Motherboard dead?

[Theguywhobea]

So, my cousin had be build a computer for his kid for Christmas, I had a fairly strict $700 budget, and he wanted to stream as well. Long story short, got him an R5 3600 system. Motherboard is an MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus, from what I've seen on here people don't seem to like this board too much? Came in an Amazon bundle which was the only way to get this CPU in December.

 

Anyways now it seems like his motherboard is dead, I thought it was the power supply since it was a cheaper EVGA 550w unit, however I just had him replace the PSU and it's still dead. I went over to check it out, but without extra parts its hard to diagnose.

 

All it does when plugged in is flash the board LED's for half a second and then nothing when you press the power button. I tried clearing the CMOS, I also tried booting with no RAM, tried booting with no GPU, nothing different. Is this likely to be a motherboard problem or a CPU problem? The system tested out fine when I first built it, ran some stress tests, temps all looked normal. He had it for like, 2 weeks and then it shut off. 

 

Any help is appreciated!

[Bombastinator]

Are the boards LEDs  debug light codes?

[Whiro]

28 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

I also tried booting with no RAM

You mean no ram at all? Try with one stick 

[Theguywhobea]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

Are the boards LEDs  debug light codes?

No, as far as I can tell there are no LED debug lights, however if there were, none of them light up, its mostly the lights on the front of the case, and the few rgb leds on the motherboard.

 

All of these just flash for a brief moment and then its full off.

[Theguywhobea]

Just now, Whiro said:

You mean no ram at all? Try with one stick 

Yeah I had tried a few different configs, no amount of RAM or not RAM seemed to make a difference. 

[Bombastinator]

Found the manual for the motherboard but the site wants cookies so I’m out.

[Ben17]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Found the manual for the motherboard but the site wants cookies so I’m out.

if u want i can send you the manual as a document here?

[Ben17]

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-X570-GAMING-PLUS

 

 

M7C37v2.1-EURO.pdf

[Bombastinator]

Huh.  No referencing to debugging at all.  Weird.  They do have like half a page of “important” in small type though.  Is the motherboard new enough to RMA?

[Theguywhobea]

10 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Huh.  No referencing to debugging at all.  Weird.  They do have like half a page of “important” in small type though.  Is the motherboard new enough to RMA?

Yeah I don't have the board in front of me, but none of those debug LED's ever lit. I just bought it December 1st, so I think that should be in the RMA window? I'll have my cousins kid contact MSI

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

Yeah I don't have the board in front of me, but none of those debug LED's ever lit. I just bought it December 1st, so I think that should be in the RMA window? I'll have my cousins kid contact MSI

No clue on what the MSI window is or what they are like to deal with.  Others may know.  I don’t know if it’s the CPU or motherboard either.  It’s really hard to tell without debugging info.  Lacking any, MSI apparently gets the job.

[YoFavRussian]

Did you unplug absolutely everything from the back of the computer when doing the CMOS reset? I couldn't reset a CMOS one time because the DisplayPort on the graphics card was passing voltage to the motherboard.

[Theguywhobea]

4 hours ago, YoFavRussian said:

Did you unplug absolutely everything from the back of the computer when doing the CMOS reset? I couldn't reset a CMOS one time because the DisplayPort on the graphics card was passing voltage to the motherboard.

Yes, every thing was unplugged and I held the power button before resetting the CMOS as well to drain any residual left in the caps.

[Guest]

Did you build it or he did it? (his first time??)

 

I did notice on a particular day that I had a no post issue with a known working processor Ryzen 1200, on a board B450M-A that was also known working. I had removed the Cpu to de-lid it. Did so and put it back into the socket, wrapped everything up and nothing.

 

I removed the cpu, inspected it, put it back in and then it fired right up. I am assuming the cpu pins may not have been making good contact while I do/did have the socket packed with di-electrical grease. It's non conductive, but figured perhaps it interfered somehow. 

To make the longer story shorter, I have swapped a few cpus in the board, but on a couple of occasions the 1200 just didn't post. A reseat of the cpu seemed to cure the issue. Upon inspection of the processor, much closer with my cheaters (reading glasses.... yeaI'm getting old) I saw one egde/row of pins on the outside where just ever so slightly leaning. Straightened these pins out, haven't had any trouble since.

 

(story skip..... re-seat the cpu) 

[Theguywhobea]

1 minute ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Did you build it or he did it? (his first time??)

 

I did notice on a particular day that I had a no post issue with a known working processor Ryzen 1200, on a board B450M-A that was also known working. I had removed the Cpu to de-lid it. Did so and put it back into the socket, wrapped everything up and nothing.

 

I removed the cpu, inspected it, put it back in and then it fired right up. I am assuming the cpu pins may not have been making good contact while I do/did have the socket packed with di-electrical grease. It's non conductive, but figured perhaps it interfered somehow. 

To make the longer story shorter, I have swapped a few cpus in the board, but on a couple of occasions the 1200 just didn't post. A reseat of the cpu seemed to cure the issue. Upon inspection of the processor, much closer with my cheaters (reading glasses.... yeaI'm getting old) I saw one egde/row of pins on the outside where just ever so slightly leaning. Straightened these pins out, haven't had any trouble since.

 

(story skip..... re-seat the cpu) 

I built it. When I took all the parts out of their boxes new and put it all together and it fired right up. Ran it through some stress tests to make sure it was good. Then handed it off to him for Christmas.

 

He had it working for about 2 weeks before he said it had shut off a few times while playing games, and then it just shut off for good and never turned back on. I wasn't watching every time he used the PC so I can't be 100% sure he never opened it, but it didn't appear he ever opened it or messed with anything.

[Guest]

Bummer.

RMA the board first.

[YoFavRussian]

18 hours ago, Theguywhobea said:

I built it. When I took all the parts out of their boxes new and put it all together and it fired right up. Ran it through some stress tests to make sure it was good. Then handed it off to him for Christmas.

 

He had it working for about 2 weeks before he said it had shut off a few times while playing games, and then it just shut off for good and never turned back on. I wasn't watching every time he used the PC so I can't be 100% sure he never opened it, but it didn't appear he ever opened it or messed with anything.

Yeah, at this point RMA the board first, or see if maybe someone you know has a CPU or APU

[Theguywhobea]

Alright, just as a follow up it was actually the GPU of all things??? It must be that the GPU was shorted and tripping OC protection in the power supply, I swapped it to a new GPU and now it boots fine. I could have sworn I tried booting the system with no GPU at all though, maybe I had only tried booting with the GPU power disconnected? Either way, it's fixed now.