Asus ROG Strix X870-I BIOS unreliable POST

[ilon]

Hi,

My build is having issues to reliably pass BIOS POST, with Q-LED indicating various errors (CPU, RAM, GPU). After a couple of attempts the system would usually succeed in passing POST, and when the OS have started, there is no instabilities that I have noticed.

Symptoms:

When powering on the system, the Strix Hive II Q-Led shows:

• Orange (DRAM, but I think it is only training) for a few seconds
• Red (CPU) for either a ~second (and then continous below), or stays red and BIOS POST fails
• White (VGA) for either a ~second (and then continous below), or stays white and BIOS POST fails
• Green (BOOT) for a ~second, and then proceeds to show the BIOS POST screen (and successully boots)

The system fails pass BIOS POST roughly 4-5 times before it succeds, sometimes sooner, sometimes later.

The build:

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix X870-I AM5
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
• PSU: Corsair SF1000
• Memory: Kingston FURY Beast Black DDR5 16GB KF552C40BB-16 (for troubleshooting purpose)
• GPU: Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB
• HDD: Samsung 9100 PRO 4TB

Running BIOS firmware 1087.

What I have tried:

1. Replacing the memory with a module which is listed on the QVL (the 16GB KF552C40BB-16 listed above)
2. Upgrade BIOS to latest version (1087 listed above)
3. Inspected memory and CPU modules and sockets for dirt and damages (including then re-seating CPU and re-inserting memory)
4. Restoring BIOS settings to default
5. Replacing the motherboard with an identical brand new one

At this point I'm kind of lost as to what to try next (the obvious thing is to test with another CPU, but that would be an expensive experiment). 

Anyone have any suggestions?

[cheetah2k]

I've had the odd issue with my X870-i on first boot (cold boot) not reaching windows, and dumping into Bios instead.  Usually I just exit bios without saving and it loads..   I've  found it does this mainly because I have the PCI-e slot forcing Gen 5 for my 5090 RTX, and sometimes Gen 5 is not reliable and as it's not set to Auto, it can't drop to Gen 4 thus it boots into Bios instead.  

I've also not had any reliability issues - the whole setup is rock solid (AMD 9800X3D, 5090 RTX, 32Gb DDR5600 oc to 6000, Samsung 9100 4tb SSD, Asus Loki 1200W SFX-L titanium PSU)

So, not sure if its just a case where some part of the HW isn't passing post..   I would start looking into things like upping RAM voltage (eg, if your DDR5 is 1.2v default, change to 1.3v, etc), or manually selecting the GPU PCI-e port to Gen4.  I honestly feel like the X870-I struggles with applying appropriate voltage on cold boots..   

[Silent_Scone]

Hi @ilon 
Does this occur at stock? Ensure to test without EXPO enabled at complete Optimised Defaults to rule out OC instability.

Are you using a third-party CPU contact frame?  

As the issue is intermittent and the board has already been replaced, it's a lot harder to narrow down. It's also still a possibility that the CPU is causing the issue.