Perplexing computer problem (nothing happening...)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m helping one of my daughter’s friends troubleshoot a computer. It is a fairly new build, Gigabyte Aorus B550M Elite AX mobo, AMD Ryzen 7 5700G processor.

It… doesn’t work. Hooked everything up, press power, CPU fan comes on, case fan comes on, GPU fans don’t come on.

The thing is, I just built another machine for another of my daughter’s friends, and it is here… same exact specs; so we swapped out CPUs, and his CPU works in the new machine. GPUs, his works in the new machine. We had done this previously, and came to the conclusion the mobo needed replaced, so we went ahead and did that; this is a brand new motherboard, and it acts exactly the same as the old one.

I’m at a complete loss. Things we’ve done:

  • Test power supply (checks out okay)
  • Try different power supply (same result)
  • Try on-board graphics (same result)
  • Strip down to the bare essentials (power and CPU only, using the on-board graphics; same result)
  • Pulled everything out and reseated it (same result)
  • Flashed BIOS (this went successfully, so the mobo does SOME things like it is supposed to)

We can’t get to BIOS. Unfortunately, this mobo doesn’t have a POST speaker or LCD display or anything, so I don’t have a clue what MIGHT be happening. It seems to not be getting to the “test the graphics card” phase of POST, because when all the components were hooked up in the other machine, after about 30 seconds, the graphics card fans started turning, shutting off, and turning before it finished the process and went into BIOS.

If I had hair, I’d be pulling it out at this point.

Any ideas?

2

Only thing you did not mention is swapping memory modules. Did you?

3

Does this motherboard maybe need a particular jumper set for a hardware item you are using? Two identical MBs failing in the same way with hardware that works on other MB makes me think a jumper needs to be changed?

4

Pulled out memory modules; haven’t swapped between the two machines. Can do that now.

No jumpers to speak of on these; and like I said, these two computers are literally identical as far as hardware, with the exception of the graphics card (case included!)

5

Oh. I may have misread. So all hardware peripherals work in another system with the same MB. Except maybe memory. So 3 MBs of same type and 2 do not work?

6

Nothing at all? Usually there are at least little LEDs (very tiny) that light up and/or change color to indicate what’s happening during POST.

7

Does yours work in his machine?

8

Could it be a memory training issue? That can take some time. If you are using DDR5 this can happen (first time it happened to me I thought I had messed something up…it can take a bit of time).

When a DDR5 system is powered on but not finishing POST, but has not returned a specific POST error either, this may be an indicator that such “training” is occurring. During this process the system firmware is configuring itself for the newly installed memory. LEDs on the motherboard or computer may or may not be active during this process. On-screen symptoms of this may be a black screen or the system pausing on a manufacturer splash screen. - SOURCE

9

Nice info. Have to remember that.

10

Well, my face is red.

It turned out our memory swap was… faulty.

Narrowed it down to one bad stick, and with that out of the picture, both machines are working.

Thanks for prodding us on this one. Hours of headache solved with a simple check (that we both swore we already did before…)

Thanks everybody!

11

Awesome. Glad I could help.

12

Always seems the way. You bang your head over the problem for hours only to find the solution is a one minute fix. Has happened to me many times.

Glad you got it sorted.

13

I looked at his mobo’s manual. No such thing. Definitely a feature I look for in a mobo. Doesn’t tell you much, but it’s a solid clue at the very least.

14

I am still keeping old XP systems with custom weird cards and motherboards alive as part of my work. So a lot of parts die. Always cannibalizing and swapping parts.

15

Hard to say but I think there is a good chance that if the mobo had some way to report problems, minimal as that is, it might have pointed @Kron to the memory being the problem. It won’t tell you what is wrong with it (probably) but that is where it is getting hung-up. Helps narrow the search for a fix. A worthwhile feature.

16

Yeah, it’s the first computer I’ve ever put together that had absolutely NO indicator of what’s going on with POST.

17

That is the case so very often that when I get a real head banger like that I start over from scratch.

Try to forget everything about your prior test results and inferences.

Damned hard to do, but often the only way to move forward.

Glad you got to success somehow.

18

Quoted For Truth. Boy howdy.

19

Old timers have a saying about a particular device (usually a car) that mysteriously seems to have problems that none of the others have: “It’s a lemon!” LOL

My last gaming desk top from “Digital Storm” was exactly like that. Couldn’t solve its problem myself and their over the phone tech support couldn’t figure it out, either. After 2 years of coddling and coaxing to get it to boot up, I finally got a new system. That’s an expensive way to solve a problem at $2,000+ a pop.

20

I know we all know this, but diagnosis and repair are two different problems with no necessary connection between degree of difficulty.

  1. It can take a half-second glance to diagnose a rod thrown through a cylinder head, but 5 days to change the engine.
  2. It can take days to track down an intermittently failing connector and 30 seconds to clean the gunk out of its mating surfaces once you find it.

It’s also the case that folks vary greatly in their skills for diagnosis versus repair. Some folks can’t diagnose their way out of a wet paper bag, but are a whiz at quick correct repairs once somebody else shows them what’s broke. And vice versa.

It might be nice if those disparities didn’t exist. But we don’t live in that world.