[SOLVED] Troubleshoot MSI Z490I Unify - CPU light on and no video

[AdamZ101]

Hi, I built my desktop a few months back and everything has been working fine until yesterday. I've installed the beta of Baldur's Gate 3 and played it for a few hours, no issues. In the middle of the game my PC shut down unexpectedly. I booted the PC back up, played it for another hour or two, and the same thing happened. Now my PC's video output is not working, with the white light on the motherboard for the CPU on. I tried restarting it multiple times, including unplugging the power cable and waiting an hour. Sometimes it would boot to windows for a few minutes, only to shut off again. I removed the CPU and checked for pin damage, no issues. After rebooting multiple times I was finally able to get it up and running for a few hours last night after removing the CPU and video card, then reconnecting them. No crashes last night and I shut it down when I went to bed. This morning I booted it up for a few minutes only to have it crash once again.

I'm running the i7 10700k, cosair 32gb 3000 mhz ddr4, samsung 970 evo plus ssd 1tb, and a 650w 80+ gold power supply in a

• Intel Core i7-10700K Comet Lake 8-Core 3.8 GHz LGA 1200 125W Desktop Processor.
• MSI MEG Z490I Unify Gaming Motherboard.
• Corsair CMK32GX4M2B3000C15 LPX 32GB DRAM 3000MHz DDR4.
• Samsung (MZ-V7S1T0B/AM) 970 EVO Plus SSD 1TB - M.2 NVMe.
• Seasonic FOCUS SGX-650, 650W 80+ Gold SSR-650SGX.
• Lian Li TU 150 case.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I could try or what could be the problem? Thanks!

 

[wi5pa]

The ram is probably causing the issues,
Download and Run memtest 86 to see if there are any errors.

The white light indicates VGA output hence while you were not getting video output,
but the motherboard reset that and you could use again so its not the issue,
but i think the white light came on as you was using the video while playing a game,
The ram has interferred with the data transfer to the video output and caused the blue screen and crashing.

If the ram comes up clean then it may indicate a monitor issue.

 

[AdamZ101]

The ram is probably causing the issues,
Download and Run memtest 86 to see if there are any errors.

The white light indicates VGA output hence while you were not getting video output,
but the motherboard reset that and you could use again so its not the issue,
but i think the white light came on as you was using the video while playing a game,
The ram has interferred with the data transfer to the video output and caused the blue screen and crashing.

If the ram comes up clean then it may indicate a monitor issue.

Hi, I wont be able to run the RAM test since the computer wont boot up. I'll try to remove the RAM and see if I get any video.

The white light is actually on for the CPU, not video. I did try to remove the video card and connected the Display Port to the motherboard, but that didn't work either.

Thanks for your suggestions.

 

[ChumP]

In the middle of the game my PC shut down unexpectedly.

Is it like a power loss when your computer is shutting down or just the monitor goes black and fans ramp up?

650w 80+ gold power supply

Too vague, post the make and model of your PSU.

A CMOS clear would be the first thing to try: pull out the CMOS battery for 15-20 minutes, put it back in afterwards (with the correct polarity, + sign up).

If that doesn't work, get everything that's unnecessary out one by one and run with the bare minimums:

• single RAM module;
• no storage drives;
• pull out the GPU and run on the 10700k integrated graphics.

 

[AdamZ101]

Is it like a power loss when your computer is shutting down or just the monitor goes black and fans ramp up?



Too vague, post the make and model of your PSU.

A CMOS clear would be the first thing to try: pull out the CMOS battery for 15-20 minutes, put it back in afterwards (with the correct polarity, + sign up).

If that doesn't work, get everything that's unnecessary out one by one and run with the bare minimums:

• single RAM module;
• no storage drives;
• pull out the GPU and run on the 10700k integrated graphics.

Computer specs above in my main post.

I reset the CMOS, that didn't work. I can't figure out where the battery is, I looked in the manual and couldn't find it there too.

I'll try your other suggestions. Thanks for your tips.

 

[ChumP]

The battery is probably located somewhere under the IO shield shroud... clearing through shorting the pins does the same thing though.

 

[AdamZ101]

The battery is probably located somewhere under the IO shield shroud... clearing through shorting the pins does the same thing though.

There's actually a "Clear CMOS" button built in which I triggered.