am5AM5 x670 experiences random boot issues and various malfunctions.
am5AM5 x670 experiences random boot issues and various malfunctions.
Hello, I own an Aorus Master x670e and a Ryzen 9 7950x since they came out. At first everything worked perfectly, but about 1.5 to 2 months ago, every few weeks my system wouldn’t start. I suspect the problem started when the M.2 boot chip stopped showing up unexpectedly. The motherboard’s manual mentioned it was marked as reserved, which didn’t help much. Restarting didn’t solve anything, and clearing the CMOS alone wasn’t enough. Once again, powering off, letting it sit, and then rebooting with all my BIOS settings—including XMP and disabling the GPU—would eventually get it running. I’d periodically update my BIOS, even beta versions, and it usually worked fine except for those occasional boot failures.
Last Saturday I prepared to relax when my PC refused to turn on. I tried a full CMOS reset and power-down routine, but nothing changed. Then I thought about rebooting, clearing the CMOS, unplugging, letting it drain, and then reconfiguring everything carefully. After that attempt, it worked again. Earlier, I’d assumed RAM might be the issue, so I ran an 8-hour deep memory test on Gigabyte’s site—results were clean. I even tried every BIOS version available online, but nothing fixed the problem.
In the past, I considered the RAM as the culprit and ran a long Memtest, which came back clear. Still, whenever I booted into Windows or Ubuntu, it would freeze on the spinning wheel or get stuck in a watchdog loop. On Arch, it wouldn’t launch lightdm or even run simple tests like Memtest.
Some friends and online communities suggested it could be a faulty CPU or motherboard. I bought the CPU from Amazon, which made replacement easier. After explaining my issue to live chat support, the motherboard was from another vendor and would take weeks to fix. The new CPU arrived today; after a CMOS reset, it booted successfully.
I wanted to enable advanced settings like XMP, but they caused more trouble—boots slow, sometimes crashing due to watchdogs. I disabled the GPU, and it wouldn’t start either. After resetting the CMOS, it worked again.
Now I’m trying to reset everything: clear CMOS, power off, then back on. This time I enabled the GPU once more. It’s strange, but it seems the CPU is still the root cause. I’m wondering if a fresh BIOS or even a different motherboard could help. Until then, I’ll keep testing and tweaking. Thanks for your help!
P.S. Sorry about the spelling errors—I’m typing this from my phone for clarity.
First off, did you get a new motherboard or not? You don't state if you received a replacement or not in the post. As the motherboard being the problem is the most likely cause replacing it should have been step one. Second, you have a CPU that does not have iGPU at all so no need to manually disable it in the bios. It will do nothing other than confuse the board when it tries to disable something that is not there. (If the computer functions normally with iGPU enabled leave it enabled. Simple.) Thirdly, if there are still issues even when iGPU is left enabled it may be a problem with the M.2 itself. Have you had the M.2 tested to see if it is having issues? A failing or defective M.2 SSD could explain most of the issues you are having.
Thanks for your response. It seems you've been waiting a long time for a new motherboard, and the repair process has been taking weeks at the shop you used. I chose to replace the CPU first because Amazon was much faster. I believe there might be a mix-up between my 7950X and a last-generation AMD system—it definitely has an integrated GPU. I've only used it before upgrading to the 4080! That's great. Also, I managed to boot the M2 in my old Ryzen 2700X desktop for 30 consecutive attempts without any problems.