PC won' t boot. Spooky Motherboard and CPU issues

[pentotark]

Hello, I am helping a friend figuring out what is not working with his PC, but together we cannot find a solution. Can you help us?

He built his pc one year ago, so it is kinda new. Here the specs: Ryzen 7 2700, 2x8GB Trident Z ddr4, Aorus x470 ultra gaming motherboard, XFX 550 watts PSU.

 

The pc was working flawlessly, then he left for vacation for a week or so and when he came back the pc did not want to boot. Some lights on the motherboard light up, but not all of them, fan spins, ram and cpu rgb lights are up, but nothing is shown on screen. There are some troubleshooting leds on the motherboard, one of them lights up red, indicating some issues are detected with the cpu. For this reason I gave him my working Ryzen 5, to be sure the cpu is the issue, but we still get the same red light on the motherboard. At this point we thought it was a motherboard issue, so I mounted his Ryzen 7 in my ryzen system with a completely different motherboard and ram (obviously working) but his cpu won't work. At this point you would think both CPU and motherboard were dead and decided to put his pc back together and store it and, surprise, the pc now works again! Maybe re-seating the components was the issue but we tried re-seating every component many times before but hasn't worked.

So I went back home happy we fixed the issue, but the next morning we are back to square one: my friend pc is not booting again. We tried re-seat everything but we get no post. We decided to swap his power supply with a Fractal Design Newton 800W platinum but that didn't help either.

 

We are very confused because every once in a while this pc boots, but this is unacceptable since it is a work pc.

 

We concluded both motherboard and cpu are not working properly, but we are puzzled how these two components broke at the same time and while the pc was turned off. The pc is also connected to a UPS unit that protects the pc from any power line issues.

 

I am asking this forum for suggestions as a last resort before sending everything to assistance.

[HanZie82]

The 4 leds are YOUR best way to see where the problem lies.

When the CPU led goes on its checking the CPU if it doesnt go off theres an issue. Also the next led is memory that could also be the issue. Try with 1 stick. Move it around etc.

[pentotark]

1 minute ago, HanZie82 said:

The 4 leds are YOUR best way to see where the problem lies.

When the CPU led goes on its checking the CPU if it doesnt go off theres an issue. Also the next led is memory that could also be the issue. Try with 1 stick. Move it around etc.

We tried moving around the ram sticks many times. One time it worked but next boot it didn't.
We noticed re-seating components can help but only temporarily and it is just random: once it booted after re-seating the video card, one time by moving ram sticks around and one time just by disconnecting one of the hard drives.

[HanZie82]

2 minutes ago, pentotark said:

We tried moving around the ram sticks many times. One time it worked but next boot it didn't.
We noticed re-seating components can help but only temporarily and it is just random: once it booted after re-seating the video card, one time by moving ram sticks around and one time just by disconnecting one of the hard drives.

Are you able to test CPU and RAM in other mobo, then do so.
And if you have warranty. go with that. Looks like a mobo/cpu issue altho i agree not clear which.

 

 

Also try to connect as few things as possible to rule out what it could be.

[pentotark]

Just now, HanZie82 said:

Are you able to test CPU and RAM in other mobo, then do so.
And if you have warranty. go with that. Looks like a mobo/cpu issue altho i agree not clear which.

I tried the CPU on another Ryzen pc and it didn't work, no boot but we didn't test the ram.

[HanZie82]

1 minute ago, pentotark said:

I tried the CPU on another Ryzen pc and it didn't work, no boot but we didn't test the ram.

Hmm no boot with CPU should already tell you a little. But i would test RAM also just to make sure its not the mobo, since you tested the mobo with another CPU earlier.

[pentotark]

7 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Hmm no boot with CPU should already tell you a little. But i would test RAM also just to make sure its not the mobo, since you tested the mobo with another CPU earlier.

I know, still it is very rare to get a faulty cpu and the motherboard seems dead too. At this point it is easy to say both motherboard and cpu are dead but considering the pc was turned off doing nothing for a week when that happened or they both broke the first time my friend turned the pc back on. It feels weird and... uncommon?

What you say about the ram makes sense because when I tested his motherboard with a different CPU we used my friend's ram and not a new pair, so they could be the culprit. We could try a new set of ram maybe, I have one spare.

[HanZie82]

Just now, pentotark said:

I know, still it is very rare to get a faulty cpu and the motherboard seems dead too since I tried a working Ryzen 5 cpu on my friend motherboard and we still get no boot. It is easy to say both motherboard and cpu are dead but the pc was turned off doing nothing when that happened or they both broke first time my friend turned it on after a week. It just feels weird and... uncommon?

What you say about the ram makes sense because when I tested his motherboard with a different CPU we used my friend's ram and not a new pair. We could try a new set of ram maybe, I have one spare.

Well ive heard about this before from a local computer shop. And after some digging around they noticed the computer not being plugged in. Which should be fine. But it was used by cats to rub their face on and stood on carpet and ppl touched it. The ram and CPU on that thing were fried most likely cus if static electricity.
That why i would advice for storing PC's where there's movement to leave them plugged in but PSU turned off.
Altho this scenario is very unlikely, its not impossible.

But for you now, its just a case of figuring out what does work and what doesnt, and you were already going about that in a very nice manner.

[pentotark]

5 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

But for you now, its just a case of figuring out what does work and what doesnt, and you were already going about that in a very nice manner.

I might test the ram later and let this thread know.

 

About the power line, I think the pc was in his safest scenario since it is connected to an UPS unit all the time. If something happened to the power line messing up with the ups than its damn bad luck!

[HanZie82]

Just now, pentotark said:

I might test the ram later and let this thread know.

 

About the power line, I think the pc was in his safest scenario since it is connected to an UPS unit. If something happened to the power line messing up with the ups than its damn bad luck!

Yeah the connection is just there so the PC stays grounded. That was my learning from that experience that store had.

[pentotark]

My friend tested his motherboard with a new set of rams and still cannot boot.