Aorus Master z390 red cpu light, will not post

Anubis90 · 4 Apr 2020 at 03:19

Hey guys... Ive been having some really odd things happen lately and I seriously dont know what to do anymore.

So about a week ago my desktop stoped working. I tried to power it on and it just kept going on an endless cycle of briefly powering off and trying to power on again.

all the led turned on, the fans started spinning but that was it. About 30 seconds after turning on it would shut off with a click and start all over again.

I disassembled everything to check the connections and reassembled and Nothing changed. So I gave up. A few hours later I tried it again and it suddenly worked, I could go into windows and the UEFI and everything was like nothing had happened. Except, when I tried to power it off, windows would close, my monitor wouldnt get any signal anymore but the LEDs wouldnt turn off unless I kept pressing the power button.

Still I thought of it as a win, I have no idea why it started working again but it did.
But today it started all over again. I cant turn it on. It tries for about 30 seconds, then clicks and shuts off for half a second and starts all over again.

My mobo has a screen for troubleshooting but this doesnt turn on either, all that I can see is a light indicating troubles with the cpu.

I also noticed one of the fans right next to the cpu power socket wouldn’t spin while all the others did. I tried the pc again (because why not) and the leds of the fan came on, but it didnt spin. It used to spin before I changed the place where I connected it to the mobo, so I switched it again and lo and behold, it did spin.

Do you have any idea what could be happening?

Specs:

Aorus Master z390
I9-9900k oc to 4.9 GHz
2x16 Gb DDR4 @3466 MHz Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro
GeForce RTX 2080 ti FTW 3 ultra
2x1 TB Samsung v-nand 970 evo plus NVMe M.2
Corsair H150i Pro AIO + 4 other fans
EVGA Supernova 850 G3 80+ gold

This was not a cheap piece of tech and it had been working perfectly for almost a year until a week ago.
Ive tried clearing the CMOS, trying with only 1 RAM stick at a time and switching to different slots, not using the GPU, checking everything is properly plugged in, taking the mobo outside the case and trying with the bare minimum....
Im at my wits end...

Also, I dont know how relevant this could be, but the first time this happened windows asked me to update and I left the pc downloading the update. When I returned the LEDs were on but no signal was coming off of the PC (just as what happens now).

Any ideas? I really need help...

Im thinking either the psu is not supplying enough energy (I have connected both the 4 power plug and 2 x 4, neither works) or the mobo has gone bad somehow, inside the case, in not even 1 year (both psu and mobo are less than a year old)...

Either that or (worst case scenario) the cpu died on me (also less than a year old)

Ps: sorry about any typos, Im on my phone as I dont have a PC anymore...

Grimley · 4 Apr 2020 at 07:53

Anubis90 said:
My mobo has a screen for troubleshooting but this doesnt turn on either, all that I can see is a light indicating troubles with the cpu.

Hello.
I assume this is the LED screen next to the USB2 headers on the board, does this light up with any code nos? (see page 131 of the manual). Have you checked to see if the Bios LED's (there are 2, see page 25 of the manual) light up? if neither light up, I suspect the board is dead.

Warranty:

https://member.aorus.com/global/productwarranty

Anubis90 · 4 Apr 2020 at 19:36

Grimley said:
Hello.
I assume this is the LED screen next to the USB2 headers on the board, does this light up with any code nos? (see page 131 of the manual). Have you checked to see if the Bios LED's (there are 2, see page 25 of the manual) light up? if neither light up, I suspect the board is dead.

Warranty:

https://member.aorus.com/global/productwarranty

yeah, I’m talking about the led screen next to the usb headers at the bottom of the board, it does not show anything, it doesn’t light up.

The bios led does light up. I would post a pic, but I don’t know how to lol

Honestly I’m thinking the mobo is dead, but I don’t have another one to test with. It just seems weird to me that the fans wont power up when connected in one place but do power up when connected on another.

I really hope it’s not the CPU, since it’s more expensive, but I guess that’s a possibility, too.

I don’t know what’s more likely...

thank you for your comment

JollysH1 · 5 Apr 2020 at 01:31

So I hope you have this option, if you don't PM me and I'll send you one. The more complicated boards become, the less they are easy to diagnose! I have a previous board which always gave me a code "Reserved for future issues" If you have one? plug in a little speaker/beeper thing! you know what I mean! and see if you get POST beeps! if so, what are they? I know it seems basic, but sometimes that is the best option! unless you want to start to bell out all the components :eek:

EsaT · 5 Apr 2020 at 10:15

Anubis90 said:
yeah, I’m talking about the led screen next to the usb headers at the bottom of the board, it does not show anything, it doesn’t light up.

That kinda hints to some more seious issue with board or CPU.

One think to check would be have you tried powering on with plain minimum parts (no drives) just to see if you cam get into BIOS?

Grimley · 5 Apr 2020 at 10:56

Anubis90 said:
I really hope it’s not the CPU, since it’s more expensive, but I guess that’s a possibility, too.

It's rare but it does happen. Could'nt you order a cheap 8th gen dual core Celeron to pop in the board just to elminate that it isnt the 9900K?

orbitalwalsh · 6 Apr 2020 at 07:08

CPU right way around ?

MartinPrince · 8 Apr 2020 at 08:56

Have you sorted it yet?

The Z390 Master has a Dual Bios Switch. There are 2 amber bios lights near to the SATA ports that indicate which bios you are on. Check the manual on how to switch bios using the 2 separate switches at the bottom of the motherboard. Just going from the diagram it can be a little confusing which is on/off but they have numbers of 1/2 which will tell you which position is which.

Switch to the backup bios (Main bios is default) and see if you still have the same problem. Out of interest do you know which BIOS version you were using when the issues started?

Here is the info you need to switch bioses. It's on page 25 of the manual if you want to zoom in for clearer images.

I would try to just switch which bios you are using first.
If everything is working fine using the backup bios and you want to fix the main bios here are instructions on how to do that.

Anubis90 · 8 Apr 2020 at 17:37

orbitalwalsh said:
CPU right way around ?

Hey, thanks for your comment. Yeah, the cpu is correctly positioned. The computer was working fine for almost a year before it suddenly stopped.

MartinPrince said:
Have you sorted it yet?

The Z390 Master has a Dual Bios Switch. There are 2 amber bios lights near to the SATA ports that indicate which bios you are on. Check the manual on how to switch bios using the 2 separate switches at the bottom of the motherboard. Just going from the diagram it can be a little confusing which is on/off but they have numbers of 1/2 which will tell you which position is which.

Switch to the backup bios (Main bios is default) and see if you still have the same problem. Out of interest do you know which BIOS version you were using when the issues started?

Here is the info you need to switch bioses. It's on page 25 of the manual if you want to zoom in for clearer images.

I would try to just switch which bios you are using first.
If everything is working fine using the backup bios and you want to fix the main bios here are instructions on how to do that.

Unfortunately I have already tried booting from backup BIOS and the same thing happens every time.

Thank you for trying to help... I’m pretty sure it’s dead hardware. I’m just not sure which piece got fried...

Thabk you guys, I’ll keep trying any ideas you may get

orbitalwalsh · 8 Apr 2020 at 18:42

Contact gigabyte RMA .. depending on how Corona virus is effecting them , their Mobo RMA is UK based. Might be able to ship CPU and have both tested !

@GIGA-Man might be able to give guidance though as we are all in a bit of a stuck situation with working conditions

MartinPrince · 9 Apr 2020 at 15:13

Anubis90 said:
Hey, thanks for your comment. Yeah, the cpu is correctly positioned. The computer was working fine for almost a year before it suddenly stopped.

Unfortunately I have already tried booting from backup BIOS and the same thing happens every time.

Thank you for trying to help... I’m pretty sure it’s dead hardware. I’m just not sure which piece got fried...

Thabk you guys, I’ll keep trying any ideas you may get

Yes, if the error code digital read out is showing nothing at all then that could be something more terminal. I would go with @orbitalwalsh suggestion and see if you can contact Gigabyte. It's a shame that it's happened now as getting it sorted will take longer than normal. Best of luck

Anubis90 · 13 Apr 2020 at 22:38

Hey, guys.

just a quick update here. Since I had no way to confirm wether the cpu or mobo where at fault I just went ahead and bought a new one (an Asrock Phantom Gaming X).

Thankfully it was my old mobo that was at fault, since everything runs perfectly on this one.

I have no idea why it died so suddenly and in less than a year. If you have any ideas of what could have happened I am very interested since I’m afraid it will happen to the new one, too (could it have been my psu? It is also new...)

Anyway, thanks for everyone’s help. I really appreciated it

orbitalwalsh · 14 Apr 2020 at 11:08

Anubis90 said:
Hey, guys.

just a quick update here. Since I had no way to confirm wether the cpu or mobo where at fault I just went ahead and bought a new one (an Asrock Phantom Gaming X).

Thankfully it was my old mobo that was at fault, since everything runs perfectly on this one.

I have no idea why it died so suddenly and in less than a year. If you have any ideas of what could have happened I am very interested since I’m afraid it will happen to the new one, too (could it have been my psu? It is also new...)

Anyway, thanks for everyone’s help. I really appreciated it

RMA the aorus board? if replaced would sell it at least. RMA is UK not EU