Does my new processor work correctly?
Does my new processor work correctly?
I am building a whole new system with all fresh parts. This is my second time putting together a system, and the last one worked great back ten years ago. Now I need to check if my CPU is bad and maybe get some advice. I don't have a special tester or another socket AM5 board to test it properly right now. Looking at it visually, both the CPU and the socket look clean and fine. Here are the parts I'm using: Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX V2 for AMD (AM5 platform) CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700 processor with a clock speed of 3.6 GHz and 8 cores, part number 100-100000592 BOX Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2 NVMe drive using PCIe 4.0 X4, part MZV8P1T0B/AM (I installed two of these in slots M2A_CPU and M2C_SB) Storage: Seagate BarraCuda 4TB hard drive for internal use with Sata 6 Gb/s speed, 5400 RPM, part 3.5 inch Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 64 GB memory stick with two 32 GB sticks running DDR5-6000 CL30, using F5-6000J3040G32GX2-TZ5N for slots DDR5_A2 and DDR5_B2 Power Supply: SeaSonic Prime Fanless PX-500 with 500 Watts rated at 80+ Platinum certification, no fan needed, fully modular ATX case Case: Fractal Design Define R5 mid-tower case After putting everything together, I have power flowing to the case, fans, motherboard, and switches. But nothing boots up or posts; there is no video output or sound coming out. The CPU status light on the board turns on, but all other lights stay off. Gigabyte says if any of those three lights (CPU/DRAM/VGA) are lit, that means something isn't working right inside that part. They have separate lights for each thing: CPU, DRAM, VGA, and BOOT-OS. I checked my cables carefully to make sure the CPU is sitting in the right place with power going straight into it from the PSU. I even moved those power cables around different slots on the board and the PSUs, but nothing fixed anything. I think the problem must be with the CPU itself, so I wanted to know if there are other tips before asking AMD for warranty service. I also reached out to Gigabyte's support team.
Welcome to the forums! How is your processor getting cool? Check that the CPU socket isn't bent or broken. When putting the CPU back in, make sure it's super flat, with no slant. Have you tried building outside of the case (like breadboarding)? Try just one stick of RAM for now. I don't see any mention of a dedicated graphics card there. Did you forget about that? Moved this post from the CPUs section to Systems.
Thanks for getting back to me. This AMD Wraith Prism cooler works with air or water. I'm just using air because my processor is 65 watts hot. But honestly, I haven't tested it yet since it won't start up (POST). I'll check the socket again. When I put this CPU in, I stayed very careful to keep it flat on the board. I have never tried breadboarding before and I don't know why anyone would do that. Could you explain more? The CPU is actually an APU with two graphics cores, but my motherboard already has built-in graphics, so no separate card is needed for me or right now.
Breadboarding is where you pull the board from the case. When I’ve done it I put the board onto the motherboard box, hook up power, ram and gpu as well as the cooler. To start it up, take a flat head screwdriver and touch the power pins on the motherboard. The reason to consider doing it is you take the case out of the equation. You can have strange things happen if you have a standoff shorting on the back of the motherboard for example. So it just lets you get a very basic setup to where you know whether or not things are working or not. If so then you can start adding things back in.
LATER ON, I'll attempt to use Q-Flash Plus to refresh the BIOS. Some people say their Gigabyte Aorus motherboards won't turn on (POST) if the BIOS is outdated.
I updated my computer's BIOS to version F33 today using Q-Flash Plus. After the flash drive and light blinked for six minutes and stopped, I turned off the machine using the power switch and restarted it again. The CPU light is still on, but the system won't start up. Basically, nothing has changed with this new BIOS update.
I don't have a specific PSU tester handy, but I do have an Amprobe multimeter. Yesterday, it crossed my mind to see if the PSU was actually sending power through the CPU cable today. Today, I unplugged the ATX_12V1 and ATX_12V CPU cables. Using the VDC setting on the multimeter, it shows zero voltage when connected to the powered-on PSU while both cables are disconnected from the system. When I checked those cables for continuity, they looked fine. This seems like a sign that the power supply isn't sending electricity to the CPU. But Seasonic told me their operation is "pull" technology, meaning the unit only gives power as needed by the motherboard and other parts. Would that explain why I see zero voltage on the CPU cables? Is there another way to check the PSU's power output with a multimeter, or do I need to buy a tester? I know I can test with new PSUs in my current machine, but I'd rather not do that just yet. Update: If I turn on the PSU and also the rest of the system, I get 12 VDC from both CPU cables. This makes me think the problem isn't the power supply.
So, I tested the board with breadboarding. The little light for the CPU turns on when I power it up but goes off very fast. Then, a separate light for the RAM lights up and stays lit. I checked this without any RAM sticks in the slots, then with just one stick in slot A2. In every case, the CPU light comes on and turns off quickly while the RAM light stays on. I also looked at the case, metal pieces holding things down (standoffs), and the back of the board to make sure there were no wires crossing or shorting anything. Then I put the motherboard back in the case and checked again with the same result: CPU light flickers and off, RAM light stays on. The power supply unit also came back and stayed lit. Finally, I screwed all the screws for the motherboard and power supply into place. On startup, the CPU light flashes a few times before turning off and then the RAM light turns on and stays lit. The system never started up (it did not POST). Earlier in my post, I said the CPU light was definitely the problem because it stayed on all the time. I am still pretty sure that is what happened. So now things get even stranger. I don't know exactly what's going on. Maybe this flickering is normal for some parts? But since the RAM light stays on and the system won't start, maybe it is just the RAM instead of the CPU. Next week, I will go get the RAM tested by someone else because I can't do more testing myself. According to PCPartPicker and Gskill, my RAM sticks are compatible with this motherboard. Gigabyte listed similar models but said they don't list exactly that model in their main list even though it looks like a good match. Does anyone have any advice for next steps? By the way, I have already checked all of the troubleshooting lists for "No POST," "System won't boot," and "No video output."
Did you plug the CPU into the right spot on your board? Also, remember that when starting up an AM5 system, it might sit there for a while before the memory gets fully ready.