MSI Z690 GODLIKE won't boot! Ram lights come on. NOTHING else.

[TrueSonic45]

So I'm building a new PC. I build a new PC every 2 years, for the last 10 years. I'd like to think I've gotten pretty good at this. I decided to build a 12600K build using the MSI Z690 Godlike. It takes 2 hours to put together, everything hooked up, watercolor, DDR5 Ram in, 1200W PSU, clear CMOS. I plug it in, and the boards power white indicator comes on, and the LCD remote goes through the godlike animation with the roaring sound and all. Then it goes blank.

 

I hit the power button.

 

Nothing.

 

But the RAM LEDs come on. That's it.

 

No error LED. No display on the little remote device. No display on monitor, no fans, GPU doesn't spin up, PSU fan doesn't spin up, liquid cooler doesn't turn on. 

 

Absolutely nothing. 

 

Just the white LED indicating power on the motherboard. RAM going through rainbow cycle.

 

And absolutely nothing else.

 

I cleared CMOS many times, swapped power supplies. Same results. I even bought a SECOND Godlike, yes, TWO of them, with the EXACT same result.

 

I don't get any error LEDS. No HDD error, no VGA error, no CPU error and no RAM error.

 

Absolutely nothing. Just RGB cycle on RAM and the white LED on the board indicating power input.

 

I am absolutely at my wit's end. I googled everywhere, but go figure, most people have never even owned this motherboard, so not much help anywhere.

 

Whenever I turn off the PSU and turn it back on, the little remote comes on, completes its animation, then it turns off. The white LED indicating power is on the entire time.

 

Please guys, you're all I have left.

 

Specs:

 

 

Case: Segotep Phoenix T-1 EATX

Motherboard: MSI Meg Z690 GODLIKE (x2)

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K

PSU: Corsair HX 1200W Platnium

Cooler: MSI MAG coreliquid C360

RAM: Corsair Dominator 64GB (x2 32GB) DDR5 5200

GPU: MSI RTX2080

 

 

 

 

 

[Shimejii]

Why exactly did you buy a godlike  board? Theres a reason most people didnt buy it, because they knew better then to buy a 1200$ motherboard for a cpu like that unless they were XOC and even then... Like this genuinely seems like a troll for a 1200$ board to put in the 12600k instead of a 12900k or 12900ks.....

 

Could be one of three things, Either the RAM is faulty, the CPU mem controller is busted, or you have to update the bios on it using a bios flash USB and see if that fixes the problem.

[TrueSonic45]

4 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Why exactly did you buy a godlike  board? Theres a reason most people didnt buy it, because they knew better then to buy a 1200$ motherboard for a cpu like that unless they were XOC and even then... Like this genuinely seems like a troll for a 1200$ board to put in the 12600k instead of a 12900k or 12900ks.....

 

Could be one of three things, Either the RAM is faulty, the CPU mem controller is busted, or you have to update the bios on it using a bios flash USB and see if that fixes the problem.

I bought it for my 13900K I pre-ordered, and I like MSI products, the I/O is great, and I like the LCD device with it. I know 13900K is backwards compatible with Z690, but I also know that it will probably need a bios update to support Raptor Lake, so I got the 12600K to simply boot and flash the board in preparation for Raptor Lake. 

 

I'll download a bios and try flashing the board. If that doesn't work, and at this point I truly don't see why not, I can't figure out what is wrong. I have two of them and the exact same issue. I should buy another mobo to test my DDR5, but both sticks are brand new. And what is the chances of BOTH boards having busted mem controllers? It's insane. But the fact that I've run into the exact issue on two boards does my head in.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll flash in the morning. I'm open to any and all suggestions 

[TrueSonic45]

31 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Why exactly did you buy a godlike  board? Theres a reason most people didnt buy it, because they knew better then to buy a 1200$ motherboard for a cpu like that unless they were XOC and even then... Like this genuinely seems like a troll for a 1200$ board to put in the 12600k instead of a 12900k or 12900ks.....

 

Could be one of three things, Either the RAM is faulty, the CPU mem controller is busted, or you have to update the bios on it using a bios flash USB and see if that fixes the problem.

Hey, I do have a concern. 

 

Since none of the fans are spinning up and the cooler pump doesn't run, if it takes 5 mins to update the BIOS using the bios button, what will keep my CPU cool during this process? 

 

The only thing that turns on is the RAM RGB lights. I have no active cooling at all. Nothing else turns on. Will my CPU be fine during the 5-7 mins it takes to update my BIOS using USB?

[Shimejii]

2 minutes ago, TrueSonic45 said:

Hey, I do have a concern. 

 

Since none of the fans are spinning up and the cooler pump doesn't run, if it takes 5 mins to update the BIOS using the bios button, what will keep my CPU cool during this process? 

 

The only thing that turns on is the RAM RGB lights. I have no active cooling at all. Nothing else turns on. Will my CPU be fine during the 5-7 mins it takes to update my BIOS using USB?

It should be fine as long as theres something on it, i usually keep a large heatsink on it.

 

IF the motherboard isnt turning on, the CPU isnt under any load then. Usually POST and bios screens will cause it to get toasty, but the mobo isnt even booting so it wont generate all that much heat.

 

I know that z690 takes quite a while to boot up, as long as the bios actually works. But its pretty suprising to see since it really should work out of the box. 

[TrueSonic45]

5 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

It should be fine as long as theres something on it, i usually keep a large heatsink on it.

 

IF the motherboard isnt turning on, the CPU isnt under any load then. Usually POST and bios screens will cause it to get toasty, but the mobo isnt even booting so it wont generate all that much heat.

 

I know that z690 takes quite a while to boot up, as long as the bios actually works. But its pretty suprising to see since it really should work out of the box. 

That's what I was expecting too, man. I didn't throw anything crazy in here, just a 12th gen to prep for Raptor Lake. I was expecting it to just work out the box I can't see why it wouldn't, bios and all.

 

Bro, when I hooked up the power supply and the mobo did the cool animation on the screen, dragon roar, and the Power light came on, I was ready to get to work. Hit that power button and was treated to an RGB show on my ram and nothing else. Even if something was wrong, why wouldn't the fans spin or cooler pump turn on? GPU does nothing too. PSU fan doesn't spin. Whatever issue it is, BOTH boards did the same thing, across TWO power supplies. Imma flash this bios later today and see what's up.

 

None of this stuff is used, all brand new.

 

By the way I really REALLY appreciate you taking the time to help me, man.

[Shimejii]

12 minutes ago, TrueSonic45 said:

That's what I was expecting too, man. I didn't throw anything crazy in here, just a 12th gen to prep for Raptor Lake. I was expecting it to just work out the box I can't see why it wouldn't, bios and all.

 

Bro, when I hooked up the power supply and the mobo did the cool animation on the screen, dragon roar, and the Power light came on, I was ready to get to work. Hit that power button and was treated to an RGB show on my ram and nothing else. Even if something was wrong, why wouldn't the fans spin or cooler pump turn on? GPU does nothing too. PSU fan doesn't spin. Whatever issue it is, BOTH boards did the same thing, across TWO power supplies. Imma flash this bios later today and see what's up.

 

None of this stuff is used, all brand new.

 

By the way I really REALLY appreciate you taking the time to help me, man.

The power button for the case is plugged in correctly right? for a 1200$, im actually baffled on how theres no surface mounted power button. Unless they forgot to mention it in the Manual or i didnt see it. / EDIT/ Found them on the bottom of the board, hrmm These have to be the sneakiest buttons cause they are not mentioned well in the manual lol.

[TrueSonic45]

6 hours ago, Shimejii said:

The power button for the case is plugged in correctly right? for a 1200$, im actually baffled on how theres no surface mounted power button. Unless they forgot to mention it in the Manual or i didnt see it. / EDIT/ Found them on the bottom of the board, hrmm These have to be the sneakiest buttons cause they are not mentioned well in the manual lol.

So it's 10am. I downloaded the BIOS from MSI support, formatted USB drive fat32 and renamed the BIOS file to MSI.COM as instructed. Cleared CMOS, plugged in USB to flash port, powered up PSU, got white LED for power on bottom of the board, boards remote LCD went through animation cycle, then I pressed the Flash BIOS button. Flash BIOS button lit up, blinked twice. The light on the USB stick came on, then nothing. The BIOS button on the board went dark. Light on the USB stick started going through what looks like an idle cycle. I let it sit for 10 mins. Nothing. The BIOS light never came back on, no activity at all, and the USB stick is absolutely just idle. 

 

I recorded two videos, I'll upload. I really hope someone smarter than me can go "Ah, there's your problem. You didn't do the thing-a-majig with the whatcha-ma-call-it"

 

I I already ordered my 13900K and I plan on getting the 4090. If I can't get this system to turn on by then, I'm really screwed. I have NO idea what's wrong

 

EDIT: I'm gonna call MSI support and see what they can do in the mean time

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by TrueSonic45

[TrueSonic45]

19 minutes ago, TrueSonic45 said:

So it's 10am. I downloaded the BIOS from MSI support, formatted USB drive fat32 and renamed the BIOS file to MSI.COM as instructed. Cleared CMOS, plugged in USB to flash port, powered up PSU, got white LED for power on bottom of the board, boards remote LCD went through animation cycle, then I pressed the Flash BIOS button. Flash BIOS button lit up, blinked twice. The light on the USB stick came on, then nothing. The BIOS button on the board went dark. Light on the USB stick started going through what looks like an idle cycle. I let it sit for 10 mins. Nothing. The BIOS light never came back on, no activity at all, and the USB stick is absolutely just idle. 

 

I recorded two videos, I'll upload. I really hope someone smarter than me can go "Ah, there's your problem. You didn't do the thing-a-majig with the whatcha-ma-call-it"

 

I I already ordered my 13900K and I plan on getting the 4090. If I can't get this system to turn on by then, I'm really screwed. I have NO idea what's wrong

 

EDIT: I'm gonna call MSI support and see what they can do in the mean time

I wanted

19 minutes ago, TrueSonic45 said:

So it's 10am. I downloaded the BIOS from MSI support, formatted USB drive fat32 and renamed the BIOS file to MSI.COM as instructed. Cleared CMOS, plugged in USB to flash port, powered up PSU, got white LED for power on bottom of the board, boards remote LCD went through animation cycle, then I pressed the Flash BIOS button. Flash BIOS button lit up, blinked twice. The light on the USB stick came on, then nothing. The BIOS button on the board went dark. Light on the USB stick started going through what looks like an idle cycle. I let it sit for 10 mins. Nothing. The BIOS light never came back on, no activity at all, and the USB stick is absolutely just idle. 

 

I recorded two videos, I'll upload. I really hope someone smarter than me can go "Ah, there's your problem. You didn't do the thing-a-majig with the whatcha-ma-call-it"

 

I I already ordered my 13900K and I plan on getting the 4090. If I can't get this system to turn on by then, I'm really screwed. I have NO idea what's wrong

 

EDIT: I'm gonna call MSI support and see what they can do in the mean time

 

I know the motherboard is getting power, so I removed the CPU PWR1&2 to see if I'd get the same results. And I did. I powered on the PC without CPU PWR 1&2 and the motherboard, RAM RGB and the remote LCD all came on like normal, but no fans, no GPU power, nothing else. No boot. No display. NO error LEDS, nothing. Plugged CPU PWR 1&2 back in, still nothing. Just motherboard activity, RAM sticks glow up and hit rainbow cycle, absolutely nothing else powers on. I swapped to the second GODLIKE, same thing. Swapped power supplies on both motherboards, same thing. Flash BIOS does nothing. Clear CMOS does nothing

 

[TrueSonic45]

Video of boot failure

 

Video of BIOS flash attempt

Spoiler