MSI Z170A XPOWER Gaming Titanium Dead?

[EXCellR8]

I've a second hand MSI Z170 board that is giving me grief with a post code of 71 (late south bridge initialization?) and I can't get it to POST at all. The board is the Z170A XPOWER Titanium with dual BIOS but neither of them seem to work; code is the same. I've cleared the CMOS, tried different sticks of RAM, swapped GPU cards, tried only the onboard video, and even tried to use the BIOS flashback feature with a FAT32 USB stick but nothing has worked. I bought the same board brand new some years ago and it seemed impossible to break so I'd be a bit surprised if it were just dead--though I fully realize that it's entirely possible.

Anyone know a bit more about what the error code could mean? The manual and online resources don't really provide any usable troubleshooting information aside from possible memory stick failure but I know that a kit I tried is good so that was sort of a dead end. Don't suppose anyone could lend me a newer processor to try...

 

[bbhaag]

The only thing I could find regarding a code 71 dates back to a 2015 post on the MSI forums. It refers to a BIOS hex code debug code with PCH DXE SMM initialization is started being the reason. Is this what you mean by faulty southbridge initialization?

To be honest I'm not sure how helpful I can be but to me it appears to be a faulty mainboard or possibly bent pins on the mainboard. Is it possible that you can send your current mainboard back and get a replacement?

 

[EXCellR8]

The manual doesn't really specify what the code means; I just happened to come across that vague description online the other day but that may have not been for an MSI board. Either way, the board doesn't do anything after displaying that code.

I checked all the pins last night after throwing in the towel and they all looked fine. I was using a G4500 CPU at the time which had been working prior. I flashed the BIOS on the boar to the latest version and that's when I started seeing the code and it hasn't POST since.