Question PC wont boot anymore, what should I try replacing first?

[Thomor]

Hey all, got this PC from PCSpecialist back in 2019. In recent months it's been having a bit of a sluggish boot time, seeming to hang for 10 secs or so with all the fans spinning and lights on before it finally gives the boot beep and starts up. About 3 weeks ago it just stopped booting altogether and the motherboard light is red on DRAM. It flashes back to CPU a couple of times as though it's attempting to try again and then after a couple tries it just sits on flat red DRAM light and doesn't go any further. Everything else inside appears powered up, fans and lights all working, but no boot and no beeps.

I'm thinking about trying to replace a component to see what the problem is, starting with the RAM since that seems the most likely culprit. However, I have tried booting the system with only a single stick of RAM installed (tried twice with both sticks) and tried switching slots too. So what's the chances both sticks of RAM died at the exact same time? Could be it that the CPU itself is dead instead and I shouldn't waste money on RAM and just replace that instead? Any advice welcome.

Here is the full spec of the PC:

Case
CORSAIR CRYSTAL SERIES 460X RGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 5 3600X Six Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.4GHz/36MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE B450 AORUS ELITE: DDR4, USB 3.1 - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB AMD RADEON™ RX 590 - HDMI, DP - DX® 12 (Note that this was replaced a year later with an RX 5600XT and have been running that ever since)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB ADATA SX6000 Pro PCIe M.2 2280 (2100 MB/R, 1500 MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W VS SERIES™ VS-650 POWER SUPPLY
Processor Cooling
PCS FrostFlow 100 V2 Series High Performance CPU Cooler (AMD)
LED Lighting
2 x 50cm RGB LED Strip
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

 

[Lutfij]

From what you've explained, it could be a faulty CPU, a bad BIOS on your motherboard or a PSU that's on it's way out or is already out.

You could try reseating your ram and GPU and see if that helps.

If it is a corrupt BIOS, sadly your motherboard doesn't have a BIOS recovery option. You will need to use a CH341A BIOS programmer to reflash the BIOS. You could try with a donor PSU that is reliably built and of higher wattage(750W) borrowed from a friend or neighbor and see if that helps revive your system. If you want to narrow the ram as the root cause, drop in another ram kit into slots A2 and B2 and see if that resolves the issue.

You could conversely drop your existing ram kit onto a known working motherboard and see if that brigns up any errors.

 

[Thomor]

From what you've explained, it could be a faulty CPU, a bad BIOS on your motherboard or a PSU that's on it's way out or is already out.

You could try reseating your ram and GPU and see if that helps.

If it is a corrupt BIOS, sadly your motherboard doesn't have a BIOS recovery option. You will need to use a CH341A BIOS programmer to reflash the BIOS. You could try with a donor PSU that is reliably built and of higher wattage(750W) borrowed from a friend or neighbor and see if that helps revive your system. If you want to narrow the ram as the root cause, drop in another ram kit into slots A2 and B2 and see if that resolves the issue.

You could conversely drop your existing ram kit onto a known working motherboard and see if that brigns up any errors.

Hey mate thanks for the reply, I didn't consider the PSU at all since everything else in the case is powered up normally, don't have any knowledge about BIOS but is that a thing that BIOS can just corrupt itself over time without any input from me? Last time I updated BIOS was in 2020 and it worked fine up until now.

The main problem I'm running into is availability of components to test, since my only other computer is an older DDR3 based system so I can't check the memory between the two. The PSU in this old PC is also 10 years old and only 500W (though it works fine).

Only option I really have is to buy new components to test if that particular one is the problem, just wondering what the most likely culprit is so I don't have to buy new everything. Both RAM sticks dying at the exact same time seems a bit odd though so I'm leaning towards CPU, but I'm not an expert so I don't really know.