MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX - CPU LED (no POST)

[esKo]

Hi, so I recently received the MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX from OCUK to complete my new PC build however I cannot get the PC to post. The VGA LED has been on a few times, same with BOOT and DRAM but the CPU light is on almost constantly.

I have tried to POST with one RAM stick, with no GPU, with no USB peripherals plugged in, flashing to a newer BIOS (2 different BIOS).

Do you guys have any ideas what I could've done wrong or what the issue could be? If you need more info let me know what you need and I will try and answer asap.


Specs -
MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX
AMD Ryzen 3600X
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 cooler
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3200Mhz (2x8GB)
PowerColor RX 5700 XT Red Devil
Corsair AX760 PSU
Coolermaster H500

 

[esKo]

Welcome to forum.

Post debug LEDs apparently tell stage of POST process, so stuck light means process is stuck on that phase/part.
Could try clearing CMOS to see if that wakes things up.
Unplugging PSU from wall and then removing BIOS battery for few minutes is sure way.

I tried clearing CMOS but I'll give it another go before I go to bed.

That would indicate something wrong with the CPU, Make sure there are no bent pins and make sure all seated properly

I removed the cooler and double checked and none of the pins appear damaged and it is seated correctly.

 

[esKo]

I left the CMOS out overnight and I've put it all back together again this morning, same problem with the CPU led. However for the first time this morning for about 10 seconds my GPU's fans started spinning, not sure why. I assumed they weren't spinning because it wasn't hot enough so not sure why they randomly started this time. I tried both a 1GB and 16GB USB stick to flash and neither made a difference, the flashing process seems to work perfectly every time if the BIOS flash LEDS are to be believed. All the evidence seems to suggest the CPU is dodgy, if I can't make any progress by the end of the day I'll go about returning it but if I get a new one and the same situation arises would the next part to consider replacing be the Motherboard?

 

[esKo]

Yes I was downloading the BIOS for the MAX variant, I tried 7C02v32 and 7C02v331 (beta) and renamed the E7C02AMS.320 and E7C02AMS.331 while trying either on 2 different USB sticks. The BIOS Flashback LED indicates everything went through OK, it does the flashing for a few minutes as it should then reboots but the CPU EZDEBUG LED is always on. Occasionally it will turn off and switch to DRAM for 1 second before switching to BOOT and then back to being CPU constantly. Every bit of info and reply I've had so far seems to suggest the CPU is broken so if nothing changes come later today I will return the CPU and get another one. If that doesn't work would my next course of action be returning the motherboard?

 

[esKo]

So what did you do at the end? New CPU does help? I have the same situation, unfortunately.

Hey, so an update on this is that it ended up being a BIOS issue. I was prepared on the day I last posted on this thread to take it apart and send the CPU back but I just decided to give it a bit more time and keep trying the BIOS. I sat there and flashed the BIOS over and over on the same version and I guess eventually it just decided "this'll do" and POSTED. Once I managed to get into BIOS and set everything up and running it is for the most part fine, I still get the odd issues here and there but the drivers aren't the most stable right now.

Alt-tabbing out of games for example will be hit and miss whether or not the game will hook when I tab back in (spamming left click seems to get it to hook most of the time). Sometimes the Graphics driver (I think) will just flat out stop working and my monitors seemingly go into stand-by mode and won't come out of it without a reboot.

 

[esKo]

Yes I installed the chipset drivers, just updated to the newest one as of about 5 minutes ago also. A work around for now for basically all of the graphical problems is to just play the game in fullscreen windowed mode, it has completely stopped 99% of the problems I was having.