CMOS clearing itself on each boot.

[WolfHero]

Issue:

When I shut down my computer, upon booting it back up the led indicators cycle back and forth for a minute. It starts by flipping back and forth slowly between CPU and DRAM, then when it gets to VGA after a second I hear what sounds like a hard drive turning off and it moves back to DRAM. Eventually, it posts, and I'm forced to press delete to change BIOS settings back to what they were since when this cycling happens it always resets the CMOS.

This started happening after I used my house key to bridge the CMOS jumpers. I did this while it was off, and I removed the key long before I turned everything back on. I did not have this issue until I manually cleared the CMOS. I needed to do so because I changed a BIOS setting that caused me to be unable to boot or get into the BIOS again.

 

There are no connective elements that should be causing this, at least in the front. I don't know if something happened in the back when I shorted the jumpers.
 

Part list:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard	Gigabyte - B450 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0) ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory	Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Storage	Western Digital - Black NVMe 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card	Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB Dual Series Video Card
Case	Phanteks - ECLIPSE P400S TEMPERED GLASS ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply	EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Monitor	Sceptre - C248B-144R 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-02 15:54 EDT-0400

 

[SupaKomputa]

Dead battery?

[WolfHero]

3 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Dead battery?

I've been seeing that possibility, new motherboards shipped with dead batteries. I wasn't too sure about it though since it took a manual CMOS clear before the issues started. Not sure how it this stuff works though. It shouldn't be too difficult to find a proper replacement, just to test the solution, right?

[Derrk]

it could be an unstable overclock. the dram indicator makes me think its the memory. Sometimes manufacturer DOCP settings aren't stable on their own. I would suggest slightly increasing the boot voltage for the ram

[SupaKomputa]

Why you clear it with a key, shouldn't there be a jumper?

After clearing normally you put the jumper back in the default pins.

[WolfHero]

1 minute ago, Derrk said:

it could be an unstable overclock. the dram indicator makes me think its the memory. Sometimes manufacturer DOCP settings aren't stable on their own. I would suggest slightly increasing the boot voltage for the ram

I'll give lowering the frequency via the EasyTune app (to 29.33 apparently) a shot. It's currently on XMP profile one, which looks to be at the standard 3000 the RAM is supposed to be able to handle by default. If this does nothing, what method should I go about to increase ram voltage?

[Derrk]

1 minute ago, WolfHero said:

I'll give lowering the frequency via the EasyTune app (to 29.33 apparently) a shot. It's currently on XMP profile one, which looks to be at the standard 3000 the RAM is supposed to be able to handle by default. If this does nothing, what method should I go about to increase ram voltage?

typically you shouldn't have to lower the frequency but may have to slightly bump the voltage. I don't think you'd have to increase the voltage itself, but rather the boot voltage. RAM often needs just a little more power to get through post than it does running normally.

I'm not sure what gigabyte calls theirs in the bios, but there should be a setting named something along the lines of "boot voltage". I'd recommend slightly increasing that in increments to see if it helps

[WolfHero]

2 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Why you clear it with a key, shouldn't there be a jumper?

After clearing normally you put the jumper back in the default pins.

I used my key because I didn't immediately remember any jumpers that came with it, and saw that it suggested a screwdriver. In retrospect, it's worded very oddly, suggesting both a jumper and a screwdriver.

[WolfHero]

1 minute ago, Derrk said:

typically you shouldn't have to lower the frequency but may have to slightly bump the voltage. I don't think you'd have to increase the voltage itself, but rather the boot voltage. RAM often needs just a little more power to get through post than it does running normally.

I'm not sure what gigabyte calls theirs in the bios, but there should be a setting named something along the lines of "boot voltage". I'd recommend slightly increasing that in increments to see if it helps

Will look into this. Fingers crossed.

[SupaKomputa]

Ah, i see, they're so cheap to give you a proper jumper. LOL.

How about reflashing the bios.

[WolfHero]

Just now, SupaKomputa said:

Ah, i see, they're so cheap to give you a proper jumper. LOL.

How about reflashing the bios.

Tackled that avenue already, sadly. No dice.

[SupaKomputa]

Since it's new, RMA.

[WolfHero]

1 hour ago, Derrk said:

typically you shouldn't have to lower the frequency but may have to slightly bump the voltage. I don't think you'd have to increase the voltage itself, but rather the boot voltage. RAM often needs just a little more power to get through post than it does running normally.

I'm not sure what gigabyte calls theirs in the bios, but there should be a setting named something along the lines of "boot voltage". I'd recommend slightly increasing that in increments to see if it helps

What amounts/increments would you suggest? I've never manually overclocked anything before.

 

EDIT: It seems like lowering the RAM frequency to 2900 actually fixed the issue. I'll try looking into finding the boot voltage option, couldn't find it at first glance in the BIOS but I'll do some research on it. If it happens again (I'm not too sure it'll stick if the computer is off for a while before being turned back on) I'll let ya know. Thanks!~

[Derrk]

4 hours ago, WolfHero said:

What amounts/increments would you suggest? I've never manually overclocked anything before.

 

EDIT: It seems like lowering the RAM frequency to 2900 actually fixed the issue. I'll try looking into finding the boot voltage option, couldn't find it at first glance in the BIOS but I'll do some research on it. If it happens again (I'm not too sure it'll stick if the computer is off for a while before being turned back on) I'll let ya know. Thanks!~

What does xmp/docp set the ram voltage to? Im guessing around 1.35? Maybe just increasing that slightly would fix it

 

Edit: for increments i would start at 1.4 (if xmp set it to 1.35 for example) and if it boots fine, keep lowering it until you have boot issues. Otherwise start higher and work your way down. Once you know where you have issues, set it just above that

 

I think most ddr4 is safe until around the 1.5v mark(possibly higher?), but ideally you want it as low as possible while being stable