Sorry if this is long, but I am not sure what is relevant. I have 25+ years of experience but have been using Macs for the last 10 years and it has been a long time since I built a PC from scratch. I wanted to build my son a gaming rig as a Christmas present and to teach him how to do it in the process. It has not gone well. You can see the current hardware stack here:
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/markphip/saved/RYCgLk
Originally I had a MSI Z270 Carbon Pro motherboard. We built the system up including moving the hard drives and video card from his existing ASUS computer. Everything went smoothly and we booted it up and got into Windows fine. It even seemed to automatically install the new chipset drivers. I wanted to start cleaning things up by removing the ASUS extras and installing the MSI extras. Most of the ASUS stuff would not uninstall but I figured I would just brute force it off the system later. It did not seem to be causing any problems and I suspect most of it was no longer even installed as I had done some hard drive upgrades for him a year ago and he never used any of the ASUS utilities. I inserted the MSI DVD to start installing their extras. I mainly wanted their RGB app so I could setup the colors etc. Somewhere during the installation of the things on their DVD ... Windows froze up. No mouse, could not shutdown etc. So I powered off. That was the last time I saw anything. Before I continue the story I will mention that I eventually moved my sons hard drives and video card back to his ASUS computer and all is fine. So the drives did not get corrupted when Windows froze and his video card is fine etc.
Back to the new build, most of the time the PC would not even show the BIOS logo and the keyboard and mouse would not light up. The VGA debug LED was lit up on the motherboard. I removed all hardware, I reset CMOS, removed battery, removed the board from the case and ran it breadboard style etc. Best I ever could do was get into the BIOS. I was able to successfully flash it to latest version, though it did not fix anything. Most of the time I could not even get to BIOS and I would see the VGA LED. MSI support was little help so I wound up getting an RMA and mailing it back.
Not wanting to wait, and figuring I could resell the replacement motherboard on eBay when I got it back, I drove 2 hours each way to a store where I could buy a new motherboard. I got a Gigabyte Z270-Ultra Gaming. Came home, set it all up and started it up.
Nothing. First, the RAM LED was lit up on the motherboard. I reseated the RAM and got past that. Now it is stuck with the VGA LED light with no BIOS logo or anything on screen. I was doing this with just the onboard video and no video card installed. I did also try putting in the video card but that did not make a difference.
I reset CMOS etc on new motherboard. Nothing. For a short time, I started to get the logo on the screen but keyboard was never active so I could not get into BIOS to even see what version it has installed, let alone flash it. After a while, even that stopped working and now it it is just in a reboot cycle where it never really comes on.
It seems odd that I have the same general problem with two new motherboards from different vendors. Does it seem likely that something happened to the CPU, and I guess it would be with the onboard video? Unfortunately, this is the one I have no way to verify without going out and buying another CPU. At this point, I do not think I want to do that (nor do I want to do the 2 hour drive again).
I have kind of run out of ideas. I did order a motherboard speaker from Newegg and will hopefully have that in a couple days. Unfortunately the store I went to did not have any. I am hoping the old AMI BIOS beeps might tell me more than I am getting now but I am at a loss for things to try.
If anyone has any other ideas I would appreciate it. I wish I could at least get into the BIOS and maybe flash it, but again, given that I have a very similar problem with all new hardware on two different motherboards, I am doubting it is the motherboard. I suppose it could be the RAM but there is not really any reason to suspect that yet.
Thanks for any help.
EDIT:
Problem turned out to be the CPU. I finally decided to remove the working i5-6400 from another computer and everything worked once I did that. MB had the latest BIOS already installed so there was nothing more I could try. Will get an RMA on the i7-7700K
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/markphip/saved/RYCgLk
Originally I had a MSI Z270 Carbon Pro motherboard. We built the system up including moving the hard drives and video card from his existing ASUS computer. Everything went smoothly and we booted it up and got into Windows fine. It even seemed to automatically install the new chipset drivers. I wanted to start cleaning things up by removing the ASUS extras and installing the MSI extras. Most of the ASUS stuff would not uninstall but I figured I would just brute force it off the system later. It did not seem to be causing any problems and I suspect most of it was no longer even installed as I had done some hard drive upgrades for him a year ago and he never used any of the ASUS utilities. I inserted the MSI DVD to start installing their extras. I mainly wanted their RGB app so I could setup the colors etc. Somewhere during the installation of the things on their DVD ... Windows froze up. No mouse, could not shutdown etc. So I powered off. That was the last time I saw anything. Before I continue the story I will mention that I eventually moved my sons hard drives and video card back to his ASUS computer and all is fine. So the drives did not get corrupted when Windows froze and his video card is fine etc.
Back to the new build, most of the time the PC would not even show the BIOS logo and the keyboard and mouse would not light up. The VGA debug LED was lit up on the motherboard. I removed all hardware, I reset CMOS, removed battery, removed the board from the case and ran it breadboard style etc. Best I ever could do was get into the BIOS. I was able to successfully flash it to latest version, though it did not fix anything. Most of the time I could not even get to BIOS and I would see the VGA LED. MSI support was little help so I wound up getting an RMA and mailing it back.
Not wanting to wait, and figuring I could resell the replacement motherboard on eBay when I got it back, I drove 2 hours each way to a store where I could buy a new motherboard. I got a Gigabyte Z270-Ultra Gaming. Came home, set it all up and started it up.
Nothing. First, the RAM LED was lit up on the motherboard. I reseated the RAM and got past that. Now it is stuck with the VGA LED light with no BIOS logo or anything on screen. I was doing this with just the onboard video and no video card installed. I did also try putting in the video card but that did not make a difference.
I reset CMOS etc on new motherboard. Nothing. For a short time, I started to get the logo on the screen but keyboard was never active so I could not get into BIOS to even see what version it has installed, let alone flash it. After a while, even that stopped working and now it it is just in a reboot cycle where it never really comes on.
It seems odd that I have the same general problem with two new motherboards from different vendors. Does it seem likely that something happened to the CPU, and I guess it would be with the onboard video? Unfortunately, this is the one I have no way to verify without going out and buying another CPU. At this point, I do not think I want to do that (nor do I want to do the 2 hour drive again).
I have kind of run out of ideas. I did order a motherboard speaker from Newegg and will hopefully have that in a couple days. Unfortunately the store I went to did not have any. I am hoping the old AMI BIOS beeps might tell me more than I am getting now but I am at a loss for things to try.
If anyone has any other ideas I would appreciate it. I wish I could at least get into the BIOS and maybe flash it, but again, given that I have a very similar problem with all new hardware on two different motherboards, I am doubting it is the motherboard. I suppose it could be the RAM but there is not really any reason to suspect that yet.
Thanks for any help.
EDIT:
Problem turned out to be the CPU. I finally decided to remove the working i5-6400 from another computer and everything worked once I did that. MB had the latest BIOS already installed so there was nothing more I could try. Will get an RMA on the i7-7700K
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