First Ryzen build - no POST :(

[dannyboy75]

After being with Intel for many years, I decided to take the plunge this week and picked up a Ryzen 5800X and an MSI B550 board.

I put it all together yesterday, powered it up but was getting no display and 1 long then 2 short beeps. This apparently indicates a ram issue, but I know my ram is fine as I carried it across from my previous rig. I also checked the Crucial advisor and that confirms the ram is compatible with this board.

The board had come from Amazon warehouse as an open box return, so I began to suspect that I’d been sent a duff board. I’ve raised an RMA with Amazon and that board is going back, and I took delivery of a similar (brand new) model today from ebuyer.

Frustratingly though, I still have basically the same issue with the new board. The only difference is I’m not getting any beeps at all now, but still no POST/display.

It says on the boxes of both boards that they are Ryzen 5000 ready, which I take to mean that no BIOS update is needed. I don’t have a previous gen Ryzen CPU to do a BIOS update anyway as my previous build was Intel.

I tried disconnecting everything including all SATA devices, PCI cards and GPU. But still no joy.

I was really looking forward to this build, but it’s been a bit of a nightmare start. Any ideas what the issue could be here?

P.S. The mobos are MSI B550 Tomahawk and MSI B550 Gaming Plus. RAM is Crucial 3200MHz 2x16GB. I tried single sticks of ram in different slots as well, btw.

Thanks
Danny

[TAKTAK]

Nooooo

This may be teaching grandma to suck eggs, but:

Check 24pin main board power as well as supplemental 4/8pin CPU power.

In addition, seat your GPU in slot 1, make sure it is fully inserted and then double check its power connectors are fully pressed home.

Is the GPU known to be good?

Don't suppose there is a sticker on the box anywhere confirming which BIOS revision is on the board? Maybe worth firing an email to Ebuyer asking them to confirm?

[virtuo]

I had this same issue with a Gigabyte X570 board and 5000 series ryzen.

It was the BIOS version, only the very latest BIOS had the support for the newer Ryzens. If you have USB bios flashing on your board then you can update it that way, otherwise you'll need a spare socket compatible Ryzen 3000 or earlier to get past POST and use the BIOS flashing utility.

Quick check shows they both should have USB flash support, you need to get a BIOS that implements AGESA v2 1.0.8.0 or above for Ryzen 5000 series CPUs - again quick check on MSIs site and those BIOS versions are available for your boards, dated around November.


B550 Gaming Plus: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/supp...50-GAMING-PLUS version 7C56v13 or later should do it
B550 Tomahawk: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/supp...-B550-TOMAHAWK version 7C91vA3 or later

MSI also have a guide on how to do it, you just need a spare USB drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRyFMf0D9Lc

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The MSI motherboards support BIOS flashback and you will need the latest BIOS version for the motherboard as B550 launched before Zen3 was available.

[pp05]

Sometimes MSI boards can take a few minutes before they post due to finding suitable ram timings.

Other things assuming your board is mounted, 8pin & 24 pin are connected, 1 hdd is connected, is try and change your monitor cable by using a different port on gpu. e.g. hdmi -to- dvi/displayport on the gpu. See if that does anything.

[dannyboy75]

Hi all

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry for the delay in updating this, had to go and do some xmas shopping for a few hours.

To answer some of the questions, I did double-check the 8 & 24-pin power connections, as well as reseating RAM etc.

As some mentioned, it did turn out to be a BIOS issue (despite the mobo box proudly stating 'Ryzen 5000 ready!'. I updated it using the USB port on the back, having removed CPU/RAM and renaming the BIOS file to MSI.ROM

It took about 10 minutes, after which the first few times it still failed POST, but then suddenly started working. I still get the occasional time when it either doesn't POST at all, or gives me the 1 long+2 short beeps, and then POSTs successfully anyway. Not sure what that's all about, but at least I can actually use it now.

One other question - after installing AMD chipset drivers I noticed that the SATA AHCI controller still shows as 'standard SATA AHCI Controller'. Is that normal with AMD chipsets?

thanks

[dannyboy75]

Re. my question above about AHCI drivers, I found this thread which suggests it is normal for the standard MS driver to be used for AHCI mode, as AMD only supply drivers for RAID.

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...alling.261585/