Borked motherboard ? B450 Tomahawk / 3600 build

peterwalkley

peterwalkley

peterwalkley

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Following on from my "spec me" thread back in September, https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/sanity-check-ryzen-3600-build.18864100/ I think my motherboard is borked. System has been working mostly fine since I built it, a few BSOD's which I was putting down to immature drivers, however today its really gone **** up. Things started with it complaining about one of the Nvidia DLL's, so I tried to uninstall the drivers so I could then do a clean install - but in doing that, windows kept failing to restart and then started complaining about corrupt system configuration. Every thing I cared about was already backed up, so I decided to just try and re-install windows - however it can't even do that without either a random reboot when it shouldn't or a BSOD. The BSOD messages vary - and googling them just throw up the usual "check your drivers and hardware" stuff.

I've followed the handy troubleshooting guide sticky, so done the following - none of which has worked:

- Updated to latest BIOS
- Removed CMOS battery and power for 20 minutes and then accepted motherboard default settings
- Disconnected everything not immediately needed (single SSD) and tried USB windows install
- memtest has done 2 full scans with no errors reported so far, I'm currently leaving it running to let it burn through overnight.
- NOT using XMP, just normal memory setting and no overclocking.

I don't think its the PSU - its new and barely any load on it.
I had an M2 drive as well as the SSD - installing windows to both has failed. I can't see two drives being faulty.

Thank-you for reading this far. Is there anything I have missed here in trying to figure out the problem ? Been at this most of the day while working and running out of ideas. At the moment its looks like I will have to RMA the board.

EDIT: more things tried:

- Building outside the case to rule out short-circuit
- Different PSU
- Alternating single memory stick and also using the "wrong" memory slot

Overnight memtest results not visible as when i switched the monitor back on, nothing was displayed even though the PC looked to be running. I'll do another run now and leave the screen ON.

EDIT2:
- Tried windows install from disk instead of USB
- Tried a unix install. Resulted "kernel panic" error message while trying to initialise installation
- Very latest BIOS released last night: 7C02v351(Beta version)

Will do a last memtest, but concluding the MB is at fault. Can't see it being anything else.
 
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My Max was a lash up from the start, spent two weeks endlessly troubleshooting issues wasted so much time on it, couldnt resolve some major problems to do with sound and latency plus it didn't like my GPU much. Swopped for Aorus Elite, everything perfect day one.
 
Only spare GPU I have was watercooled, so a bit of a pain to use, but worth a shot as there's nothing I can do for RMA until monday now anyway.

memtest ran clean overnight. 10 iterations, so I'm pretty sure that's one thing I can rely on !
 
Tried with a different GPU and still no joy, so ruling that out as a cause. Also ran prime test off 'ultimate boot cd' for an hour with no issues, so along with memtest I can't see RAM being the issue.

RMA time tomorrow when customer services are in. Thanks for the suggestions all.
 
peterwalkley said:
Tried with a different GPU and still no joy, so ruling that out as a cause. Also ran prime test off 'ultimate boot cd' for an hour with no issues, so along with memtest I can't see RAM being the issue.

RMA time tomorrow when customer services are in. Thanks for the suggestions all.
Click to expand...

Out of interest, which RAM ? speed etc, are you running it at stock or XMP, tried setting the fabric manually in the bios ?

Also please please make sure you have it in the correct slots, I know some people will tell you it makes no difference, but it makes a massive difference, if youve been flashing bioses etc with it in the wrong slots or unstable ram, then you'll probably need to do a clean flash of that once the issues are ironed out.
 
Jamin280672 said:
Out of interest, which RAM ? speed etc, are you running it at stock or XMP, tried setting the fabric manually in the bios ?

Also please please make sure you have it in the correct slots, I know some people will tell you it makes no difference, but it makes a massive difference, if youve been flashing bioses etc with it in the wrong slots or unstable ram, then you'll probably need to do a clean flash of that once the issues are ironed out.
Click to expand...

This RAM: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...-3200mhz-dual-channel-kit-blac-my-0a2-tg.html from my build thread.

XMP is OFF and tried a few times with it ON to see if that helps - no joy, so mostly running at stock. Definitely in the correct slots as I deliberately tried the wrong ones to see if that would work - you get a warning they're in the wrong slots when you power up, so pretty hard to stuff that up accidentally unless you're totally blind.

Not tried any manual entries for RAM as I don't know what die these sticks are, so the info available via the Ryzen memory calculator isn't any help. memtest and the prime test suggested earlier also show no issues with RAM.
 
peterwalkley said:
This RAM: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...-3200mhz-dual-channel-kit-blac-my-0a2-tg.html from my build thread.

XMP is OFF and tried a few times with it ON to see if that helps - no joy, so mostly running at stock. Definitely in the correct slots as I deliberately tried the wrong ones to see if that would work - you get a warning they're in the wrong slots when you power up, so pretty hard to stuff that up accidentally unless you're totally blind.

Not tried any manual entries for RAM as I don't know what die these sticks are, so the info available via the Ryzen memory calculator isn't any help. memtest and the prime test suggested earlier also show no issues with RAM.
Click to expand...

Use thaiphoon burner to find out what IC's are on your sticks, id imagine they are probably Hynix though: http://www.softnology.biz/files.html

As for setting the fabric manually, when using XMP ie 3200mhz RAM, set the IF (FCLK) to 1600mhz, if using the ram at stock speeds, just set the IF (FCLK) to 1066/7mhz, auto I find is very up and down and it plays a massive part in stability, you can see in my picture I have mine set to half my ram speed at 1900mhz........also, manually set your SoC voltage to override mode and set it to 1.100v.

https://imgur.com/z26lP1p

My RAM are Hynix CJR based, G.Skill Trident Z Royal Silver 3600mhz: https://imgur.com/BbPylLK
 
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Are us just running Memtest from the bootable USB?
The faults you are seeing screams RAM, but it could take 24 hours or longer to show a fault in a test environment.
Do you have any other RAM you can test with? I assume you have already tried the system with just one RAM module installed, then swap them around if you saw no fault? :)
 
Journey said:
Are us just running Memtest from the bootable USB?
The faults you are seeing screams RAM, but it could take 24 hours or longer to show a fault in a test environment.
Do you have any other RAM you can test with? I assume you have already tried the system with just one RAM module installed, then swap them around if you saw no fault? :)
Click to expand...

Running memtest from a bootable CD. I left it overnight (13 or 14 hours iirc) and did over 10 full iterations with no faults - and I also ran the prime numbers test suggested above, also no faults. As in first post, I'd tried both sticks on their own but no joy. i don't have any other DDR4 kits to try.

For "real" use, the best I've get during windows install is the part where it reboots off the SSD and is starting services up before it BSOD's. Most of the time it is failing during "preparing files for installation" step. When I've tried linux installs (centos and ubuntu), those fail with a "kernel panic" error.

The system was fine for a few weeks, just started playing up last week :(

Boxing it up and raising an RMA at the moment.
 
peterwalkley said:
The system was fine for a few weeks, just started playing up last week :(

Boxing it up and raising an RMA at the moment.
Click to expand...

It's annoying but early life failure happens, all it takes is a bad solder connection on a BGA chip, or something equally as simple to cause these kinds of issues. Better now than after 12 months, or just a week or so outside of the warranty period. Make sure you ask for the fault report from the manufacturer, this is usually just a line out of a spreadsheet, which will list the fault, and the location of the component on the board that caused the problem, and action taken etc.
 
EssexBoy said:
Mine has been solid with new bios
Click to expand...

That's good to know, thank-you. Which version ? There is a 3.4 released 25th October and also a 3.51b released 8th November. I'd tried both of those along with the 3.2 that worked for a few weeks.

Having been googling around for other ideas, all I see is people posting problems with it, but then no-one posts "my board works".
 
Holst1981 said:
Same here.

My max board is working well with the latest bios.

I did have some trouble getting the ram from my x99 system stable at full speed on previous bios versions but manually entering timings and voltages on the new bios works.
Click to expand...

Not as quick at v32 and earlier but more stable.
 
Thread bump.

MSI took the full 28 days and still failed to respond :(

I contacted overclockers CS on friday and they sent a replacement motherboard out, which very conveniently arrived yesterday. Not sure who to thank for the extremely fast delivery as the initial emails said monday - but DPD and OC are on my christmas card list.

Bad news is I don't have a remotely stable build with the new MB. I have done an out of box minimal build, just the M2 boot drive and my 1070Ti plugged in. On the 7C02v34 BIOS version which seems to be the most stable from others' builds. Running at stock settings on the MB (no overclocking and not using XMP). It took a few attempts, but windows 10 did install and the system mostly boots into windows, however its practically impossible to do anything before a random BSOD throws up. I've tried:

- Alternative PSU again to rule that out. Just to confirm result from first time round.
- Each memory stick in turn just in case one is borked.
- Ran memtest86 (temporarily hooked up a CD drive) and also windows memory test - neither showed up errors as with the first time round.

I'm a bit stuck here. Common components now seems to be the memory and the CPU. Memory showed no errors with memtest (and when I also ran stuff a month ago) - and how can the CPU be faulty if I managed to install windows. Short of sending MB, RAM and CPU back, is there anything I can try ?
 
peterwalkley said:
Thread bump.

MSI took the full 28 days and still failed to respond :(

I contacted overclockers CS on friday and they sent a replacement motherboard out, which very conveniently arrived yesterday. Not sure who to thank for the extremely fast delivery as the initial emails said monday - but DPD and OC are on my christmas card list.

Bad news is I don't have a remotely stable build with the new MB. I have done an out of box minimal build, just the M2 boot drive and my 1070Ti plugged in. On the 7C02v34 BIOS version which seems to be the most stable from others' builds. Running at stock settings on the MB (no overclocking and not using XMP). It took a few attempts, but windows 10 did install and the system mostly boots into windows, however its practically impossible to do anything before a random BSOD throws up. I've tried:

- Alternative PSU again to rule that out. Just to confirm result from first time round.
- Each memory stick in turn just in case one is borked.
- Ran memtest86 (temporarily hooked up a CD drive) and also windows memory test - neither showed up errors as with the first time round.

I'm a bit stuck here. Common components now seems to be the memory and the CPU. Memory showed no errors with memtest (and when I also ran stuff a month ago) - and how can the CPU be faulty if I managed to install windows. Short of sending MB, RAM and CPU back, is there anything I can try ?
Click to expand...

What's the Bsod error code your getting and it it always the same?
 
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