So... It's mostly in the name. But I am of course will elaborate.
Decided it was time for an upgrade. But not total: MoBo, CPU and RAM. My remaining parts was still quite satisfactory. And overall in the end it looked like this:
New parts:
- ROG Strix X870-F WIFI
- G.SKILL Flare X5 Matte Black DDR5 6000MHz 64GB Kit 2x32GB (F5-6000J2836G32GX2-FX5)
- AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Old Parts:
- Asus TUF RTX3080Ti (12G)
- be quiet! Dark Power 12 (850W)
- be quiet! Silent Loop 2 (3 section AIO)
- bunch of be quiet! coolers for case (4 of them, connected to a fan hub and to fan port of MoBo)
And it won't boot... Yup. It starts alright, fans are all going (all of them, even in the GPU, and so is the pump). LED's lights up too. But the moment I turn it on - instantly lights up DRAM Q-LED (the ominous orange light) and stays there without anything happening. No other lights show up even for a second. Just orange light of DRAM Q-LED without blinking.
Now I did of course started trouble shooting it. I remember that orane light most likely indicates RAM. And indeed I had some of that on my previous MoBo's (Used ProArt B550 and then X570, second one was in fact extremely stable unlike B550 and never showed any behaviour). But they worked regardless even if B550 required sometimes a reboot to make it boot:
Firstly RAM - I reseated it multiple times, 1 stick, 2 sticks. All possible ports. Cleaning it (even though it wasn't dirty in the first place). Nothing.
CPU - reseated it. Checked for discoloration due to heat, any physical deformation. Nothing - looked prefectly fine.
PSU - now the unit itself is prefectly fine. Checked all the cables. reattached them. All fitted tight. Ports don't have damages (MoBo, PSU and cables themselves).
GPU - not much to do with this one. So tried with it or without it - same result.
BIOS - first start up was on factory settings. Only later down the road of troubleshooting I used BIOS Flashback to update it to latest version (1203). Downloaded it, renamed it, put it on my FAT32 flashdrive, popped it in the BIOS USB slot and pressed the button until LED started blinking. It was blinking all the time (faster closer to the end) until LED went out - indicating that process finished properly (at least that is what manual says). Of course it did not helped. The issue remained.
So... I am quite desperate now. This is quite expencive stuff and I would very much like to not send it back. Unfortunately my options are limited and I am starting with RAM. Ordered another set of RAM sticks (G.SKILL Ripjaws M5 Neo RGB Matte Black DDR5 6000MHz 32GB Kit 2x16GB (F5-6000J2836G16GX2-RM5NRK)) to try it out (now I know what you think "Thos are not listed on Asus's website as compatible"). But in my experience Asus's table proved to be unreliable in the past. Since both my ProArt MoBo's ran non listed sets of RAM also from G.Skill (it was booting funny on B550 but it was otherwise very stable with XMP profiles enabled). And they are listed as compatible on G.Skill website... So who knows. But if someone have objection to why it may not be like that and I totally, 100% need RAM sticks from that Asus's list - I would like to hear why is that (no joke, I need all the information I can get).
It will take a few days for sticks to arrive. And I would love to hear any suggestions what I can do in the mean time to maybe salvage this situation. Because as I said - I am quite desperate and have a few bad words towards Asus for making something that does not work out of the box (just a hunch that this is Asus's doing, just can't prove it).
My disappointment is immesurable, and my day is ruined. Thank you for your attention. Rant is over.
Update 1: New memory sticks arrived. Nothing changed, static DRAM LED, working fans and lights bot no other reaction.
