[SOLVED] Troubleshooting: ROG B450-F LED flashes, beeps and won't boot

[Kackers25]

Hi all,

My PC won't start and I don't know how to interpret the LEDs and beeps.

I moved it from one room to the other and used an older cable that hadn't been used for a couple of years. The PC wouldn't boot and the motherboard showed an orange light then red the orange again before turning white and beeping. The cycle then repeated.

All RGB light were on including the CPU fan but the fan stopped for about a second whenever the light turned red.

The screen showed only a "_" in the middle of a black screen while the led was cycling through the colours but would disappear when the motherboard beeped. (I'm guessing this is when it tried to restart?)

What could be the cause of this and what should I start looking at first?

Thanks in advance,
Kacper

 

[Darkbreeze]

What do you mean by "older cable that hadn't been used for a couple of years"? What KIND of cable are we talking about here?

Network cable? Power cable from the PSU to the wall socket? Extension cord? Power strip? What, exactly?

 

[Kackers25]

What do you mean by "older cable that hadn't been used for a couple of years"? What KIND of cable are we talking about here?

Network cable? Power cable from the PSU to the wall socket? Extension cord? Power strip? What, exactly?

It was a power cable, connect to an extension lead that didn't have surge protection.

Also found that the orange light was for DRAM and the red one was for CPU

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ok, so none of that should be in use anyhow. Your PSU should be plugged DIRECTLY into the wall socket, using the cable that CAME WITH THE UNIT, unless you are using a high end industrial type power strip (Notice I don't say "surge protection" because a power strip and a surge protector are usually two different things AND most "surge protectors" couldn't protect your hardware from a tuna sandwich much less an actual surge) or an appropriate wave form type UPS battery backup system, that itself is plugged directly into the wall socket and not a power strip or surge protector.

Years of experience using PC systems and having to diagnose bushels full of issues where a high number of them ended up being faults with the circuitry inside the power strips. Primarily, cheap box store models but also a good number of supposedly premium power strip "surge protectors" that don't actually protect you from anything other than your own fear of what might happen if you actually end up needing a surge protector. A false sense of security.


Most people buy and use power strips because they THINK that the fact it says surge protector means something. Usually, it doesn't. This is one of my favorite quotes on the subject from an electrical engineer and residential/commercial electrical journeyman I know.

Buy a good one, but understand expensive OFTEN does not equal good.


"Monster" brand are the low end junk that are sold for a premium price. Look for what us professionals use. Tripp-lite is one of my go to absolute favorites as they have a price to quality mix that is exceptional. The Belkin brand is junk as far as I am concerned as they focus on how it looks and not how it works. APC is also another one that I will trust , but they mostly cater to data centers and Corporate customers when it comes to their quality units and they DO sell some lower end products that slot into the budget market that are not the same unquestionable quality as what they sell for professional and enterprise use.


Lastly, if you really care about your electronics, get a Whole house surge suppressor installed in your electrical panel. Only a few hundred bucks and it protects everything including the overpriced LED lightbulbs that is all the rage these days.

Units you want to consider will be those sold by APC, Tripp-Lite, Leviton, Eaton, Leviton, General Electric, Polyphaser, Ditek, Siemens, ABB, Square D, Intermatic, Cutler-Hammer (Eaton), and Syscom, these are the brands you can trust to have high quality internal electronics if you MUST use a power strip but even so you STILL will want to ask around about specific models OR look to professional reviews as even these big boys occasionally have a product with some glaring flaw that makes it's way into the final product and might best be avoided compared to other available models.

Do not however use a power strip thinking that it offers significant protection, because even the best of them does not, not really. Whole house protection is the only real protection from surges.


Monster and Belkin, and a few others that are commonly used, almost unilaterally use the same protections in their 45 dollar surge protector strips as what you would find in an 8 dollar Amazon or Walmart branded model. And if you ever take one of these, or any cheap box store, dollar store (Even worse than these others usually BUT occasionally about the same) or Harbor Freight power strip apart you are likely to find frayed wires, poorly soldered connections with blobs of solder nearly touching crucial and potential short circuit points, super low quality MOVs, and a ton of other indicators that no real integrity was involved in the design or manufacturer of these units.


Another factor to keep in mind is that even with some of these high quality units, any protection that MIGHT be afforded, is usually the end of that product after one shot. This, directly from the Tripp-Lite manual for the #1 selling surge protection power strip in the world.

All models feature an internal protection that will disconnect the surge-protective component at the end of its useful life but will maintain power to the load now unprotected.

I believe many models from APC and a couple of the others I listed have now incorporated designs that permanently disengage any ability of the device to deliver power once a surge or short of significant enough caliber to incur the protection has occured. That basically means once there has been a surge or short, throw the device away. Even for high end models. Only whole house protection and properly earthed circuits offer any true protection from a serious surge or direct strike from lightning somewhere close enough to affect your segment of the grid.


And whatever you do, don't EVER buy any kind of extension cord, power strip or other electronic device with slip rings.

This Power Strip Is A Fire Starter

A few weeks ago I needed a power strip in my home office. The outlet in question is located behind a filing cabinet so it would need a low profile plug. I jumped on Amazon to buy a surge suppressor…

hackaday.com

So, eliminate the extension cord and old power cord, use the cord that came with the power supply that is in use and see if there is any different result. If not, we can go from there.

 

[Kackers25]

Ok, so none of that should be in use anyhow. Your PSU should be plugged DIRECTLY into the wall socket, using the cable that CAME WITH THE UNIT, unless you are using a high end industrial type power strip (Notice I don't say "surge protection" because a power strip and a surge protector are usually two different things AND most "surge protectors" couldn't protect your hardware from a tuna sandwich much less an actual surge) or an appropriate wave form type UPS battery backup system, that itself is plugged directly into the wall socket and not a power strip or surge protector.

Years of experience using PC systems and having to diagnose bushels full of issues where a high number of them ended up being faults with the circuitry inside the power strips. Primarily, cheap box store models but also a good number of supposedly premium power strip "surge protectors" that don't actually protect you from anything other than your own fear of what might happen if you actually end up needing a surge protector. A false sense of security.


Most people buy and use power strips because they THINK that the fact it says surge protector means something. Usually, it doesn't. This is one of my favorite quotes on the subject from an electrical engineer and residential/commercial electrical journeyman I know.





Units you want to consider will be those sold by APC, Tripp-Lite, Leviton, Eaton, Leviton, General Electric, Polyphaser, Ditek, Siemens, ABB, Square D, Intermatic, Cutler-Hammer (Eaton), and Syscom, these are the brands you can trust to have high quality internal electronics if you MUST use a power strip but even so you STILL will want to ask around about specific models OR look to professional reviews as even these big boys occasionally have a product with some glaring flaw that makes it's way into the final product and might best be avoided compared to other available models.

Do not however use a power strip thinking that it offers significant protection, because even the best of them does not, not really. Whole house protection is the only real protection from surges.


Monster and Belkin, and a few others that are commonly used, almost unilaterally use the same protections in their 45 dollar surge protector strips as what you would find in an 8 dollar Amazon or Walmart branded model. And if you ever take one of these, or any cheap box store, dollar store (Even worse than these others usually BUT occasionally about the same) or Harbor Freight power strip apart you are likely to find frayed wires, poorly soldered connections with blobs of solder nearly touching crucial and potential short circuit points, super low quality MOVs, and a ton of other indicators that no real integrity was involved in the design or manufacturer of these units.


Another factor to keep in mind is that even with some of these high quality units, any protection that MIGHT be afforded, is usually the end of that product after one shot. This, directly from the Tripp-Lite manual for the #1 selling surge protection power strip in the world.





I believe many models from APC and a couple of the others I listed have now incorporated designs that permanently disengage any ability of the device to deliver power once a surge or short of significant enough caliber to incur the protection has occured. That basically means once there has been a surge or short, throw the device away. Even for high end models. Only whole house protection and properly earthed circuits offer any true protection from a serious surge or direct strike from lightning somewhere close enough to affect your segment of the grid.


And whatever you do, don't EVER buy any kind of extension cord, power strip or other electronic device with slip rings.

This Power Strip Is A Fire Starter

A few weeks ago I needed a power strip in my home office. The outlet in question is located behind a filing cabinet so it would need a low profile plug. I jumped on Amazon to buy a surge suppressor…

hackaday.com

So, eliminate the extension cord and old power cord, use the cord that came with the power supply that is in use and see if there is any different result. If not, we can go from there.

Hi thanks for a the information,

I have now reverted to standard power cord and removed any extension leads.

Unfortunately this didn't revert whatever damage has already been done. The PC is stuck in a boot loop and restarts before even displaying a bios screen. I was able to workout that all the lights and the single beep are as standard until the PC reboots and the cycle repeats.

I tried my graphics card on my friends system and all worked fine. I also tried to remove 1 RAM at a time but with no success. Finally I removed the CMOS battery and put it back in after 5 minutes but this also had no effect.

Starting to think this could be a motherboard issue as I'm not getting any error beeps and I'm stuck in a boot loop

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance,
Kacper

 

[Darkbreeze]

What are the full hardware specs and approximate age of these components, roughly?

 

[Kackers25]

What are the full hardware specs and approximate age of these components, roughly?

CPU - Ryzen 7 3700x
RAM - Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200
Motherboard - Asus B450f
PSU - Corsair RM 1000x
GPU - Sapphire RX480 Nitro+

CPU/RAM/Motherboard came as part of a bundle and are about 5 months old.

PSU is about 8 months old.

GPU is now about 3 years old.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I'm curious as to why you have a 1000w power supply for a graphics card that would run perfectly fine, even with room to spare, on a 550w unit, but again, that is probably peripheral to your problem. It is however likely to put your PSU in a position where it almost never runs in the goldilocks zone of it's best efficiency and is probably almost always giving off way more heat as waste than it would if it were able to be mostly running within the 40-80% capacity range that offers the best efficiency. Anyhow, it's WAY overkill for that system.

My advice is, pull everything out of the case and bench test it. I'm thinking that it's most likely to be a graphics card issue, but it's really hard to say why a system stops working after doing nothing more than moving it from one room to the next.

Maybe first try unplugging the PSU, flipping off the switch on the back of the PSU, remove the CMOS battery for about five minutes while pressing the power button for 30 seconds at some point during those five minutes, then put it all back together to see if the PSU has reset itself.

Are you getting zero signs of life other than a couple of lights? Try removing the graphics card and powering on to see if the fans spin up and it acts normal. If it does, then power back off and reinstall the card, power back on and see if it changed.

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

 

[Kackers25]

I'm curious as to why you have a 1000w power supply for a graphics card that would run perfectly fine, even with room to spare, on a 550w unit, but again, that is probably peripheral to your problem. It is however likely to put your PSU in a position where it almost never runs in the goldilocks zone of it's best efficiency and is probably almost always giving off way more heat as waste than it would if it were able to be mostly running within the 40-80% capacity range that offers the best efficiency. Anyhow, it's WAY overkill for that system.

My advice is, pull everything out of the case and bench test it. I'm thinking that it's most likely to be a graphics card issue, but it's really hard to say why a system stops working after doing nothing more than moving it from one room to the next.

Maybe first try unplugging the PSU, flipping off the switch on the back of the PSU, remove the CMOS battery for about five minutes while pressing the power button for 30 seconds at some point during those five minutes, then put it all back together to see if the PSU has reset itself.

Are you getting zero signs of life other than a couple of lights? Try removing the graphics card and powering on to see if the fans spin up and it acts normal. If it does, then power back off and reinstall the card, power back on and see if it changed.

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

Yeah I'm aware that the PSU is way overkill for the system but I purchased it with potential for later upgrades

I tested my graphics card on my friends system and all ran well.

I'm getting signs of life from the PC as all fans switch on as normal except they stop and restart whenever the motherboard finishes the led sequence at which point the entire system restarts and begins to attempt to boot again.

Just tried removing the CMOS battery but no success. Also tried to run the system without a graphics card but still the same.

I can provide a video of the bootloop sequence if needed?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Which DIMM slots are your memory modules installed in? Try pulling them out and reinstalling them in the same slots, IF those slots are the A2 and B2 slots, which are the second and fourth slots over going left to right starting at the CPU socket. The fourth slot is the one closest to the edge of the motherboard.

If that doesn't do anything then try removing the 4+4 pin EPS and 24 pin ATX power connectors to the motherboard and reseating them, with the unit switched off of course. Then switch it back on and try to power on. Try unplugging ALL drives, both SATA data and power cables, and try switching the system on. This is probably a motherboard issue, almost certainly, but eliminating everything else first is always wise because there are a lot of other things that can LOOK like a motherboard issue.

Other than the power cable, there is NOTHING else that was changed between one room to the next, right? Nothing, at all?

I think you should do the bench test like I linked to. That is the best way to find the problem, and if the motherboard IS bad, you are going to have to remove it from the case anyhow to replace or RMA it, so you lose nothing by doing so. At the least, READ the bench test tutorial that I linked to, and go from there.

 

[DMAN999]

Try Clearing the CMOS like this:

• Unplug the PC (PSU).
• Then press the Power Button for at least 30 seconds.

(the on board ROG LEDs will sometimes flash after 20-30 seconds to show that all power has been drained from the board).

• Use a flat headed screwdriver to short the CLR CMOS (CLRTC) Jumper (Touch both jumper pins with the screwdriver) for at least 15 seconds. CLRTC jumper location can be seen on page 1-2 here: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...ING/E14401_ROG_STRIX_B450-F_GAMING_UM_WEB.pdf
• Plug the PC back in.
• Press the Power Button to turn the PC on.
• Repeatedly tap the DEL key
• A screen should come up telling you to press the F1 key, do that.
• Set the Optimized Default settings and Press OK (this is on the EXIT tab)
• Save and exit the BIOS.
• Tap the DEL key again to enter the BIOS and change any settings you want changed then save and exit again.

I have that same MB and had to do this multiple times when I was OC-ing my CPU and RAM.
It would get stuck in that boot loop and this was the only way I found to get out of it.
And you might have to do it more than once.