Please Help, PC Won't Operate

[PCDesignerRy]

I've spent the last several months accumulating some of the most expensive PC parts I can buy on the market currently. I have an MSI Meg Z390 Godlike motherboard with an i9-9900KS CPU and an Asus Strix 1080Ti GPU. This is really a last ditch effort for me at this point before I abandon this and just try to sell the hardware. With all of the new hardware hooked up, when trying to use a DisplayPort or DVI to HDMI cable I can't get a single signal to my monitor. I put this all together just today and had a working computer yesterday using the same GPU and an X99S Gaming9 ACK Motherboard and an intel i7-5960X CPU. That ran with no issue. On the new build, the only thing that I can identify from the motherboard is '30 DRAM Error'. I have fully removed and re-connected my graphics card, but nothing. Nothing to my display (Asus PG348Q.) I'm hoping someone can help because I can't think of anything else to try to fix this. This was supposed to be an upgrade but I can't get anything to work. Please help. Thanks! 

 

I have basically nothing to even go on. All of the hardware should be in working order, but there is nothing that reaches the display so there is nothing for me to even research about this. There are not beep codes, all of the lights on the motherboard and GPU are active, the display turns on but just says HDMI no input or DisplayPort no input. I can't even think of where to begin because I have virtually nothing to go on so I am not sure what to do. 

 

Does anyone have an idea of what DRAM Error would cover in a case like this? 

[Fasauceome]

the i9 9900KS came out after 9th gen's release and may need a BIOS update for the motherboard to work properly.

[PCDesignerRy]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

the i9 9900KS came out after 9th gen's release and may need a BIOS update for the motherboard to work properly.

How would I do a BIOS update without being able to get to the BIOS, I can't get to that currently. 

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, PCDesignerRy said:

How would I do a BIOS update without being able to get to the BIOS, I can't get to that currently. 

that's one of the more crippling problems with the 9900KS in my opinion. on top of that, the security patches programmed into the microcode actually hurt performance, so clock for clock  it's worse than a 9900K. MSI motherboards often spit out DRAM boot errors when the CPU is actually at fault, and vice versa, so if you've done your share of ram troubleshooting you may want to consider returning the CPU and getting a 9900K

[PCDesignerRy]

Yeah I basically removed and re-added the physical RAM itself I'm not sure what more TS for that I can do without having a display, but alright. I will start thinking in the direction of getting a different processor unless there is anything else I can come up with, but so far nothing. Would issues with the processor actually cause there to be nothing to display at all from the GPU? I mean I would think something would appear, an error message, some kind of a boot failure message, but the display is clearly not even recognizing its connection to the GPU at all. 

 

I also regrettably cannot return the CPU as it has been sitting un-opened for over a month. In fact, it is brand new out of the box as of a couple of hours ago. I would think it would be working since it's brand new. 

[Arrogath]

6 minutes ago, PCDesignerRy said:

How would I do a BIOS update without being able to get to the BIOS, I can't get to that currently. 

So firstly, I checked to manual of the board you linked and it looks like there is a bios flash button, and probably a specific usb port for updating bios with that feature. Try using that first, not too much of a concern for risk since this was a dual bios board. You'll have to read up the specifics in the manual, I would probably watch a how to if you can find one too

 

if you bought it from a physical store you could have gotten them to do it for you, if you know anyone with a cpu from that platform willing to disassemble their rig you could do some more troubleshooting too

[Arrogath]

3 minutes ago, PCDesignerRy said:

Yeah I basically removed and re-added the physical RAM itself I'm not sure what more TS for that I can do without having a display, but alright. I will start thinking in the direction of getting a different processor unless there is anything else I can come up with, but so far nothing. Would issues with the processor actually cause there to be nothing to display at all from the GPU? I mean I would think something would appear, an error message, some kind of a boot failure message, but the display is clearly not even recognizing its connection to the GPU at all. 

an unsupported cpu can cause the system to fail to finish POST, so the gpu won't have anything to display since it never gets initialized

[PCDesignerRy]

1 minute ago, Arrogath said:

So firstly, I checked to manual of the board you linked and it looks like there is a bios flash button, and probably a specific usb port for updating bios with that feature. Try using that first, not too much of a concern for risk since this was a dual bios board. You'll have to read up the specifics in the manual, I would probably watch a how to if you can find one too

 

if you bought it from a physical store you could have gotten them to do it for you, if you know anyone with a cpu from that platform willing to disassemble their rig you could do some more troubleshooting too

Well I don't know anyone with another rig similar to mine, but I will definitely look into trying to flash the BIOS. Thanks! 

[PCDesignerRy]

1 minute ago, Arrogath said:

an unsupported cpu can cause the system to fail to finish POST, so the gpu won't have anything to display since it never gets initialized

Would BIOS update fix this? Or have I somehow gotten a CPU that's incompatible with my motherboard? 

 

[Arrogath]

Because the 9900KS is actually a newer cpu it's technically not supported until you update the bios, even though it's just an updated 9900K. Don't feel too bad, some youtuber's that are supposed to know what they're talking about made the same mistake. Anyway, I found the instructions in the manual on page 76, I'll paste it here too

Updating BIOS with Flash BIOS Button Before updating: Please download the latest BIOS file that matches your motherboard model from MSI® website and rename the BIOS file to MSI.ROM. And then, save the MSI.ROM file to the root of USB flash drive. Important Only the FAT32 format USB flash drive supports updating BIOS by Flash BIOS.

1. Connect power supply to CPU_PWR1 and ATX_PWR1. (No other components are necessary but power supply.)

2. Plug the USB flash drive that contains the MSI.ROM file into the Flash BIOS port on rear I/O panel.

3. Press the Flash BIOS Button to flash BIOS, and the LED on the Flash BIOS Button starts flashing.

4. After the flashing BIOS process is 100% completed, the LED would be off simultaneously.

 

edit: 7B10v18 specifically says it's the first bios for 9900KS support, so just use that one or newer

[PCDesignerRy]

I will definitely give this a try. Man I really hope this works because this computer is thousands$ so far lol and it would suck for it to be toast. Thanks for the info! 

[PCDesignerRy]

So the file I downloaded is a .180 file. Do I actually change the filename extension type and all to MSI.ROM? 

[Agent Crimson]

Well you can check if all your hardware is good by using your older pc and putting the parts on it. Most probably this is an issue related to the cpu or motherboard as mentioned above by others. Try reseating the CPU the motherboard ain't that old so you might not need the bios update. If it still doesn't post then you can take it to a nearby computer shop. And ask them to check it for you they can also update the bios for a small fee. 

[PCDesignerRy]

2 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

Well you can check if all your hardware is good by using your older pc and putting the parts on it. Most probably this is an issue related to the cpu or motherboard as mentioned above by others. Try reseating the CPU the motherboard ain't that old so you might not need the bios update. If it still doesn't post then you can take it to a nearby computer shop. And ask them to check it for you they can also update the bios for a small fee. 

Yeah I was considering giving that a try as well. It will be difficult to do because my computer is very very large. I'm using the Thermaltake W200 computer case so right now I think the computer is like 100 lbs or more. It is very large, but if I can't get this to work that would be my next thing to try. 

[PCDesignerRy]

Not sure if this is right, but now the downloaded BIOS file is MSI.ROM.180 so I'm not sure if I need to change the .180 to .ROM so that the file is literally MSI.ROM with the .ROM as the actual file extension type. It's on a 32 GB FAT32 USB stick and at the root of the stick. 

I feel like this HAS to be a BIOS issue right? I can't imagine that this board comes by default with the BIOS needed to run to KS so I'm guessing that once I do the BIOS update this will work but I think it's more just me hoping and praying more than anything else. 
Is there a way to determine what BIOS a motherboard has as its factory default? 

[PCDesignerRy]

Here's some of what I'm seeing. I can't seem to identify the 'Flash BIOS' port on the rear IO panel, at least, none of them appear to be labeled with that. 
PSU is Ax1200i
CPU cooler is Corsair Hydro H150
System drive is a 512 GB Samsung 970 Pro M.2

[PCDesignerRy]

So, every video I've seen so far show flashing the BIOS by actually pressing delete at startup and accessing the BIOS to do this. I can't do this because I can't get anything to display on my monitor,and the back of my board doesn't seem to have a FLASH BIOS port that I can find. There is a BIOS Flashback + button but that's it. 

[Agent Crimson]

5 hours ago, PCDesignerRy said:

Yeah I was considering giving that a try as well. It will be difficult to do because my computer is very very large. I'm using the Thermaltake W200 computer case so right now I think the computer is like 100 lbs or more. It is very large, but if I can't get this to work that would be my next thing to try. 

Just take the mobo and cpu rest they will see its not that uncommon for people to show up like that

[Robchil]

Top left button says bios flashback+

the flash bios port is the one closest to your top nic. rtfm... 

you should realy watch a few of linus's video's on cable management........ 

[PCDesignerRy]

I haven't finished the cable management yet that's the only reason it looks that way right now. I ran into this issue and that put a hold on everything. Thanks for the info! Also, I'd have to assume that rtfm means read the f- manual but that'd be just a guess.