[FIXED] VGA white light issue (video)

[Hampusb]

 

Welcome to my booting roulette morning routine. In short, most of the time when I boot the PC the VGA white light stays on and monitor goes to sleep, but occasionally it goes all the way to the green light and then everything works like a dream. At worst I've had to restart 30+ times to get it to work, at best I've had three consecutive mornings when it boots just fine on the first try. 

 

I've tried all the advice I've found online, like the following:

PC boots fine when I use my motherboards integrated GPU. I've tried booting with different monitors, I've tried turning the monitor on at the same time or right before turning on the PC. This morning I moved my GPU to a different PCIe slot and I also tried with a different PCIe cable, same problem.

 

The crazy thing for me is that when it works, it works perfectly. For the last 2-3 years I've had to deal with this.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you!

 

 

[podkall]

4 minutes ago, Hampusb said:

For the last 2-3 years I've had to deal with this.

I think the first mistake was not figuring out if something is wrong before letting these issues pass for years.

 

5 minutes ago, Hampusb said:

I've tried all the advice I've found online, like the following:

PC boots fine when I use my motherboards integrated GPU. I've tried booting with different monitors, I've tried turning the monitor on at the same time or right before turning on the PC. This morning I moved my GPU to a different PCIe slot and I also tried with a different PCIe cable, same problem.

Because this sounds like the GPU is the problem, PC works great without GPU, but once GPU is connected and used it things sometimes don't want to work? That's pretty pointy arrow.

 

Did you look at temps and other vitals?

[Hampusb]

14 minutes ago, podkall said:

Did you look at temps and other vitals?

GPU is quite hot, 49C while idle. Is there any other information I could provide that would help?

 

14 minutes ago, podkall said:

I think the first mistake was not figuring out if something is wrong before letting these issues pass for years.

Fair, I should've taken it to a professional right away, but in my defense I've been trying to fix it myself on a regular basis whenever I'm at home for vacation. I've found countless possible solutions online but nothing has worked. Isn't it odd though, that without doing anything except constantly restarting, it suddenly starts working? It's not like I'm adjusting the cables or the GPU between every attempt.

 

On a separate note - could an outdated BIOS have anything to do with it?

[Blasty Blosty]

11 minutes ago, Hampusb said:

On a separate note - could an outdated BIOS have anything to do with it?

Possibly, yes

 

If you are able to update it, that might fix the problem

[podkall]

5 minutes ago, Hampusb said:

GPU is quite hot, 49C while idle. Is there any other information I could provide that would help?

49C is not hot

 

load temps are more important too, my GPU idles around 60C+

 

6 minutes ago, Hampusb said:

Fair, I should've taken it to a professional right away, but in my defense I've been trying to fix it myself on a regular basis whenever I'm at home for vacation. I've found countless possible solutions online but nothing has worked. Isn't it odd though, that without doing anything except constantly restarting, it suddenly starts working? It's not like I'm adjusting the cables or the GPU between every attempt.

 

On a separate note - could an outdated BIOS have anything to do with it?

Maybe.

 

You could do some tests and get some programs.

 

Do you have:

• https://www.hwinfo.com/download/ - sensors
• https://www.ocbase.com/ - stability test

[Hampusb]

1 hour ago, Blasty Blosty said:

Possibly, yes

 

If you are able to update it, that might fix the problem

Updated BIOS successfully, but it didn't fix it. Took me around 10 restarts to get it running this time.

 

59 minutes ago, podkall said:

You could do some tests and get some programs.

 

Do you have:

• https://www.hwinfo.com/download/ - sensors
• https://www.ocbase.com/ - stability test

Got 'em now and running sensors + test. What am I looking for?

 

I'll report back when the test is done. So far nothing pokes out to my untrained eye, except for maybe the meters under "GPU Power" and "GPU Memory Allocated". I have a 750W PSU.

 

[Hampusb]

No errors. 

 

1 hour ago, Hampusb said:

I realized this was just during the test, so nothing weird there either.

[podkall]

1 hour ago, Hampusb said:

Got 'em now and running sensors + test. What am I looking for?

Some can give you red, but if you want to run games while HWinfo is in background you can just post screenshot of everything later.

 

Or CPU+GPU+MB stuff.

[Hampusb]

1 hour ago, podkall said:

Some can give you red, but if you want to run games while HWinfo is in background you can just post screenshot of everything later.

 

Or CPU+GPU+MB stuff.

GPU 3D adaptive test, no errors. VRAM test, no errors. 

 

Did the power one next.. it went absolutely bonkers during the first couple minutes so I didn't even finish it.

What can we make of this, shitty PSU?

[podkall]

3 hours ago, Hampusb said:

GPU 3D adaptive test, no errors. VRAM test, no errors. 

 

Did the power one next.. it went absolutely bonkers during the first couple minutes so I didn't even finish it.

What can we make of this, shitty PSU?

What are your specs? Motherboard and PSU? (Full model names)

[Hampusb]

2 hours ago, podkall said:

What are your specs? Motherboard and PSU? (Full model names)

MB: ROG STRIX Z390-F GAMING

PSU: Seasonic FOCUS PX-750

[podkall]

10 minutes ago, Hampusb said:

MB: ROG STRIX Z390-F GAMING

PSU: Seasonic FOCUS PX-750

Drivers, Chipset, GPU updated when?

BIOS last update?

[Hampusb]

51 minutes ago, podkall said:

Drivers, Chipset, GPU updated when?

BIOS last update?

Everything is up to date. I updated BIOS and chipset today as part of my regular troubleshooting frenzy.

 

I also just noticed that the problem doesn't occur while restarting, only while booting while the computer is already off.

 

Found a thread that sums up all the solutions I've tried pretty well, many of which have worked, but only temporarily: 

https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/k4lok3/fix_asus_motherboard_displaying_white_vga_led_on/

 

The mention about GPU being PCIe 4.0 and MB being PCIe 3.0 was interesting, but I'm not sure what to do with that. I already tried my GPU in a different PCIe slot, nada.

 

This is also interesting, because my reset button in fact doesn't work: "After more trouble shooting I had an epiphany. Removed the case power and reset button connectors from the motherboard. Shorting the pwr switch pins, board immediately booted right up, no error codes, nothing."

I'm not familiar with shorting switch pins so I'm not gonna try that without knowing for sure what I'm doing, but could be something there. Maybe.

 

The search goes on! Thanks for all the help so far, I do appreciate it greatly.

[podkall]

5 minutes ago, Hampusb said:

This is also interesting, because my reset button in fact doesn't work: "After more trouble shooting I had an epiphany. Removed the case power and reset button connectors from the motherboard. Shorting the pwr switch pins, board immediately booted right up, no error codes, nothing."

I'm not familiar with shorting switch pins so I'm not gonna try that without knowing for sure what I'm doing, but could be something there. Maybe.

Are the pins correctly seated? As well as other parts in the PC?

 

If you want to check front panel button connectors. You can turn off PSU and find Motherboard manual, there it should say what goes where, sometimes there's diagram right on motherboard too next to the connections. The orientation of the pins shouldn't matter, but it should be in the right place.

[Hampusb]

4 minutes ago, podkall said:

Are the pins correctly seated? As well as other parts in the PC?

 

If you want to check front panel button connectors. You can turn off PSU and find Motherboard manual, there it should say what goes where, sometimes there's diagram right on motherboard too next to the connections. The orientation of the pins shouldn't matter, but it should be in the right place.

I may have found the solution, lol. I refuse to believe this will last, but currently, it's working. I turned fast boot off in the boot menu. If this is it, I'm happy, but also VERY curious to understand why it fixed the problem. 

[podkall]

10 hours ago, Hampusb said:

I may have found the solution, lol. I refuse to believe this will last, but currently, it's working. I turned fast boot off in the boot menu. If this is it, I'm happy, but also VERY curious to understand why it fixed the problem. 

Interesting, yeah, honestly maybe your "high power" 30-series GPU hates booting too quickly.