Hello Tom's Hardware community! I've had problems with a motherboard by MSI in a new rig I'm putting together.
But to preface: I've already asked for a replacement board, I just want to clarify my suspicions.
So first the rig. (it's a pcpartpicker link if anyone wants to know details) It reuses part from my previous rig which, while not exactly high quality (the case in particular), it was still reliable. The only thing straight up removed is the CPU cooler, I originally had a an multi-socket cooler which did not support AM4. But regardless.
Now, the problem can be simplified to what I believe is a bad DIMM slot, or something similar. Why I believe this is because the rig didn't post what so ever. Not even an error message. It just lit up the CPU light briefly, then held on the DRAM LED for a second, then stopped.
I guess I should explain the LED's real quick. So MSI has this nifty little set of LEDs to indicate what part of the boot it's on (presumably for debugging purposes), from top to bottom it's as follows:
CPU
DRAM
VGA
BOOT
Presumably the LEDs would start at the top and go down to the boot where the computer would actually post as normal.
Back to the problem: It would get to DRAM, hold and the LEDs would just turn off. Except the little aesthetic strips they have on the lower half of the board.
What I've tried: I've attempted to strip it down to just the board, CPU, and GPU. I've attempted to swap my dual channel ram around, I've tried only one stick on the primary slot (for both sticks), and finally tried removing the battery for a few minutes to clear the bios. All of which resulted in the same thing (stated above).
Any and all attempts to research similar problems lead me back to the idea that the motherboard is bad.
If anyone can say otherwise or affirm that would be fantastic, thanks!
But to preface: I've already asked for a replacement board, I just want to clarify my suspicions.
So first the rig. (it's a pcpartpicker link if anyone wants to know details) It reuses part from my previous rig which, while not exactly high quality (the case in particular), it was still reliable. The only thing straight up removed is the CPU cooler, I originally had a an multi-socket cooler which did not support AM4. But regardless.
Now, the problem can be simplified to what I believe is a bad DIMM slot, or something similar. Why I believe this is because the rig didn't post what so ever. Not even an error message. It just lit up the CPU light briefly, then held on the DRAM LED for a second, then stopped.
I guess I should explain the LED's real quick. So MSI has this nifty little set of LEDs to indicate what part of the boot it's on (presumably for debugging purposes), from top to bottom it's as follows:
CPU
DRAM
VGA
BOOT
Presumably the LEDs would start at the top and go down to the boot where the computer would actually post as normal.
Back to the problem: It would get to DRAM, hold and the LEDs would just turn off. Except the little aesthetic strips they have on the lower half of the board.
What I've tried: I've attempted to strip it down to just the board, CPU, and GPU. I've attempted to swap my dual channel ram around, I've tried only one stick on the primary slot (for both sticks), and finally tried removing the battery for a few minutes to clear the bios. All of which resulted in the same thing (stated above).
Any and all attempts to research similar problems lead me back to the idea that the motherboard is bad.
If anyone can say otherwise or affirm that would be fantastic, thanks!