Gigabyte GA AB350 Gaming 3 is dead after replacing RAM with RGB sticks; just an unlucky coincidence?

[za22061991]

Hey fellas, so this is my (previous) spec:

- AMD Ryzen 5 1600 stock speed, stock cooler

- Gigabyte GA AB350 Gaming 3 (BIOS F20 I think)

- Adata AX4U300038G16-SBF (DDR4 PC4-24000 8GB x 1)

- Enermax Triathlor 1000 W

- Samsung 850 EVO 250GB

- Western Digital Blue 4TB

- HIS RX 480 8GB

- Thermaltake View 27

- OS Ubuntu 16.04

 

So this system was fine. Then I decided to replace the RAM with Corsair Vengeance RGB CMR16GX4M2C3000C15 8GB x 2 (old Adata stick was not used). Voila, the system was working well, for around 1-2 hours. I left the PC on, and when I went back, the PC was turned off. At first I thought the PC was in a sleep mode (I set it to go to suspend after 10 mins). Then I realized the PC was completely turned off, and I can’t turn it on, neither by pressing power button nor by jumping pwr_btn pins on the motherboard.

I checked the power supply, and it works without any problem (by jumping green cable with any ground cable).

I tried to use another power supply, and the PC still can’t turned on.

I tried to remove all peripherals, only with CPU and old Adata RAM stick, still doesn’t work.

When I say, the PC can’t be turned on, it does really cannot be turned on, even the CPU fan and LED strip is not turned on.

Completely. Dead.

 

I assume the motherboard is dead, or does anyone have any idea about what was happened?

Is it related with I was replacing RAM sticks with RGB one, or is it just an unlucky coincidence?

[Nocte]

Did you clear CMOS? Sounds like a dead motherboard to me though. I am unsure how even a faulty RAM stick could kill a motherboard...

[za22061991]

Just now, Eibe said:

Did you clear CMOS?

Oh yeah, I tried to clear CMOS by shorting the clear CMOS pins, and by removing the battery, no luck.

 

Thanks, anyway.

[Ayaan_H3]

The new ram you installed is 3000Mhz but the ryzen supports upto 2933 Mhz. Maybe this is what caused the problem

[Nocte]

5 minutes ago, Ayaan_H3 said:

The new ram you installed is 3000Mhz but the ryzen supports upto 2933 Mhz. Maybe this is what caused the problem

Ryzen overclocks past 2933MHz just fine. I have been running 3200MHz sticks since June.

[za22061991]

22 minutes ago, Ayaan_H3 said:

The new ram you installed is 3000Mhz but the ryzen supports upto 2933 Mhz. Maybe this is what caused the problem

RAM speed is fine. With old Adata stick, I could use XMP profile and got 3000MHz just fine.

 

Thanks anyway for the response

[za22061991]

17 minutes ago, Eibe said:

Ryzen overclocks past 2933MHz just fine. I have been running 3200MHz sticks since June.

Yep, agree

[TVwazhere]

Can you replace the old RAM and see if it posts then? Cant read

 

It's quite possible the motherboard is dead

[za22061991]

7 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Can you replace the old RAM and see if it posts then? Cant read

 

It's quite possible the motherboard is dead

Yes, unfortunately I agree with you as well.  

 

Do you think it has something to do with those blinky RGB RAM sticks?

[TVwazhere]

1 minute ago, za22061991 said:

Yes, unfortunately I agree with you as well.  

 

Do you think it has something to do with those blinky RGB RAM sticks?

Hard to say. Usually RAM doesnt cause motherboard deaths, it's more common for it to be a voltage or a short circuit somewhere. A blown fuse or capacitor on the board somewhere. I havent heard of RGB specific ram causing issues like this before

[za22061991]

4 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

Hard to say. Usually RAM doesnt cause motherboard deaths, it's more common for it to be a voltage or a short circuit somewhere. A blown fuse or capacitor on the board somewhere. I havent heard of RGB specific ram causing issues like this before

Agree. Probably I should look closer around the motherboard, and search for any proofs of short circuits or stuffs.

 

Do you think the CPU is still okay? I don't have any spare AM4 motherboard right now to check whether the CPU is still working.

 

Thanks anyway for your replies

[TVwazhere]

1 minute ago, za22061991 said:

Agree. Probably I should look closer around the motherboard, and search for any proofs of short circuits or stuffs.

 

Do you think the CPU is still okay? I don't have any spare AM4 motherboard right now to check whether the CPU is still working.

 

Thanks anyway for your replies

It's possible, if not probable that your CPU is okay, but without another board to double check, there's no way of knowing for sure. We should assume for now that it still works and air on the side of caution when using it in a new mobile that it too might be dead 

[za22061991]

22 minutes ago, TVwazhere said:

It's possible, if not probable that your CPU is okay, but without another board to double check, there's no way of knowing for sure. We should assume for now that it still works and air on the side of caution when using it in a new mobile that it too might be dead 

That's my concern as well. I'm afraid if the CPU is also fried, and when I put it into a new motherboard, it might be dead as well.

 

Thanks!

[za22061991]

Oh man, thank you to all of you who gave me valuable information and tips.

 

Actually I'm ashamed to write this story, but here we go.

I was getting so close to buy new X370 motherboard as a replacement.

Then, for the last time, I was googling for those "motherboard cannot powered on" symptom.

Most of them gave advice to reset BIOS and take out the CMOS battery.

Then my eyes got stumbled upon sentence "take out the battery and let it out for couple of minutes".

So, am I supposed to wait for a while after taking out the battery?

Then I took out the battery once more, and wait for a good ten minutes.

Then I put it back again.

Guess what is happened.

Yeah, my PC is fully back.

 

Lesson learned: it might take couple of minutes for motherboard to drain all of its power since we take its CMOS battery until it resets its BIOS.