What do I try next? Two dead cpus or two dead motherboards?

[Tom B]

Backstory:

My 7950x3d was working perfectly since I bought it nearly 2 years ago. Turned it on one day and it gave me 00 memory code and wouldn't boot no matter what I did. The board is an Asus X670E Extreme, seems fairly common if you look online.

Tried the normal stuff: Resetting bios, swapping to second bios, different PSU different ram, nothing works. Either the CPU or mobo was dead, no combination of troubleshooting would get it to post.

I tried multiple times reseating the CPU and checking it for obvious damage. Nothing. But during my frustrated trial and error I managed to bend some pins on the socket of the board... so now I can't even RMA it. I've sent it to Joshi repair to see if it can be fixed.

Meanwhile, I was able to get a good deal on a NZXT B650E board from a competitor (new in box, no sign of use around screw holes or socket). I was planning to upgrade my server later this year anyway and figured that could be the first part. Got the board, tried the 7950x3d in it... won't post, two red leds for DRAM and CPU. Aha! I thought, dead CPU. Off to AMD warranty it goes.

In the meantime, I need my pc for work so grabbed a 9950X from OCUK, surprisingly good value at the moment so figured I'd use either that or my 7950x3d for an overkill server upgrade when the replacement comes in. I used BIOS Flashback on the NZXT motherboard to make sure it would support the 9000 series, then went to boot with the 9950X. Two red leds for DRAM and CPU. Exactly the same result as the 7950x3d.

And that's where I'm at... now what? I'm thinking either:

- The 7950x3d was fine and it's going back to AMD for them to return it but the original X670E board was faulty before I bent the pins AND the B650E board is faulty on arrival.
- The 7950x3d died and the 9950x is DOA
- The X670E board died and the CPU was fine, but then was killed by the B650E board, which also killed the 9950X
- The 7950x3d died in such a way that it also killed both boards and that's why the 9950x won't post

This is turning into a potentially very expensive set of failures and I've no idea what to try next. I'm also frustrated with how much I'm likely going to have to send back before I get a working PC again. While it's my own fault I bent a pin, I wouldn't have had to take the CPU out and try reseating it several times if either the original board/cpu hadn't died randomly.

At this point I have never seen either the 9950x or the B650E board boot successfully so I'm back to where I was with the previous board and CPU.

 

[ED209]

What PSU do you have? could it be this killing the parts?

 

[Tom B]

Possibly, it's an Asus ROG THOR platinum II.

Admittedly, I didn't try the second board on a different PSU originally.

 

[Gray2233]

Just to clarify here, you used the CPU you bent the pins on for both boards, after a third party proved it wasn't an issue/repaired it, or did you use a placeholder CPU?

What is the exact specification of your rig?

What exact steps did you take during troubleshooting, in what order?

While rare I have seen faulty PSU's causing issues like this, as mentioned by ED209 -- it could equally be faulty RAM, did you try running one stick at a time in different slots?

 

[Journey]

Your 7950x3D will be back pretty fast, normally TAT is under 5 days. I'd just get a cheap B650 board, and get your system back up and running, and send the other parts back until you can see if the terrible ASUS board can be repaired.

 

[Tom B]

While rare I have seen faulty PSU's causing issues like this, as mentioned by ED209 -- it could equally be faulty RAM, did you try running one stick at a time in different slots?

Yeah, I tried ram in different slots and a spare stick of a different brand entirely.

Could be the PSU... how do I go about finding that out without potentially killing more hardware? Should I RMA the PSU as well?

 

[Gray2233]

Yeah, I tried ram in different slots and a spare stick of a different brand entirely.

Could be the PSU... how do I go about finding that out without potentially killing more hardware? Should I RMA the PSU as well?

I'd buy a cheap (quality) replacement and test it with a budget AM5 CPU, you can get the 7500F for £80-90 and would have no issues selling it on if you cared to do so.

You don't need a high wattage unit just to get things to boot into Windows, but you could also be a tad cheeky and buy a higher end model and just return it if it doesn't help.

You're in that rock and a hard place situation unfortunately.

Alternatively, if you have an old rig laying around that you don't care about, you could try the PSU in that (and vice versa) and see if it nukes anything.