PC Not POSTing With GPU Plugged In

[NiKMic]

Hi. So I have an issue where my PC is not POSTing when my GPU is plugged in however it works fine if I disconnect the GPU. The motherboard shows a b2 error code, which seems to indicate that the GPU is faulty. Specs are as follows;

 

MSI Radeon R9 280X
Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H
Corsair CX650 PSU (just replaced since my old PSU blew up however this issue happened way before the PSU blew up)
Intel Core i7-4770K
Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (2x8GB)
Windows 10 Pro N

 

To be honest I'm not sure what caused the issue. One day I was normally using the PC and I shut it off. A few minutes later I decided to turn it on again and I was got this b2 error. I've tried a few things including changing PCI slot, changing PSU, changing PCI power connector, cleaning drivers and moving the RAM however I still see the same error code.

 

This card has been giving me a lot of problems with since forever (although I've read that there are massive incompatibility issues between the R9 series' drivers and Windows 10). These issues include random black screens, random screen tearing on secondary monitor, random small boxes of stuck pixel, boot looping etc. The weird part is that this happens on idle and not when I am playing games (my games are typically Football Manager and CS:GO, so hardly intensive stuff). Ironically it seemed to perform better when under load.

 

Do you think that the card is dead or is it some sort of software/BIOS issue? I updated my motherboard BIOS within the last 6 months so I should be good there. Is there a way to salvage the GPU? I'm not sure I can justify a new one at the moment.

[Slottr]

Have you tried it in another system?

[NiKMic]

24 minutes ago, Slottr said:

Have you tried it in another system?

No. Unfortunately I do not have a system which I can try it on. If you think that this is the best course of action I'll try and ask a few friends if they would be willing to test my GPU for me.

 

I'm looking for 'just' a POST right? Because most of my friends have Nvidia GPUs so in order to avoid driver issues I can tell them to force shut down before the PC boots into the OS.

[Guest]

58 minutes ago, NiKMic said:

The motherboard shows a b2 error code,

 

Do you think that the card is dead or is it some sort of software/BIOS issue? I updated my motherboard BIOS within the last 6 months so I should be good there. Is there a way to salvage the GPU? I'm not sure I can justify a new one at the moment.

I'm leaning on the board/bios being the issue here. You have an earlier UEFI bios trying to run a newer card, that will give some conflicts.

The code it's stuck on is a post code, and not a error code. 

You can try and clear the cmos the short way, then the long way.

Short way, jump the cmos pins.

The long way, pull the power cable from PSU, pull the cmos battery from the board. Install cmos jumper for 10 minutes, but let the board sit overnight without the battery installed.

 

Good luck!

 

Code | Description

 

10 | PEI Core is started
11 | Pre-memory CPU initialization started
12~14 | Reserved
15 | Pre-memory North Bridge Initialization started
16~8 | Reserved
19 | Pre-memory South Bridge initialization started
1A~2a | Reserved
2B~2F | Memory Initialization
31 | Memory installed
32~36 | CPU PEI initialization
37~3A | IOH PEI initialization
3B~3E | PCH PEI initialization
3F~4F | Reserved
60 | DXE Core is started
61 | NVRAM initialization
62 | Installation of the PCH runtime services
63~67 | CPU DXE initialization started
68 | PCI host bridge initialization started
69 | IOH DXE initialization
6A | IOH SMM initialization
6B~6F | Reserved
70 | PCH DXE initialization
71 | PCH SMM initialization
72 | PCH devices initialization
73-77 | PCH DXE initialization (module specific)
78 | ACPI Core initialization
79 | CSM initialization started
7A~7F | Reserved for AMI use
80~8F | Reserved for OEM use
90 | Phase transfer to Boot Device
91 | Issue event to connect drivers
92 | PCI Bus initialization Started
93 | PCI Bus hotplug initialization
94 | PCI Bus Enumeration for detecting how many resources are requested
95 | Check PCI device requested resources
96 | Assign PCI device resources
97 | Console Output devices connect
98 | Console input devices connect
99 | Super IO initialization
9A | USB initialization started
9B | Issue reset during USB initialization process
9C | Detect and install all currently connected USB devices
9D | Activated all currently connected USB devices
9E~9F | Reserved
A0 | IDE initialization is started
A1 | Issue Reset during IDE initialization process
A2 | Detect and install all currently connected IDE devices
A3 | Activated all currently connected IDE devices
A4 | SCSI initialization is started
A5 | Issue reset during SCSI initialization process
A6 | Detect and install all currently connected SCSI devices
A7 | Activated all currently connected SCSI devices
A8 | Verify Password if needed
A9 | BIOS setup is started
AA | Reserved
AB | Wait user command in bios setup
AC | Reserved
AD | Issue Ready to Boot event for OS Boot
AE | Boot to legacy OS
AF | Exit Boot Services
B0 | Runtime AP installation Begins
B1 | Runtime AP installation ends
B2 | Legacy option ROM initialization
B3 | System reset if needed
B4 | USB device hot plug-in
B5 | PCI device hot plug
B6 | Clean up of NVRAM
B7 | Reconfigure NVRAM settings
B8~BF | Reserved
C0~CF | Reserved
 

S3 Resume

 

 

E0 | S3 Resume is started
E1 | Fill boot script data for S3 resume
E2 | Initializes VGA for S3 resume
E3 | OS S3 wake vector call

Recovery

F0 | Recovery mode will be triggered due to invalid firmware volume detection.

F1 | Recovery mode will be triggered by user decision.

F2 | Recovery firmware image is found.

F4 | Recovery firmware image is loaded.

F5-F7 |Reserved for future AMI progress codes.

Error

50-55 | Memory initialization error codes.

56 | Invalid CPU type or speed.

57 | CPU mismatch.

58 | CPU self test failed or possible CPU cache error.

59 | CPU micro-code is not found or micro-code update is failed.

5A | Internal CPU error.

5B | Reset PPI is failed.

5C-5F | Reserved.

D0 | CPU initialization error.

D1 | IOH initialization error.

D2 | PCH initialization error.

D3 | Some of the architectural Protocols are not available.

D4 | PCI resource allocation error. Out of resources.

D5 | No Space for Legacy Option ROM initialization.

D6 | No Console Output Devices are found.

D7 | No Consoles Input Devices are found.

D8 | Flash update has failed.

D9-DA | Can't load boot option.

DB | Flash update has failed.

DC | Reset protocol is failed.

DE-DF | Reserved.

E8 | S3 Resume is failed

E9 | S3 Resume PPI is not found.

EA | S3 Resume Boot Script is invalid.

EB | S3 OS Wake call is invalid.

EC-EF | Reserved.

F8 | Recovery PPI is invalid.

<F9> | Recovery capsule is not found.

FA | Invaild recovery capsule.

FB-FF | Reserved.

[Brent744]

I would first uninstall any GPU drivers you currently have. Power down the machine, unplug all cables to the PC then hold power button for 30 seconds to discharge any remaining power then Clear CMOS. Plug GPU back in, plug display into GPU and power on. Just boot to Windows and let it idle for 15 or 20 minutes, Windows will install a driver for the GPU automatically. It will be an older driver but it will be stable. Let me know if this works.

I had a similar issue recently with my Vega 56 when I installed a new driver. After the new driver was installed my screen went total black and I couldn't even see the bios when rebooting. The above worked for me.

[NiKMic]

On 1/14/2020 at 3:23 PM, Slottr said:

Have you tried it in another system?

Finally had some time to try this however the only PC I could find was an HP Pavilion pre-build (quite old, it's a 1st gen i7). I swapped out the PSU and added my GPU and I couldn't get it to boot. I'm not going to rely on this result though since the PC isn't expected to have these kinds of cards.

On 1/15/2020 at 8:06 AM, Brent744 said:

I would first uninstall any GPU drivers you currently have. Power down the machine, unplug all cables to the PC then hold power button for 30 seconds to discharge any remaining power then Clear CMOS. Plug GPU back in, plug display into GPU and power on. Just boot to Windows and let it idle for 15 or 20 minutes, Windows will install a driver for the GPU automatically. It will be an older driver but it will be stable. Let me know if this works.

I had a similar issue recently with my Vega 56 when I installed a new driver. After the new driver was installed my screen went total black and I couldn't even see the bios when rebooting. The above worked for me.

Thank you or your answer.

 

I have tried clearing the CMOS through the approach you mentioned however the PC still doesn't boot with the GPU plugged in.

On 1/14/2020 at 4:26 PM, ShrimpBrime said:

 

Thank you for your answer.

 

I have tried resetting the CMOS using the short way however I was still not able to boot with the GPU plugged in. I also have a RESET CMOS button which I tried but the result was the same.

 

I had recently updated my BIOS (around 3/4 months before this b2 error) to the latest version b9 (https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z87X-UD4H-rev-1x/support#support-dl-bios). Do you suggest trying to downgrade? I never had this issue with the older BIOS version.

[NiKMic]

Small update. I plugged in the GPU to a PCI8 slot and it booted however i had just a black screen. I'll be trying to flash my BIOS to a previous version.

 

EDIT: I get 'The current bios image is outdated' whenever I try to downgrade my bios. Downgrading my BIOS doesn't seem possible. I can try the beta BIOS but I'm hesitant since it's a beta.

[Brent744]

If it was working with your current BIOS version before then that's likely not the issue. It's starting to sound like a dead GPU. Plug it back into the PCIx16, it will never work in a PCIx8 slot. Did you have an overclock applied to your system or GPU?