Asus B650E-I Non-start

rich998a

rich998a

rich998a

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Hi everyone. Wondering if anyone can offer some ideas based on their experience with PC building. I've not built a PC since the old 6600k was king!

I've just put together the following mITX build:
-Asus ROG Strix B650E-I Gaming WIFI
-AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
-Kingston FURY Beast EXPO 32GB (2x16GB)
-Gigabyte Radeon RX 7900 XT Gaming OC 20GB
-WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive with Heatsink

I've built this in one of Cooler Master's new nCore 100 Max cases that comes with a PSU (Cooler Master V SFX Gold ATX 3.0 850 W) and AIO ready fitted. The WD drive in the list above is the second drive (fitted to back of the motherboard) and I've a WD Black SN770 fitted in the primary at the front.

So, I've put this all together, connected it to the mains. Hit the case front panel button to start it and it doesn't start.

I can see the 3 LEDs on the motherboard at the back of the card, at least suggesting that there is power to the board itself.

There are no Q-LED lights to suggest anything is wrong, even when I removed the RAM modules to see if I could trigger these to illuminate.

I checked the cables from the PSU to the motherboard. Pulled all of them, checked visually and refitted.

I have tried to jump the power at the F-PANEL on the motherboard but nothing happened. I can get the front case on/off switch to illuminate by re-jumpering the connection at the motherboard.

I've disconnected the GPU completely at the motherboard and PSU.

I've checked the PSU end. Opened the top of the case and checked the PSU is switched on, and I've used a known good mains cable.

I've jumped the board to do a CMOS reset.

I've flashed the latest BIOS version (which judging by the LEDs on the USB and the Motherboard worked as expected). I've never done this but only seen some YouTubers do it with Asus boards.

Is this a familiar issue with the B650 boards, or is there anything I've stupidly missed?
 
Hi Wookiee:

I've not seen any other lights on the board itself, other that the LEDs at the back of the board. These illuminate the LINE IN/LINE OUT/MIC IN ports.

When I first started the machine after the build, I did leave it for a while in case there was something unusual such as memory training occuring.

I've re-done the BIOS flash this morning. Again, going on the LEDs on the USB drive holding the BIOS file, and the BIOS FLBK were cycling and I left these until it stopped (no more than 5 mins) and then retired starting but still nothing.

I'm reasonably confident that is it the board, but I could be wrong still.

One thing I've not tried is removing everything including the 2 x M.2 drives and the CPU. I just need something to happen, even if it doesn't start up, just to diagnose it further.
 
Yea, there are no illuminations there at all. Nothing, which makes me thing there is an issue with the board itself, even when I remove the RAM sticks at which point I'd expect an issue to be flagged. Is it worth using a POST speaker test connected to the board?
 
Hi Wookiee:

Yes, no Q-LEDs
https://photos.app.goo.gl/uFfABSxZZwTgpLoS7

Yes, that other connector is in the PSU.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/E51gYEy9NSL3PABh6

I'm going to remove the CPU over the weekend and investigate this. I've also not removed the M.2 drives yet either.

I contacted ASUS UK today and they replied by email in just a couple of hours. They have recommended a return via Overclockers, so I've put a ticket in with them.

I've also ordered a cheap PSU tester, but not sure how accurate these are. I've seen reports that the CM PSUs aren't perfect either, so one of these outputs could still be faulty. I have seen one nCore case owner replace the PSU and rear fan as they weren't happy with them. The case itself is fantastic.
 
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Yea, I'm sure the F-PANEL connector is correct - The case connector will only allow it to connect one way, and I've jumpered the board manually, and also used the jumpers to successfully illuminate the On/Off switch on the case.

I've no spare PSU, but I've ordered a tester from eBay, so maybe I'll find something wrong before I send the board back. I'm also tempted to get a local shop to test it if I don't find anything wrong before I have to deconstruct the build and send the board back.

It does seem weird the board is partly working and that the CPU side perhaps isn't. So it could be the smaller PSU connector for the CPU.
 
SORTED....

Well, half sorted anyway, but it looks like Motherboard and PSU are working now.

This morning I took everything apart again. Left the MB on the case but removed CPU cooler block and opened the CPU locking mechanism on the board. Everything looked fine in there, Thermal paste was adequate and evenly spread.

Now, I also removed the main M.2 drive on the board and left the other in place on the back of the Motherboard. I'm intending to use the one at the back to hold games, and the one at the front to hold the OS, productivity software and work things. Now, on moving this M.2 I got an illuminated case button and the rear fan suddenly breathed into life. I stopped everything and then connected the key bits up (the CPU pump wasn't connected at the time) so connected these up. The Q-LED shows a check being done cycling through the 4 LEDs, and it is now holding White and Green.

I'll have to revisit this later today, but at least we got as far as this.
 
To complete this journey of discovery I thought I would add this.

I finally got it all running okay and everything appears fine. The issue appears to have been either the M.2 drive on the front of the motherboard not installed correctly, or the CPU needed to be reseated. I'm erring towards the M.2 Wookiee.

One of the things I had to do was to remove the PSU on the nCore case. It arrived slightly loose and it is only held in place by a single screw. The back of the PSU is held by a large horizontal bracket, but the screw is at the front that secured it in place.

When I replaced everything the screw snapped off. Yes it was tight but not that tight. So I had to drill it out, and this took an hour or so by the time I ran into town to locate a small enough metal drill bit. Eventually this was sorted.

Then the installation of W11 was a challenge it was going okay and then something upset it. It may have been the Western Digital Dashboard software or a bad install of something else, but Windows would load up and then gradually over about a minute would become totally unresponsive. I ended up using the Windows Reset and deleted the WD software and it has been fine since.

Thanks for your comments Wookiee etc al. They were able to help me sort through the obvious and less obvious.
 
That's weird, Jamin. Just read your exploits, but I can see you at some point in the near future swapping the CPUs over again. Be interesting to see what happens.
 
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