Brand new MB stuck at BIOS splash screen

[Tosa]

Hi,

I'm helping my brother upgrade his PC. He bought my old Ryzen 5 1600X, and ordered a ASUS ROG STRIX X470-F GAMING motherboard, G.Skill Aegis 3000MHz 2x8GB sticks of RAM and MSI CORE FROZR L CPU cooler. He's re-purposing his case, CX500M PSU and GTX970 GPU. Motherboard and cooler arrived a couple days ago, and the RAM arrived today.

What struck me about the RAM sticks was that it looks like they have a heat spreaders on the pictures, but there's actually just stickers on them.

Anyway, we assembled it on top of the motherboard box to see if it worked, used a screw to short the pins to turn it on, and it did sorta POST, but it got stuck on the BIOS splash screen. Plugging in the speaker on the motherboard, it makes the little beep indicating that it POSTed, but again, stuck at the BIOS splash screen with instructions on how to enter BIOS settings menu. I we can't get into the BIOS menu because nothing happens, it won't boot from any SSD, and it makes no difference if there's an SSD plugged in or not. 

I've tried one stick of RAM at a time, and I've tried moving them around, with no luck. I've re-seated the CMOS battery, which did absolutely nothing. I've tried letting it sit at the BIOS splash screen for 10-15 minutes while we went to the grocery store, and it was still stuck there when we got back. I went and fetched another computer I had laying around with a 600 watt PSU in it, and hooked that up, and it made zero difference.

 

Other than using parts from my own PC for testing (which I'd rather not do. Specs on profile page), I'm out of ideas. What could be the issue, and how do we fix it?

[Master Disaster]

You said you've "reseated the CMOS battery" but just to be clear, you need to unplug the PSU from from the wall outlet, remove the battery, leave it out for a good few minutes then replace it and try booting again.

 

Did you do that already?

[Tosa]

Just now, Master Disaster said:

You said you've "reseated the CMOS battery", but just to be clear, you need to unplug the PSU from from the wall outlet, remove the battery, leave it out for a good few minutes then replace it and try booting again.

 

Did you do that already?

No, I just unplugged the power, took it out, made sure there was no plastic and put it right back in. I'll try leaving it out for a while.

[Tosa]

16 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

You said you've "reseated the CMOS battery" but just to be clear, you need to unplug the PSU from from the wall outlet, remove the battery, leave it out for a good few minutes then replace it and try booting again.

 

Did you do that already?

Didn't help

[Master Disaster]

Just now, Tosa said:

Didn't help

When you tried booting again did it say anything about default values loaded?

 

While you're there please unplug anything non essential to the system including any additional PCIe cards, SSDs, hard drives and also all but one stick of ram.

 

Honestly if CMOS reset didn't work the next step will be to pull the CPU out of both machines and swap them over, it's the only way to determine if it's the board or CPU.

[Tosa]

12 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

When you tried booting again did it say anything about default values loaded?

It just took much longer to POST. I have to walk all the way around the table to see what's on the screen, so I have no idea if something showed up in the meantime.

13 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

While you're there please unplug anything non essential to the system including any additional PCIe cards, SSDs, hard drives and also all but one stick of ram.

Only got GPU, keyboard, mouse and a single SSD. So I'll unplug the SSD and the mouse, then, I guess. I'll put one of the sticks in the B2 slot, since that's what the manual recommends for a single stick.

16 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Honestly if CMOS reset didn't work the next step will be to pull the CPU out of both machines and swap them over, it's the only way to determine if it's the board or CPU.

Man, getting my computer out from underneath the desk is a major hassle. I hope that won't be necessary. That said, I'm gonna have to pull it out anyway at the end of next week, or some time the following week(whenever the parts arrive), to upgrade the RAM from my current 2133MHz ones to 3200MHz ones.

[Swarlos]

Have you tried using different USB ports for the keyboard? Do you have an old PS/2 keyboard somewhere you might be able to use?  I'd be surprised if the CPU or RAM is the problem.  I don't think you'd get it to POST at all if either of those were the issue.

 

Edit: Also, the Q-LED in the top right is Green so I think CPU and RAM are fine.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Swarlos
Edit Q-LED

[Master Disaster]

12 minutes ago, Swarlos said:

Have you tried using different USB ports for the keyboard? Do you have an old PS/2 keyboard somewhere you might be able to use?  I'd be surprised if the CPU or RAM is the problem.  I don't think you'd get it to POST at all if either of those were the issue.

 

Edit: Also, the Q-LED in the top right is Green so I think CPU and RAM are fine.

I would agree with this diagnosis, actually trying another keyboard hadn't even crossed my mind. Good shout.

 

PS/2 might be out of the question, I have the X370 version of that board and mine has no PS/2 port.

[Swarlos]

Also, for clearing CMOS, I don't know why everyone says to pull out the battery.  Most motherboard have easier ways to clear it.  Including yours.

 

Picture taken from ROG_STRIX_X470-F_GAMING Manual

 

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, Swarlos said:

Also, for clearing CMOS, I don't know why everyone says to pull out the battery.  Most motherboard have easier ways to clear it.  Including yours.

 

Picture taken from ROG_STRIX_X470-F_GAMING Manual

 

Most but not all, removing the battery is preferred because it's guaranteed to be applicable to and identical on every board.

[Tosa]

1 hour ago, Swarlos said:

Have you tried using different USB ports for the keyboard?

Yeah, that's definitely worth a shot. Unfortunately, this board doesn't have any USB 2 ports on it, otherwise I'd have used that to begin with. I might hook up the case's USB 2 port, though.

 

1 hour ago, Swarlos said:

Do you have an old PS/2 keyboard somewhere you might be able to use?

 

53 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

PS/2 might be out of the question, I have the X370 version of that board and mine has no PS/2 port.

It does have a PS/2 port. I was thinking about that myself, and I've been looking around for a PS/2 keyboard I remember seeing around somewhere in the past. That keyboard brings back childhood memories...

[Tosa]

I read in the manual that, if it finds a BIOS file on a USB while POSTing, it'll enter BIOS flashing mode. So hey, if I can make something other than the splash screen show up, it'll be a welcome change. I tried downloading the BIOS from Asus' website, extracting the .CAP file out of the .zip file and putting it on the USB, but it didn't work. Maybe there's supposed to be a particular folder structure? Does anyone know?

[Tetanus]

Bios must be in root folder. 

 

Make sure to have it labelled correctly. 

 

I don’t have this exact motherboard, but on my crosshair hero vi I have to use one specific USB port for bios update. 

[Tosa]

Hmm, I'm thinking it might just be the firmware crashing. I mean, the same CPU have worked reliably in my PC (B350-F) for over a year until I decided to get an upgrade.

Might be worth RMAing the motherboard? Worst case scenario, my brother will have to pay for shipping, but given my experience with this store, they might just cover the shipping either way.

[Sneekyparrot]

On 1/6/2019 at 1:56 PM, Tosa said:

Hmm, I'm thinking it might just be the firmware crashing. I mean, the same CPU have worked reliably in my PC (B350-F) for over a year until I decided to get an upgrade.

Might be worth RMAing the motherboard? Worst case scenario, my brother will have to pay for shipping, but given my experience with this store, they might just cover the shipping either way.

Hi,

Long shot but did you ever get to the bottom of the problem and sort it out? i ask as i have exactly the same issue from a new asus x470f board and just cant get past it. Nothing plugged in the board other than a video card . Tried 2 keyboards and both will allow a soft reboot but wont accept del / f2 input :-(

 

[Mark Kaine]

Nvm didn't realize how old this thread is lol 

[Sneekyparrot]

17 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Nvm didn't realize how old this thread is lol 

only January so not too bad and its still a current board :-))

[Bahumbaba]

You ever found out what was wrong?, i have the exact same problem with my ROG Strix B550-I motherboard.

[bladerunner]

I just built a new Ryzen PC. (Ryzen 5 5600X, Asus B550 motherboard, etc.)

Had the same problem,  when I booted it got stuck at the BIOS/ MB splash screen.

 

I just updated the BIOS to the latest non-beta version.

 

 

I followed the steps on the Asus  website, just a tip, I couldn't make it work first time, took out the RAM and pushed the bios button when PC was off, the little green led flashed, I waited until it stopped, started the PC and voila.

 

Hope this helps.