Strange powering up behaviour!

[swarfendor437 14]

My original suspicions correct - psu - I had forgotten about the screwdriver trick. That said the CoolerMaster Bronze 550 W has lasted almost 7 years so can't complain - upped to a 750W Gold of same manufacture - a litle task to do this weekend. 

Edited April 25, 2019 by swarfendor437
typo

[swarfendor437 14]

Well curiouser and curiouser - the new PSU has the same issue which suggests ... motherboard fault. Will need to check that the block that comes with mobos not come slightly adrift whilst connecting disconnecting SATA drives. Still to test old PSU in/to another rig to ensure not PSU issue

[zach 234]

Do you mean the little EZ connector or whatever they call it, the one that takes the wires for the front panel? They can come away quite easy but it cant really cause a reboot unless you have the wires wrong. Even then, it would cause issues every time from boot.

 

Did you double check the BIOS settings?

Have been monitoring the CPU/Motherboard temps?

Have you checked there isn't a stray screw under the motherboard?

Have you checked that all motherboard stand offs are in the right place in the case? (no extra or any in the wrong place under the motherboard)

Does it do the same in ALL OSs or just one?

[Ghozer 112]

unplug everything, gpu, audigy, all external usb devices etc, and run just board/cpu/ram out of the case and see if problem persists.. 

 

Even if no gpu, no display, you're only checking for the loop on boot... (I have my theory on it)

Edited May 1, 2019 by Ghozer

[swarfendor437 14]

12 hours ago, zach said:

Do you mean the little EZ connector or whatever they call it, the one that takes the wires for the front panel? They can come away quite easy but it cant really cause a reboot unless you have the wires wrong. Even then, it would cause issues every time from boot.

 

Did you double check the BIOS settings?

Have been monitoring the CPU/Motherboard temps?

Have you checked there isn't a stray screw under the motherboard?

Have you checked that all motherboard stand offs are in the right place in the case? (no extra or any in the wrong place under the motherboard)

Does it do the same in ALL OSs or just one?

Yes the EZ connector - need to inspect that but don't think I will have caught it but just something I thought of thinking things through.

 

The only things I have disabled in the BIOS is onboard sound (hdmi).

Temps have not gone above 45C

I never leave any screws in a case - should one drop I use my ancient but very useful Tandy Techcessories 3-pronged claw retriever.

Always built rigs with correct standoffs number and position.

It's not an OS problem it's a general boot issue - and does not matter which one.

 

4 hours ago, Ghozer said:

unplug everything, gpu, audigy, all external usb devices etc, and run just board/cpu/ram out of the case and see if problem persists.. 

 

Even if no gpu, no display, you're only checking for the loop on boot... (I have my theory on it)

I've always been scared to do breadboarding! Just to add, this event took place before installing the sound cards and only USB devices present are keyboard, mouse and Canon printer.

 

UPDATE: On booting this evening I got a cpu warning in BIOS after a stalled boot where I did a hard shut down so will need to look at what is happening. Does the BIOS these days store any bootlogs? Thanks for suggestions to you both. Will do a Ghozer special after Tea (What's dinner? LOL!)

Edited May 1, 2019 by swarfendor437

[zach 234]

NO, it's tea! posh folk aint got a clue what day it is, let alone what time it is!!!

 

Back on topic:

 

Is your board dual BIOS? I was just thinking of one of my recent RMAs to Gigabyte. On that board it would not boot even if to back to bare minimum, switch the the B-BIOS, it was fine...they got it back and sent me a nice new one. Worth a go if it has it dual BIOS?

[swarfendor437 14]

Hi Zach, by that do you mean the option for efi/legacy  mode? Have followed the tried and tested method (it's been so long since I even gave that advice out I'd forgotten about it - too much time moderating I guess! LOL!

OK, here is the upshot - all power (SATA) removed from drives, all discs disconnected, all cards removed - on board sound disabled. Risked Zotac GPU and Sound Blaster card - symptom occurred (and out of curiosity I had moved GPU to middle slot and SoundBlaster to top PCIE slot. Now with the sound card in the symptom occurs - remove and it's gone. I notice that the two PCIe slots together are likely to be for RAID of SSD drives but RAID is not enabled in the BIOS - where it resides is where there are two options in BIOS Advanced interface - 8x and RAID are the only two options available.

 

Manual here:  https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/PRIME_X470-PRO/E13883_PRIME__X470-PRO_UM_WEB.pdf

 

Mobo layout on page 6

 

BIOS settings for PCIe on page 15 - suspect I need to change PCIe settings on bottom slot to something like 2x?

 

 

[swarfendor437 14]

UPDATE: SOLVED! (everything crossed!) Changed the PCIe 3 slot to 2x from Auto - same behaviour. Changed to 4x and no glitches - so far. Thanks to Ghozer for reminding me of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!).

[swarfendor437 14]

EPILOGUE! No sound! Had to put PCIe slot 3 back to Auto in BIOS and enable HD Audio which to me means the onboard sound - any how - sound now working in Zorin through Audigy RX and 5.1 Surround coming out of correct speakers! Yay!

[zach 234]

Dual BIOS... No it's not just UEFI/Legacy, it means it has 2 BIOS chips, usually A+B and there is a switch on the motherboard. A lot of overclockers use it as a rescue BIOS, I only used it when the main one popped!

 

While you're testing things it might be worth using profiles in your BIOS (If it has them). I use them a lot when building with different OS. They can be a good time saver when trying settings. I always save my main to number 1, the rest get altered as needed. If things go pear shaped I can quickly load number 1 and the system is back up and running.

 

 

[swarfendor437 14]

HI zach, thanks for clearing that up - no it's not dual BIOS. I will take your advice on the profiles though and as you know I never O.C. Thanks for the input.

[zach 234]

4 hours ago, swarfendor437 said:

HI zach, thanks for clearing that up - no it's not dual BIOS. I will take your advice on the profiles though and as you know I never O.C. Thanks for the input.

Sorry about that, I was sure I'd looked your board up and it did. Very possible I'm having another senior moment.