Please help: Blinking red power LEDs above Strix 3090 OC PCIe power connectors

[tgaDave]

All I could find is that these blinking LEDs indicate 'abnormal power'. My PSU is a Seasonic Prime Platinum 1000W, the pcie cables are three separate (not daisy chained) cables, all properly plugged in at both ends. After being shut down for a while, when started back up, it's a reasonable likelihood the red LEDs above each of the power connectors start blinking forever. If I turn off the system, then switch it off at the wall or at the PSU then drain it (hold the power button on the frontpanel until all the system is fully drained and all LEDs on mobo etc are off), then turn it back on, the blinking LEDs are usually gone.

Any ideas? The PSU is about 2 years old, and the 3090 is obviously brand new, strix OC model.

Wondering if I should approach seasonic for a replacement, or if the LEDs can be triggered by something else, perhaps erroneously even?

[KMagic]

Kiriakos-GR wrote:
Actual 12V rail voltage testing at boot this requiring a quality multimeter at 400$ or EUR, this including Min-Max log (fast speed detection).
Most Kids out there do not own one, but they might request assistance from a professional at electronics repairs, he has all required tools.

I'm not so certain it would require a $400 meter. It may show up just fine on your average ~$50 multimeter that you can buy at Lowes. It depends how fast the voltage dips and recovers. If the dip is incredibly short, meaning milliseconds, then yea the meter might wouldn't catch it, but we have no idea really until someone actually tries. If the dip lasts for anything near a full second a cheap meter will catch it. This test could be performed in literally 5 minutes. Anyone who is into PC building and overclocking should take time to understand some basics in electrical knowledge, and certainly should own a multi meter. Multi meters are so handy around the house for so many reasons. Checking issues like this with computers, checking your house wiring, checking your car battery, Its just a good tool to have on hand. Anyways, until someone with the issue puts in some effort to test their system's 12v rail at system post and boot, particularly on the leads going to the video card, then we don't know. I personally think that a voltage sag is almost certainly occurring, and that is what is triggering these cards to warn of it. These types of warnings are not controlled by software where you can have bugs in a windows environment. This is hard wired circuitry meant to detect an out of bounds voltage. Once the voltage goes out of bounds the circuit sends the warning. Its all but certainly occurring I would think. Its telling that it ALWAYS happens for folks right at boot. I've seen no report of it happening once inside of windows or even in a gaming load. So, the issue is likely one of a totally benign nature and isn't actually a problem. Its likely a natural tick of the system post process causing the voltage to blip for just a fraction of time, and then it recovers, is stable, and system boots into windows. All we can do is speculate though until someone investigates it.

[uplink]

Same thing here :/. Completely random, is it a real faulty graphics card, or just some FW/VGA BiOS bug? :confused:

[djk1507]

I'm having this same red blinking led issue as well on a rog strix rtx 3070 oc. Is there a fix for this yet?

Cmon Asus give us a answer or a link to update bios. Please

[Coolguy906]

After I did some extensive research, the red LEDs are blinking because the voltage drop is over a certain amount (personnel guess would around 10-15%), this can due to "Irregular" voltage drop of your PSU, custom cables, cables did not plug in properly...ect. This is a "safety" feature to warn users, also as some users mentioned, you can disable the feature in GPU Tweak II, if you decide your hardware are completely fine.

[KMagic]

Coolguy906 wrote:
After I did some extensive research, the red LEDs are blinking because the voltage drop is over a certain amount (personnel guess would around 10-15%), this can due to "Irregular" voltage drop of your PSU, custom cables, cables did not plug in properly...ect. This is a "safety" feature to warn users, also as some users mentioned, you can disable the feature in GPU Tweak II, if you decide your hardware are completely fine.

This is exactly why I said put a multimeter on the 8pin cables. Previous poster shot that down saying its the card. You cant make a statement like that with incomplete evidence. The red led's only blink if the voltage is not within a fairly tight tolerance. If the lights are blinking then it suggests the video card detected, perhaps only for a split second, the voltage sagging or spiking outside of its tolerance. This could potentially occur right at the start of system boot, right after the power button is pressed. This is why I say someone with the issue should put a multi meter on these 8pin leads and see what is truly happening. If the voltage is indeed sagging for just a split second as the system posts, then you will see it occur on the multimeter. Once the system posts and boots the voltage likely stabilizes and is why in windows everything appears to be fine. Nothing is more accurate however than measuring the actual current right at the pins with a multi meter. If there is truly voltage irregularities at boot you will be able to document that with a multi meter. This is the very first thing I would do if I had this issue in my system, because its a no brainer. Do not always assume that the circuits, which are programmed to respond in a very specific way to voltage are just wrong. I suspect in systems with these blinking leds, that there is most certainly a sag on the 12v rail as the system posts. Likely an extremely brief sag (or spike), perhaps not even a second long, and likely right as the power button is pressed and the system initially surges to life. The video card detects that and the LEDS light up. You get into windows and everything appears fine, because of course by then the 12v rail is stable. One thing that I do find interesting is that from a large portion of people who have reported this problem they are running seasonic power supplies, which are fairly high end units. Id be curious though how those voltage rails are behaving in the first 5 or so seconds after pressing power button

[JoergH]

I have the same thing here.
First start of the day (not every day, but maybe one time a week), all 3 POWER-Leds blinks red.
When the Windows-Loginscreen apears, i shutdown the PC -> wait 30 Seconds -> press Power-Button again -> LEDs are all off and Systems runs normal

And: I have this on 2 different PCs:

1. Asus RTX3080 Strix OC / Seasonix PX-1000 / Asus ROG Z590
2. Asus RTX3080 Strix OC / Seasonix TX-1000 / Asus Prime-A Z590

All Bios are up-to-date...

No idear what it is - double-checked all cables - i believe the following:
After having the PC off the night, the powersuppy is completey discharged. After turn it on, it took a second to long to "power-up" the PCI-e-Power-Lanes.
In this second, the GPU detects to less power and the LEDs blinks.

[JoergH]

I did some testing.

Today, i turned on my PC and the 3 LEDs are blinking red...

Ok, i boot Windows (with blinking LEDs) and start HWiNFO.

All GPU-8Pin-Connectors (3) are showing 12,2V...
But the LEDs are still blinking red...
I started TimeSpy (3DMark) and let it run over one hour...
No Problem, all 3 8pin-Connectors are showing 12,2V the whole time (i wrote a logfile).
The Watt on all 3 Connectors are okay too (about 80Watt one every connector, some more some less - but about 80).

So the only possible answer is:
The Graficcard tries to detect the power when i turn my PC on.
The PSU (Seasonix TX-1000 / brandnew) delievers the 12V not fast enough to the GPU and the GPU start blinking red.
But 1 Second after it detects "low Voltage", the voltage is there (and never go away)... but the card didnt stop blinking because it thought: "Hey, the PSU doesnt have enough power"...

The fix would be very easy... give the "detection" 2 more seconds after the computer gets turned on... and thats it - power is there - no problem...

My Card is a Asus ROG STRIX RTX3080 OC V2 (LHR)...

I believe that some PSUs are faster to deliever the 12V to the 8pin - so the LEDs are not blinking on this modells...
I have the problem once a week or so, most of the time at the first boot of a day.

Maybe Asus can fix this with a bios-update, but i dont think so... but okay...:-)

@Asus: No, i dont want to install a software to turn this LEDs off...:-) Just fix it for the boot-time in bios...

And i have this on 2 different PCs with 2 different PSUs...:-) So there is nothing faulty... its just a bios-thing that the voltage detection has to be delayed a bit after the PC is turned on.

[ahfoo]

JoergH wrote:
I did some testing.

Today, i turned on my PC and the 3 LEDs are blinking red...

Ok, i boot Windows (with blinking LEDs) and start HWiNFO.

All GPU-8Pin-Connectors (3) are showing 12,2V...
But the LEDs are still blinking red...
I started TimeSpy (3DMark) and let it run over one hour...
No Problem, all 3 8pin-Connectors are showing 12,2V the whole time (i wrote a logfile).
The Watt on all 3 Connectors are okay too (about 80Watt one every connector, some more some less - but about 80).

So the only possible answer is:
The Graficcard tries to detect the power when i turn my PC on.
The PSU (Seasonix TX-1000 / brandnew) delievers the 12V not fast enough to the GPU and the GPU start blinking red.
But 1 Second after it detects "low Voltage", the voltage is there (and never go away)... but the card didnt stop blinking because it thought: "Hey, the PSU doesnt have enough power"...

The fix would be very easy... give the "detection" 2 more seconds after the computer gets turned on... and thats it - power is there - no problem...

My Card is a Asus ROG STRIX RTX3080 OC V2 (LHR)...

I believe that some PSUs are faster to deliever the 12V to the 8pin - so the LEDs are not blinking on this modells...
I have the problem once a week or so, most of the time at the first boot of a day.

Maybe Asus can fix this with a bios-update, but i dont think so... but okay...:-)

@Asus: No, i dont want to install a software to turn this LEDs off...:-) Just fix it for the boot-time in bios...

And i have this on 2 different PCs with 2 different PSUs...:-) So there is nothing faulty... its just a bad bios-programming

Can you tuen off your system by turning off the power socket, remove your power cord from your PSU for maybe 15 mins. And reconnect your power cord to PSU, turn on the main power from your wall plug see if the issue still persist. I am having a some thought maybe the GPU capacitor not discharge properly. That my thought.

[JoergH]

There is no need to do that, because i my case, Turn the PC off, wait 30 Seconds and turn it back on solves the problem...
I never unplug anything to solve the problem, just PC off -> wait 30 seconds (or 15 seconds) -> PC on -> problem solved...

[BigJohnny]

Its PSU power limiting, As in too much power draw on any particular rail. You may be able to take care of it with a multi rail set up. Im running 12 rails at 40 amps each.