Hi everyone,
I'm a new PC builder, and so recently most of the parts had been delivered and I started working on it. These are the parts I used:
CPU: Ryzen 5 3600
Motherboard: Asrock B450M PRO4 Micro-ATX
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2x8) DDR4-3600
Storage: Crucial P1 1TB M.2 NVME SSD
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER VENTUS XS OC
Power Supply: EVGA BQ 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular
I started building once I got all the parts, except for the NVME because it arrived reaaaally late and I just wanted to start building.
So, I built it. It was fine at first- it could go into BIOS. I noticed that the ram was running really slow (like 2133 instead of 3600, if my memory serves me right) and so switched to the XMP profile.
Then I saved the changes and exited. But since I had no OS on my computer yet it I guess shut down/restarted and just brought me back to BIOS. It was at this point I thought that I should do a BIOS update because I heard that my motherboard and CPU weren't compatible without one. However, I came to the realization yesterday thanks to one of my friends that I actually didn't need to do one because the motherboard was compatible for the CPU out-the-box.
It literally said on the box "3000 Ready", and somehow I didn't see it; however, I didn't know this two days ago when I actually built it. And so then I got the latest BIOS of my motherboard onto a flash drive and plugged it in to the front USB ports. However, it didn't detect the drive no matter which port I put it in, so what I did after was shut the computer down, took out the flash drive and put it in again (This time in the USB 3.0 port, if it matters), and then powered the computer on again. This is where the problem occurs: when I turned on the computer, the monitor turned black and green and shortly afterwards I see "no display detected" on my screen (I was using a DisplayPort, GPU to Monitor.) It never said it was going through the BIOS update- maybe it actually was in the background but who knows.
Over these past 2 days, I've been trying everything I could scrounge on the Internet to try and fix it, but nothing worked:
I've powered down and unplugged countless times already.
Removed the CMOS battery for a few minutes, 4 hours, and overnight, placing it back in and testing it.
I've powered it on without the CMOS battery.
Shorting the CLRCMOS pin (I didn't have a jumper cap so I used a screwdriver- no clue if it actually worked) with the CMOS battery in and out for 15 seconds.
Re-seated the ram, and having one stick at a time
Tried turning it on using different display cables, like DisplayPort with GPU in and DVI cable with GPU in and out.
I should mention that yesterday morning when I first powered on the computer, using my DVI cable as the display cable, it gave me a screen that was flashing RGB in the background and a blue box in the middle (see below.)
However, after that I have not been able to see this screen. Posting this here is my last effort of trying to find a solution before I go through with RMA'ing either my motherboard or my GPU. Even though, I don't even know which I should be sending back. So far I've come to two possible reasons for why something got bricked:
Changing the ram to its XMP profile: I'm not entirely sure if this is the reason because after I changed it to the XMP profile, I saved and exited. Since I didn't have any storage devices yet- so no OS- it just I guess went back to BIOS again, and it was all fine. But I have no clue, and details matter.
When I tried flashing the latest BIOS: This is the reason that I'm pretty sure that got my motherboard or GPU got bricked.
I've already did forms for both the GPU and motherboard. I had one done for the GPU first because I thought that it was the problem, but I came to realize that it also might have been the motherboard, so then I did one for it yesterday. I'm still under warranty, just around 20 days left of it.
Any help you guys can give me is appreciated!