System Boot Failure CPU Light On

[JayDeeTech]

My roommate's system just died on him the other day by failing to boot and showing a solid red CPU light. I stripped everything down to just the CPU and a single stick of RAM and the results did not change so I reseated the CPU and tested again with just a single stick of RAM and got the same result. We didn't have a spare board to test the CPU so we bought a new one - specifically a Ryzen 5600X - to replace the 3600 he was running. Sadly this has met with the same results.

When we boot up his PC without the GPU, drives, and full complement of RAM we get:

Fan spinup for the CPU cooler

Red CPU light
Motherboard LED

Waiting for a minute provided no change so I shut it down.

With parts all installed the same happens but the GPU and case fans also spin but there is no drive activity from the bulk storage HDD.

I flashed the BIOS to 7C02v3G1 using the flash bios button on the back of the motherboard so that shouldn't be the issue.

Before I ask him to purchase another new part I just wanted to ask if there was anything else I should try to resolve this problem.

The relevant parts are:

CPU: Ryzen 5600X
Motherboard: B450 Tomahawk Max
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR4 @ 3000Mhz

[FireLegend]

18 minutes ago, JayDeeTech said:

My roommate's system just died on him the other day by failing to boot and showing a solid red CPU light. I stripped everything down to just the CPU and a single stick of RAM and the results did not change so I reseated the CPU and tested again with just a single stick of RAM and got the same result. We didn't have a spare board to test the CPU so we bought a new one - specifically a Ryzen 5600X - to replace the 3600 he was running. Sadly this has met with the same results.

When we boot up his PC without the GPU, drives, and full complement of RAM we get:

Fan spinup for the CPU cooler

Red CPU light
Motherboard LED

Waiting for a minute provided no change so I shut it down.

With parts all installed the same happens but the GPU and case fans also spin but there is no drive activity from the bulk storage HDD.

I flashed the BIOS to 7C02v3G1 using the flash bios button on the back of the motherboard so that shouldn't be the issue.

Before I ask him to purchase another new part I just wanted to ask if there was anything else I should try to resolve this problem.

The relevant parts are:

CPU: Ryzen 5600X
Motherboard: B450 Tomahawk Max
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR4 @ 3000Mhz

Honestly that's a strange one. The mobo probably has had it's time. Have u got a multimeter to test the battery voltage?

[JayDeeTech]

5 minutes ago, FireLegend said:

Honestly that's a strange one. The mobo probably has had it's time. Have u got a multimeter to test the battery voltage?

Sadly no, I'm just a basic hobbyist who can assemble parts, not a technician with a bench full of gear to diagnose anything deeper.

I could pull the board again and give it a cleaning with alcohol. My roommate is a smoker and there is some lingering dust stuck to the board.

[FireLegend]

7 minutes ago, JayDeeTech said:

Sadly no, I'm just a basic hobbyist who can assemble parts, not a technician with a bench full of gear to diagnose anything deeper.

I could pull the board again and give it a cleaning with alcohol. My roommate is a smoker and there is some lingering dust stuck to the board.

You could try but it probably won't work. I mean disassembling the whole rig and putting it back together may work

[JayDeeTech]

7 minutes ago, FireLegend said:

You could try but it probably won't work. I mean disassembling the whole rig and putting it back together may work

I did that when I dropped the new CPU in because the mount for the new cooler was different. I pulled the entire board, dropped in the CPU, tightened down the cooler, and then dropped it back into the system. 

It looks like a new board is what we need.

[Whatisthis]

Pull the ram out and see if you get an error when you boot without any inserted. The POST sequence is CPU, Bios, ram. If you get an error, it’s a ram problem.

 

I just had the same symptoms and pulling the ram, starting, and reinserting it fixed it.

[JayDeeTech]

23 minutes ago, Whatisthis said:

Pull the ram out and see if you get an error when you boot without any inserted. The POST sequence is CPU, Bios, ram. If you get an error, it’s a ram problem.

 

I just had the same symptoms and pulling the ram, starting, and reinserting it fixed it.

If the RAM was an issue I'd expect that error light to trip but I can try that.

[JayDeeTech]

As expected the RAM wasn't the issue. I'll try cleaning up the board later but I expect that it up and died on us.