged some circuitry with a surge when changing power supplies. I've had a few asRock boards I've had nothing but problems with; dead usb's being the biggest issue. at that point, id look into a new motherboard instead of going any further.

short of that. the only component you have changed is the psu? I'm kind of wondering if there was a static discharge when plugging in/taking the Molex plugs on/off the motherboard. you could have damaged the circuitry in it, i would say to inspect for any swollen capacitors, but that board comes with solid caps.

if it winds up being the motherboard, and for nostalgic reasons you'd like to keep the cpu, ram etc. my recommendation is to look into obtaining an asus m5a97 : https://www.asus.com/SupportOnly/M5A97_R20/HelpDesk_Knowledge/

or: the asus m5a99fx pro r2.0 (more pricey, but the most stable, and durable motherboard that can support any overclock you can throw at any of the fx series cpus, ive had mine running for coming up to 10 years..)

please update as you can.

Thank you for the reply!
I haven't physically upgraded anything else than the PSU hardware wise. I mentioned that I updated the BIOS, the dates seem to be off from the official page and the BIOS date. I have 2.80. The code 99 and D7 was just a coincidence, as it would go further than that (see the windows logo) sometimes. Or just straight up not post. But what I did notice was white pixels/stripes appearing on the screen when it crashed. I checked the power supply, the capacitors seemed to be in very good condition. Later I switched between the power supplies, same problem. It was the system itself that was causing problems. I will create a post soon on this thread of where I am now. Seems the problem is solved.

 

[sandijs11]

So here's how it went and where I'm at now:

My PC was at the point where you had to turn it on, wait for it to crash, turn off, turn on again and then boot into windows.
I was tired, went to sleep, slept, woke up. Turned on my PC (really hoped it would fix itself), but got greeted with a "Windows needs repair" something something "error". A hard windows error. Not even a BSOD, but simply DOS text. Well now I returned to where it all started.

Now the system started crashing again on each boot, didn't know what to do. I switched back to my old power supply, continued to experiment.
After a CMOS reset, the first boot would crash, the second would boot me into OS or BIOS, later boots would continue to crash.
I started to take note of white pixels/stripes in different colors appearing when the system crashed/shortly after crashing .
I was simply at a dead end and restarted the system and hoped for something to happen.
So after restarting and getting to the drive boot screen (where it would usually crash), this time I got this:

This didn't appear just as the screen opened, it happen 1 second after clicking through the lines to see if it crashes.
Normally it would look like this:
Microsoft Windows Boot
WDC something something (HDD)
USB: 8.07 (Bootable USB for windows repair)
UEFI: 8.07 (Bootable USB for windows repair)

So this really got me wondering, what could have caused this. Then I remembered maybe my ram is faulty and failed.
The RAM would also explain why there appeared random lines/pixels, as the same had happened to me when overcloking the GPU until crashing.

So I took out 2 sticks of ram (I have 4x4), Started to test the RAM on boot.
If it boots and shuts down 4 times without crashing, the stick is good.
Did this test to all the sticks (Each stick swapped around), all of them passed. Weird. so I swap the sticks around, put them back, but now it all works.... What?
It didn't crash anymore, nothing. A perfectly normal system. So if everything is working great, time to switch back to my new PSU.

Switched the unit, same thing as before. Crashing on boot. Welp, the PSU if definitely bad. Or so I thought (again).
Did the same RAM test as before, it all passed, put all sticks back, works perfectly. It doesn't crash and boots on first time.
Hopefully this stays that way.

Thank you everyone for your help and support! I have absolutely no explanation for what happened or what is happening.
My guess would be, this board is really old and the AM3+ 970 chipset is very problematic. Each board has it's own tips and tricks.

This isn't the first time the AM3+ 970 chipset has done me this way, since my last board died a shameful death. Restarted and simply died. Then the static noise in the headphones, not even mentioning it didn't recognize more than 2 sticks of ram (even the same type, same timings, manufacturer, everything).

 

[sandijs11]

How To - Motherboard bench testing

Finding the problem through bench testing If you are here then it’s likely you have encountered a serious hardware issue and have been unable to resolve it using the standard no-POST troubleshooting procedures. If you have not yet attempted to resolve your issues using the no-POST...

forums.tomshardware.com

And for the record, these are the AM3+ boards I'd recommend targeting if you have to look for a board, although, at this point (And honestly, even when the platform was new) it would be money much better put towards something newer considering you can get a CPU, motherboard and memory from the most recent Gen 12 Intel platform for around 300-350 bucks that includes a four core eight thread i3 that outperforms what you have now by about four times.

(Be sure to check when looking for a motherboard that any of the models shown below are either 990fx, 990 or 970 chipsets. A Z170 Extreme6 for example, is not going to work with your FX processor, so, in this example, you want to look for the 990/990fx Extreme6.)

GA-990FXA-UD7
Extreme6
Extreme9
Fatal1ty 990FX Professional
Crosshair V Formula-Z
Sabertooth 990FX R2.0
GA-99FXA-UD5
MSI GD80V2
M5A99FX PRO R2.0
GA-99FXA-UD3
MSI GD65V2
990FX Killer
Extreme4
M5A99X EVO (R2.0 as well)
GA-990XA-UD3
990XA-GD55
GA-970A-UD3P
M5A97 or EVO or PRO (R.2 as well)
GA-970A-UD3
970 GAMING
970A SLI Krait (USB 3.1 supported)

Hey! Thank you for your concern! Really appreciate it!

I have already started my new build, and so far I've gotten:
Zotac GTX 1080;
i5 11500;
Gigabyte Pure Power 10 700w;
Corsair Vegenance RGB Pro white 3200MHz 2x8gb.

Now what's keeping me from finishing the build is the company I ordered Aorus b560m pro from.

So the reason I actually ran into these problems, thus the thread, is cause I wanted to stress test the 1080 on my new power supply, while waiting for the board.
But it's pretty ironic of how it went. Now I am simply really thankful my computer runs right now.

For the PSU choosing I looked at PSU cultists tier list.

Thank you for the reply!