motherboard Motherboard Problems

Seraria3 · February 18, 2020

So I built my first desktop in August 2019 and got most of the parts from Canada Computers (CC), but it had issues. I've RMA'd the motherboard with MSI, but am not completely convinced that a refurbished board will fix the problems I've been having. I'm looking for suggestions on what I can do if the refurbished motherboard doesn't work out on a college student's budget. I'm also wondering if I'm the only one that's had these issues with the B450 Tomahawk motherboard.

Symptoms/Issues:

August 2019: Bios needed updated as it was going into sleep, but not giving power to the usb, thus no access to wake with keyboard/mouse - ended up rebooting or hard booting

October 2019: Took it in for service to Canada Computers due to no post beeps, a black screen, and vga light on. Also rarerly: a yellow message about gameboost that went by too fast to read. Still ended up hard booting multiple times.

November 2019: Picked up computer from Canada Computers, but came back with the same issues, but any overclocking reset to default.

January 2020: Did more bios updates to get rid of the above issue, but am having the same issues. However, instead of a black screen, the monitors go into power saving mode.

Current Build:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 3 GHz 8-Core Processor (owned)
Motherboard: MSI B450 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard (CC)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (CC)
Storage: Western Digital Black NVMe 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive (CC), Western Digital Blue 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (CC), Seagate BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (owned)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB OC Edition Video Card (owned) -Originally a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB G1 Gaming Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case (CC)
Power Supply: LEPA MX-F1 600 W ATX Power Supply (owned)

seagate_surfer · February 19, 2020

What about the other components? RAM, PSU, HDD, etc... Have you checked them too?

Seraria3 · February 19, 2020

8 hours ago, seagate_surfer said:

What about the other components? RAM, PSU, HDD, etc... Have you checked them too?

In talking with MSI support, they initially agreed it was the motherboard that was the issue. However, I spoke to multiple technicians and one of them stated that my RAM and GPU were not compatible with the board. Which is BS cause I built my computer around the fact that I had a R7 1700 and used the compatibility lists... which they've changed since to say that only MSI GPUs are compatible with MSI boards, and my RAM isn't listed either.

But how would I check the other components? Because when the computer worked after said multiple hard boots, there were no issues.

seagate_surfer · February 20, 2020

"POST (Power-On Self-Test): Is the diagnostic testing sequence that a computer's basic input/output system (or "starting program") runs to determine if the computer keyboard, random access memory, disk drives, and other hardware are working correctly."

A problem like the one you describe is not necessarily caused only by the motherboard. Do the following test: Connect only the PSU and CPU to your motherboard, you should hear a beep indicating that RAM is needed so at least we verify that the CPU firmware is being read.

Then connect only the PSU, CPU, monitor and only one RAM module at a time, then try to access the BIOS. If you cannot do this then you could be experiencing problems with a faulty RAM. Continue adding pieces, if up to this point you have not encountered the problem source and with a little luck you will find the one that is causing the problem.

Check the sites of the other manufacturers and make sure that the other parts have also had a firmware update (if available), the one from the Seagate HDD can be found here: