Rog Strix Z790i not booting after sleep or a bios change that requires a shutdown..

[ATrueNewbie]

I'll try to make this as short as possible, I'm pretty sure I'm having an issue with my board, something in its bios, boot voltages or the board itself that is just not working with my setup. 

I've found 2 posts that are familiar with my issue, which is:

- The Motherboard refused to turn on after the PC goes to sleep.

- Doesn't turn on when a bios change that requires a hard reset happens "Disabling Hyper-threading for example or enabling XMP and many other options",

- Makes a click sound when I press the turn on power button but doesn't boot unless I disconnect some of the peripherals and then press the power button for longer than needed "i.e. a Tap doesn't turn it on, a long press "1.5-2 seconds is needed". 

- The most success I had with turning it on is when I disconnected the Audio Interface "GoXLR Mini", then it boots with a long press. However, even with the Audio interface disconnected,  it still doesn't boot back from sleep or a bios change, I would have to manually Boot it with a long press again.

My full setup :

PC: Rog Strix Z790-I, 13700K, EK Nucleus 240 AIO, 7200CL34 G.Skill, Rog Strix 4090 OC Edition, Thermaltake SFX 1000W ATX 3.0, Asus Prime AP201 Case.

Peripherals: Pulsar Xlite mini, Steelseries Pro TKL, LG 27' 2k IPS Monitor, GoXLR Mini Audio Interface. Windows 11 pro Latest Build.

Things I've tried:

- Bios & all other software available on the support website are used to update the system.

- I've tried multiple combinations of USB ports to see if one of them was the issue.

- Double checked my installation, cables are well seated, nothing is bent too hard or squeezed in a place that it shouldn't be at.

- After being able to turn XMP, I did a 2 hour cinebench R23 test, and a memtest68 and they both passed without an issue.

I Took the PC back to the retailer for testing and it booted normally there "that's when I realized they use generic Microsoft non RGB mouse and keyboard only, I even enabled XMP for the first time there, just to see if it will boot back and it did with no problem. The technician there was able to boot it normally every time he pressed the on button, I wasn't, even there. As it turns out, he was still kinda long pressing the Power On button which I don't mind doing but its just weird since I've had several builds before that, all of them with Asus boards and non of them needed that long of an ON press to boot.

Anyways when I went back home, I plugged my stuff back in and it refused to boot again, that's when I started with disconnecting the Audio Interface and I was able to boot it. Do any of the boot voltages responsible for these kinds of stuff? I'm assuming the board is not giving enough juice for one of the components or something similar? 

Mind you, I can still have a perfect boot with everything connected including the Audio Interface only if I turn off the power supply and clear CMOS. Turning the power supply off and back on alone doesn't work. The PC in general works fine other than that! Games run smoothly without any problems, everything else is good. The only problem is that every time I shut the PC down now I have to disconnect my Audio Interface to make sure that it can boot again the next day. Having sleep enabled is a no-no since a couple more times and it will corrupt the OS.

Please let me know if you have any thoughts, I'm genuinely out of ideas!

[Jiaszzz_ROG]

Hello, @ATrueNewbie .

Could you please provide us with the specific versions of your BIOS, OS, and OS build?
And share all the BIOS settings that have been modified from their default values and attach an image of the modified settings?
Lastly, could you elaborate on the nature of the exception and how it is related to the audio interface or USB port?

Thank you.

[ATrueNewbie]

Hello Jias, thank your for your reply. Everything is listed in the original post! The problem is persistent even when Bios settings are untouched which was also mentioned in the post. 

The nature of the exception is I believe that the motherboard is either initializing incorrectly after its first boot, or there is not enough current going to the USB ports causing them to fail the 2nd boot and onwards. As I mentioned before, I can have a normal boot with everything connected only after clearing the CMOS. Afterwards, if I shut the motherboard down or if I put the PC to sleep it will not boot back on its own and I will have to disconnect the Audio Interface plus having a long press on the power button for it to boot again. 

Please do acknowledge that everything in the bios is untouched "default". Bios, ME firmware, chipset and everything else was update through Asus's website. I seem to have to re-insert this fact to each reply since the suggestions are mainly being based on the merit that there was a change in BIOS settings! 

[Jiaszzz_ROG]

Hello, @ATrueNewbie .

Please refer to [Motherboard] Troubleshooting - No Power/No Boot/No Display and test with minimal components to isolate the possible cause.

Thank you.

[ATrueNewbie]

Excuse me? Last thing you asked for was a picture of the Bios's first page + ME firmware version. How did we end up here? Don't you think that I've already done all those troubleshooting steps? Do you have any idea how frustrating it has been not only having the issue since I've built the PC a month ago, but also the amount of time wasted trying to redirect you guys to my original post and begging you to read it since most of your replies have been already either answered in my post or are completely irrelevant to my case. 

[Jiaszzz_ROG]

Hello, @ATrueNewbie .

In that case, we suggest sending the motherboard for further additional testing at an official ASUS repair center.
Please refer to the ASUS - Support for further assistance.

Thank you.

[ATrueNewbie]

Yes please, let me internationally ship a motherboard that I've been having an issue with since day 1, which also is considered a DOA, so that the lovely super responsive customer support from Asus can work on it and send it back. Let's add 1-2 more months on top of what I've been through, F the customers, who cares.

[ATrueNewbie]

For anyone seeing this late. The retailer that I purchased the motherboard from decided to fully refund me and mark the board as DOA and RMA it himself, as with further discussions, the retailer might no longer be importing Asus boards, since the amount of time spent on troubleshooting random Asus motherboard errors / crashes / bad quality control / dead usb ports or/and headers / dead ram slots by his technicians is becoming more of a cost/profit concern. 

Now I'm stuck with an ITX case, SFX power supply that only works with ITX Cases "short cables", and no itx motherboard to be purchased in my country. I ended up giving Asus one more chance and I ordered another Z790i Strix through amazon, should arrive in 2 weeks "international shipping" with a lovely final cost of $580. If I even sense the slightest hiccup, I will pack the motherboard and return it without blinking twice, and that will be my last time of ever thinking about purchasing another Asus product.

[Nate152 · Accepted solution]

Hey ATrueNewbie,

I didn't mean to leave you hanging, I was hoping you would have found a resolution to the problem by now, but it seems you haven't.

The clicking and not booting is a tell tale sign it's a power issue, just need to find what's causing it.

Could you do one test for me?

Could you install your 2080 ti and see if that fixes everything? The 4090 can draw 200+ more watts than a 2080 ti, if it's better with the 2080 ti, I'll still lean towards some kind of power problem. You could try with the cpu graphics too.

Maybe this will help tell us something.

[ATrueNewbie]

Thank you for your input Nate,

I have removed my previous post, since you were iterating so much on the power supply I had to kind of disregard your suggestions. All of that was me acting on the 1st technician's evaluation of the system. Upon testing the power supply, he said he drew almost 1000W from that unit and it did not fail. The 2nd technician however had a different input, he said the problem should not be seen as how much you can draw power from the unit in general, but how much can be drawn upon boot. He went ahead and then identified the culprit, which is either an incompatibility between the motherboard and the PSU, or the PSU 5V rail is defective/not up to spec. 

He later proved his theory by using a new Asus TUF 1000W ATX3.0 unit with the same system and everything turned out to be fine and dandy.. Sad thing is the 1st technician will have to pay a huge price for misinterpreting the situation and acting fast while costing the retailer a new motherboard. I did feel bad for him, but then again, I felt bad for myself too since I ended up troubleshooting for the next month after his initial evaluation.

Point is, Nate. Your first assumption that it was the PSU, and your deliberate attempts on convincing me it was power related might've been the reason that a PSU issue in general stayed in the back of my head subconsciously, which made me ask the 2nd technician to check the power delivered to the board. I apologies for being dismissive and rude at times, my frustration should not have effected my social conventions or the way I conduct myself, and thank you for your service.

I'll go ahead and mark one of your replies as the solution.

[Nate152]

Ah, then I would suspect an issue with the 5v rail. This would make sense since the 5v rail supplies power to the usb ports and this is what you're having trouble with.

I like thermaltake cases, but I wouldn't choose one of their power supplies for a high end build such as yours. I suspect you chose it for the small form factor and the 12VHPWR cable, I can't blame you for that as it's one of the few small form factor psu's that supports the 12VHPWR cable.

Have you had a look at the ROG Loki 1000w psu? It's small form factor and platinum rated.

ROG Loki SFX-L 1000W Platinum | Power Supply Units | ROG Global (asus.com)

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