Which is dead, mobo, cpu or RAM

[Hotwired]

New build

Maximus Gene VIII
i7 7700k
16GB of GSkill DDR4: https://www.gskill.com/en/product/f4-3200c16d-16gvk

That's all because that's all that's left of the build which I'm powering up and still getting an error code 04 on the motherboard.

Error code 04 on the motherboard is: PCH initialization before microcode loading

I have not seen it post even once, doesn't appear to get anywhere near that

I can't cross check any of those pieces because everything else I have is not compatible.

Power supply is not under suspicion, used one new PSU then used the PSU from my main computer with the same result.

Did start off with an AIO cooler, swapped to an old intel stock HS just in case.

Any thoughts, I'm not finding anything useful out there.

 

[Hotwired]

Alright, did some poking and now it would like to have a HDD connected which sounds like progress. Will have to attach a monitor and so on to be sure.

Used the Asus Flashback feature which simply involves loading the latest bios onto a fat32 usb drive then pressing a button and waiting for the bios to be copied over.

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?1142-How-to-use-ASUS-ROG-USB-BIOS-Flashback

Hopefully that's the drama done with...

 

[HoneyBadger]

Sounds like you've sorted it but I was going to say, you're using a Z170 mobo with a 7700K, so whilst it will work, you will need to have a BIOS that's new enough to accept 7th gen CPU.