MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk + Ryzen 5600X posted once, not anymore...

[cr8tor]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

I should make it RGB, shouldn't I? (tho I'm lazy)

Shouldnt everything be RGB? haha
It was more the caps and grey, maybe me also. All good.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

2 minutes ago, cr8tor said:

Shouldnt everything be RGB? haha
It was more the caps and grey, maybe me also. All good.

 

 

Oh you must be on the white theme... It's grey? I mean it's grey for me too but easy to read on black background.

 

 

 

[cr8tor]

33 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

you must be on the white theme

yes, all good. not a big deal. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 11/19/2020 at 5:57 PM, Mattsson96 said:

Edit 2: We installed the SSD, HDD and the last RAM stick and now we are no longer posting... WHAT IS GOING ON.

So remove the SSD, and see if you can install windows on the other drive. M2 drives often make issues posting / booting so it's best to eliminate that possible failure point. 

 

Also leave the other ram stick out...

And just try to boot from USB to install windows on the hard drive. 

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10ISO

 

 

Seriously I have no idea why you essentially wrote a book, actual info of what you did and didn't do is extremely hard to find, I just understood that you were doing a lot of things unnecessary and that are at least very unusual when trying to use a pc for the first time. Also what are paragraphs...

 

You don't need to go into bios and do whatever, just boot the thing and install windows, it's a 10 minutes affair usually. 

 

I doubt there's a hardware issue (outside of the m2 possibly) but I can't exclude the possibility either, so please try what I suggested and if it still doesn't work maybe consider going to a repair shop. 

 

Good luck. 

 

 

 

 

[Mattsson96]

19 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

I should make it RGB, shouldn't I? (tho I'm lazy)

 

It's not a typo, the full name is "Windows 10 Go Home And Be A Family Man" but I thought that was too long ~

 

 

Again, yes, but I think that isn't the issue. 

 

Like I said its really hard to follow, too much unnecessary info, as I understood it, they fixed it, *then* changed "something" and since then the pc did not boot once........ 

 

 

You see. Hence its very important to know what they changed (which isn't clear or maybe I just misunderstood, but I tried to parse the info, they repeatedly say it does not boot currently) 

 

 

I am sorry if you are having a hard time following, I am just trying not to leave any details out. 

 

Bottom line: The PC posts when it has stood for abt an hour (whether that is because of the cmos battery being out during that time or not, I dont know). Rebooting (saving bios settings without changing anything), still allows the pc to post. If we pull the plug or turn it off completely in any way though, and then boot, it no longer posts (no changes made anywhere).

 

I agree that it sounds like a PSU issue, thouhgh the very same PSU works fine with another system...

 

My friend had it today, and we now think there is something up with the motherboard. They have been in contact with the vendor, and the Mobo, cpu and ram will be sent back for diagnosis (confirmed ram is fine, though they still asked for it to be included).

 

The 5600X is probably fine. My friend tried his working 3600 in the system, same issue. The ram was tested in his rig, worked fine.

 

That is the latest. My biggest fear at this point is that it somehow still is the PSU that is at fault...

[Mattsson96]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

So remove the SSD, and see if you can install windows on the other drive. M2 drives often make issues posting / booting so it's best to eliminate that possible failure point. 

 

Also leave the other ram stick out...

And just try to boot from USB to install windows on the hard drive. 

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10ISO

 

 

Seriously I have no idea why you essentially wrote a book, actual info of what you did and didn't do is extremely hard to find, I just understood that you were doing a lot of things unnecessary and that are at least very unusual when trying to use a pc for the first time. Also what are paragraphs...

 

You don't need to go into bios and do whatever, just boot the thing and install windows, it's a 10 minutes affair usually. 

 

I doubt there's a hardware issue (outside of the m2 possibly) but I can't exclude the possibility either, so please try what I suggested and if it still doesn't work maybe consider going to a repair shop. 

 

Good luck. 

 

 

 

 

I am sorry if you can't handle all the information.I did my best to be as thorough as possible in my explanations, but as english is not my first language, I guess I confused you. If you read everything and find the info, you would know that the pc won't post no matter what components are or aren't plugged. It posts once after having the CMOS battery out for an hour, if it gets turned off in between it  no longer boots. Installing windows on anything is far away.

 

As for the paragraphs I apologize. I did my best to format it as well as I could. I don't think my paragraphs are what is relevant in this case. But thanks for your feedback.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

10 minutes ago, Mattsson96 said:

Bottom line: The PC posts when it has stood for abt an hour (whether that is because of the cmos battery being out during that time or not, I dont know). Rebooting (saving bios settings without changing anything), still allows the pc to post. If we pull the plug or turn it off completely in any way though, and then boot, it no longer posts (no changes made anywhere).

Ok so it does sound like there's an actual issue - it could still be the m2... I would try booting without it just to make sure. 

 

And did you install windows yet? 

 

Otherwise I agree it might be psu or mobo... Hard to say. 

 

 

10 minutes ago, Mattsson96 said:

I am sorry if you are having a hard time following, I am just trying not to leave any details out. 

Well it's understandable you don't want to leave anything out but it's really best to describe the issue as precise and short as possible, especially on a platform like this. 

 

But still, it doesn't really matter so much as what you did, it's more important to describe the actual current situation for people being able to help. 

 

 

There's even a sticky in the troubleshooting section that says as much... Because it's true, the shorter the better, with the necessary info. 

 

"Doesn't boot or post from cold start" basically. 

 

 

No offense but yeah. 

 

 

[Mattsson96]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

Ok so it does sound like there's an actual issue - it could still be the m2... I would try booting without it just to make sure. 

 

And did you install windows yet? 

 

Otherwise I agree it might be psu or mobo... Hard to say. 

 

 

Well it's understandable you don't want to leave anything out but it's really best to describe the issue as precise and short as possible, especially on a platform like this. 

 

But still, it doesn't really matter so much as what you did, it's more important to describe the actual current situation for people being able to help. 

 

 

There's even a sticky in the troubleshooting section that says as much... Because it's true, the shorter the better, with the necessary info. 

 

"Doesn't boot from cold start" basically. 

 

 

No offense but yeah. 

 

 

Yeah non taken. I know it became a bit of an essay. I guess my approach to descring the issue was a bit silly...

 

The doesn't boot from cold start is a rather new realisation, which we have reached by trying various tips from the answers in the thread. 

 

We have tried boots without any drives, without just the m.2 and so on. Almost any possible combination thst makes up a pc on paper.

 

And yea, obviously we have not even gotten close to installing windows. The motherboard, RAM and CPU are soon on their way to the vendor's support. Just hope it is the motherboard tbh. It being the PSU is rather unlikely as it works in another system (it is possible though, I know)?

 

I will take your tips into consideration in future threads. 

[Mattsson96]

UPDATE

 

My brother in law got the response back from the vendor that the motherboard was scratched... No refund but they believe they have a friend which could be able to fix it.

 

IN THE MEANTIME

 

I today helped a friend of mine build another new Ryzen 5600X system. This one with almost identical specs, but the motherboard being MAG x570 WIFI instead of B550. This build I was able to be present at, hands on, and guess what. CPU led lit, no post at all. We had to take a break now inbetween, but I had time to try to flash the bios with a USB twice (seemed like it worked both times tbh), drain power, reset CMOS with JBAT (I think...). No post. Brand new 750W gold PSU too. Going back there later and we left the CMOS battery out, hopefully it could solve all our issues, but I fear something else is spooking. Might bring my own 3700X just in case, to see if it boots at all.

 

Edit: After hours again of debugging on my friend's build (not same as the topic of this thread), we finally got it working! Apparently, the BIOS USB flash had failed, even if we thought (and were sure) that it had worked every time we had tried it (multiple times). After retrying for about 5 times (same usb stick), it finally worked (only mobo + psu). The accomplishment is recognized by the moderboard fan turning off after the flash is complete and "rebooting" (starts spinning again). When this reboot has happened, everything is completed succesfully. We tried until this happened and once it did all worked Not sure this is same problem as my brother in law is facing though... Hope it helps someone else though.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Mattsson96

[T.Moreira]

I just got a similar problem with my MSI B550 Tomahawk. I used the Live Dragon to do the BIOS update aaaaand....  boom. Bricked computer for you. Mouse keybord and monitor shut off... but CPU kept going... and going... and going... Never turned off.

Looking for solutions I found lots of people saying DO NOT use the Live Dragon thing from MSI... I should had done my homework... Silly me.

Well... I`m going to Try the BIOS Flash then... do I need to clear the CMOS? Or to bare strip the MOBO to do the BIOS flash?


EDIT: Just cleaning the CMOS solved the issue. no need to flash the BIOS

Edited December 3, 2020 by T.Moreira
Solved!

[andre909]

On 11/30/2020 at 10:30 PM, Mattsson96 said:

UPDATE

 

My brother in law got the response back from the vendor that the motherboard was scratched... No refund but they believe they have a friend which could be able to fix it.

 

IN THE MEANTIME

 

I today helped a friend of mine build another new Ryzen 5600X system. This one with almost identical specs, but the motherboard being MAG x570 WIFI instead of B550. This build I was able to be present at, hands on, and guess what. CPU led lit, no post at all. We had to take a break now inbetween, but I had time to try to flash the bios with a USB twice (seemed like it worked both times tbh), drain power, reset CMOS with JBAT (I think...). No post. Brand new 750W gold PSU too. Going back there later and we left the CMOS battery out, hopefully it could solve all our issues, but I fear something else is spooking. Might bring my own 3700X just in case, to see if it boots at all.

 

Edit: After hours again of debugging on my friend's build (not same as the topic of this thread), we finally got it working! Apparently, the BIOS USB flash had failed, even if we thought (and were sure) that it had worked every time we had tried it (multiple times). After retrying for about 5 times (same usb stick), it finally worked (only mobo + psu). The accomplishment is recognized by the moderboard fan turning off after the flash is complete and "rebooting" (starts spinning again). When this reboot has happened, everything is completed succesfully. We tried until this happened and once it did all worked Not sure this is same problem as my brother in law is facing though... Hope it helps someone else though.

Have you solved the problem on topic ?

[TechIQ]

On 11/19/2020 at 11:57 AM, Mattsson96 said:

Hello! 

 

Me and my brother in law are facing a puzzle which proves hard to solve. I am honestly running out of ideas, and I would like to say I have experience in building rigs and problem solving but nothing I can find online, or in my experience seems to be able to solve this one.

 

Back story

My brother in law is building his first ever PC, we ordered the parts together, but as I live 300km away and due to covid, the build part has been via voice calls, him building and me telling him what to do and in what order. Anyway, even though challenging, trying to explain everything for a newbie over the phone, we managed it. From parts to a full build. Awesome, or is it?

 

His build:

• AMD Ryzen 5600X
• MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk Motherboard
• Kingston HyperX Fury, DDR4 3200MHz, CL16, 1.35V (2x8GB) RAM
• A-Data 512GB XPG SX8200 Pro SSD
• Seagate 2TB BarraCuda HDD
• Corsair CX 550M PSU
• KFA2 Geforce GTX 1660 Super GPU

 

Turn of events and the problem

We knew this motherboard needed a BIOS update in order to work with the new Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. We did assume that the shop had done this already for us though, as the CPU+mobo+RAM were sold in a bundle. We later realised that this was not the case, as we saw on the bundle page a disclaimer "Unfortunately this motherboard does not support the CPU out of the box blablabla... THOUGH, we have only bundled motherboards which have a flash bios button which allows you to easily update your BIOS without the need for a compatible CPU". It has to be said we did not see this disclaimer until we had put everything together and powered it on for the first time.

 

After powering it on for the first time, everything connected and installed, RAM in slots A2 and B2 (second and fourth counting from the CPU), we instantly wre greeted with a screen indicating how much RAM was installed, what CPU (it did say Ryzen 5600x), hard drive and so on. Press F1 to enter setup, awesome! We went into the BIOS and looked around. We quickly noticed that the m.2 nvme SSD was not being recognized which was weird (Installed in the top spot, closest to the CPU). We planned on checking that it was physically installed correctly of course, but as we were already in the BIOS, we opted to set the XMP profile to profile 1, which would allow our 3200MHz ram to run at 3200Mhz instead of the default 2600. So we activated XMP profile 1 and hit F10 to save and exit. At this point we still think that the latest BIOS is installed, and that our CPU which was recognized by the system, is now supported and everything in terms of BIOS version is fine. After this we powered of the system, unplugged the power and took a look at the SSD, reseated it and made sure it was installed correctly.

After plugging everything back in and turning the system back on, we were greated with a black screen, and the text "No signal" (HDMI used). The fans were spinning and motherboard RGB lit (keyboard not lit). We were baffled and could not understand what had changed since we just a moment ago, were let into the BIOS. The first though was that there is something wrong with the XMP profile with the new CPU, causing the system not to post. So next, we reset the CMOS by removing the battery for a while (first of many). Tried again, same thing.

At this point we realised that the EZ Debug CPU LED was lit and glowing constantly. This would indicate a problem with the CPU assumably, but could also perhaps be because of the CPU not being supported by the BIOS (But then how did we even post the first time at all!?). Anyway, we decided to make sure we were running a supported BIOS by using the flash bios button feature of the tomahawk. This feature would technically allow us to flash the BIOS to the latest, without the need for a CPU or RAM. As we had everything installed already though, we did the flash with all components installed. We attached the USB drive to the correct port, made sure the power supply was on, but the system was off, and clicked the button on the rear IO. The indicator started flashing, indicating it is updating, and after some 5-7 minutes it was done. Awesome, now we should have the latest BIOS, now it has to work?

We made sure that everything was plugged in and started the system, still the same. Not posting.

Next we thought that maybe something was saved from previous, lets clear CMOS again, this time we did it by shorting the CMOS jumper pins (power unplugged) (which I have read would be faster and more reliable than removing the battery for an unknown time). After that, still the same.

We were running out of ideas at this point, but as we were desperate and the CPU LED was still lit, and I had read that the bios flash button was supposed to work without a CPU in the socket (only motherboard and CPU power connected), but I had never read if it was possible to do it WITH a CPU in the socket. So as we were unsure if this would be an issue, and if the CPU was seated correctly, we took the motherboard out of the case and removed the CPU and the RAM, leaving only the 8PIN CPU and 24PIN mobo power connected. We then redid the bios flash, with only the motherboard and power cords. Everything went well, the BIOS flash indicator flashed for 5 ish minutes and turned off, everything pointed to it being successful. At this point we again reset the CMOS, by shorting the jumpers. Then reinstalled the CPU, making sure all CPU pins were looking OK and the cooler and CPU was seated correctly. We installed only ONE ram stick this time, in the second slot (A2). We now moved the motherboard back into the case in order to get sufficient support for the GPU which is needed (as the 5600x does not have integrated graphics). After putting everything back together and plugging only the display and power cord (we left the front IO unplugged, apart from the power, reset and LEDS). STILL THE SAME PROBLEM. The CPU LED still lit...

At this point we are running low on ideas and motivation. We finally try swapping the RAM for the one that is not plugged (testing them one by one), as well as testing them in different slots (A2 and B2). Still same problem. We also tried a different monitor using DVI instead of HDMI. Still the same problem.

Finally we tried bootin the system without the SSD installed (desperately), but still same. It is not even posting with only GPU+CPU+1 RAM stick + PSU...

 

At the time of writing we have the CMOS battery out, leaving it out for 1h (is the plan) and reseating it and trying a final time is the last idea we have. After that the only thing I can personally think of is that there is something wrong with some component, most likely the CPU but also not ruling out the motherboard or even GPU. As he does not have any other AM4 CPU, we are unable to test the board with another CPU at this point, we are thinking of testing the GPU in another system at a later time when we have one available for him.

 

To summarize what we are fairly sure have been done:

• BIOS flashed to latest non beta version (7C91vA4)
• CMOS reset multiple times, also after BIOS installation (both shorting pins and removing the battery).
• All components look physically OK and are correctly seated
• The system posted ONCE after the initial build, but not after (HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?)
• Two different monitors and two different outputs tested (DVI and HDMI)
• (Keyboard does not light up)

 

Initially I thought the XMP profile messed something up, but a CMOS reset should have solved that. Then I thought the BIOS version was to blame, but that is almost definately updated now (unfortunately no way to confirm). We are completely out of ideas. Can anyone on the internet think of something that we have not thought of? I have spent hours online, finding very similar problems, though the solutions have always been "reset CMOS", "flash BIOS", "reseat CPU", "reseat RAM" or something else we have already tested.

 

Any help at all is appreciated!  Thank you!

 

Edit 1: We finally posted! Leaving the CMOS battery out for an hour solved the problem. Why not shorting the CMOS jumpers worked is beyond me.... Seems like we will have to run the RAM on 2400MHz for now...

 

Edit 2: We installed the SSD, HDD and the last RAM stick and now we are no longer posting... WHAT IS GOING ON.

 

I just tried my 5600x with my MSI MAG B550M Mortar board. I got it because HW Unboxed tests show it having good VRM thermals. But it would stick on CPU DEBUG LED. Tried my higher end ASUS B550-F Gaming board and no LED BS. Just a nice fast post with the extra 4 pin EPS plugged in. So makes me wonder if it's either a power or BIOS issue with MSI boards.

[TechIQ]

On 11/19/2020 at 12:22 PM, voidrunner959 said:

I can return it open box same day for a refund so just easy i been working on this $2500 tower for so long at this point i just want it to post and update so i can move on with my life 

I just tried my 5600x with my MSI MAG B550M Mortar board. I got it because HW Unboxed tests show it having good VRM thermals. But it would stick on CPU DEBUG LED. Tried my higher end ASUS B550-F Gaming board and no LED BS. Just a nice fast post with the extra 4 pin EPS plugged in. So makes me wonder if it's either a power or BIOS issue with MSI boards. I've read so many others with different MSI B550 boards have had the same issue.