Question New ASRock X670e Pro RS Problem

[rkoenn]

I built myself a new system last week with an AMD Ryzen 7700X and an ASRock x670e Pro RS motherboard. It uses two sticks of CORSAIR Vengeance RAM DDR5 5600 Memory. The first time I attempted to boot the board still hadn't posted after about 15 seconds so I shut down the PS. I then tried a couple more times with the same result. I even removed the CPU and installed it again with the same results. A bit of googling revealed it can take longer than that so the next time I waited and it POSTED and booted fine. I had a fast NVME SSD and windows 11 went on by far the fastest ever. I have been using the machine for a week or so now but this morning it didn't POST. I looked and two of the red boot LEDs were locked. I pulled the memory and reseated some power plugs and finally with one stick it booted. I then tried the other stick in the same socket and it booted. However adding two sticks it would not POST. Also moving to other slots with either stick would not POST. I am running on 1 stick now in the slot farthest from the CPU. After a week running fine and stable I cannot figure out what is going on. I do not have any other DDR5 to try which is frustrating and am wondering what direction to go. Even in the far slot a couple of times I seem to have had problems but that may just have been not seating it firmly enough, I don't honestly know. If anyone has any ideas please let me know, thanks.

 

[RLGL]

Is your ram overclocked? Is it on the QVL? AMD boards ar very fussy about the ram that is installed.

 

[rkoenn]

Is your ram overclocked? Is it on the QVL? AMD boards ar very fussy about the ram that is installed.

No overclocking at all, looking more for a solid high performance workstation than a gaming machine. I didn't check the list but may have to do that, possibly return it to Newegg for a different brand off the list. Funny thing is it ran fine out of the box, once I figured out that first POST quirk, and then wouldn't start this morning. Nothing changed overnight. Thanks.

 

[In2Photos]

Is your BIOS up to date?

 

[rkoenn]

Is your BIOS up to date?

Yes, one of the first things I did after getting it running. Thanks.

 

[rkoenn]

Is your ram overclocked? Is it on the QVL? AMD boards ar very fussy about the ram that is installed.

My particular model was not on the QVL list. Sadly with this being the first DDR5 build I have no spare memory to try out. And that also means returning this for a QVL model to Newegg is difficult as I cannot use the machine while doing that. I really don't need another credit with them as I plan no big purchases anytime soon, this build took all that money. Possibly a future BIOS will make it less sensitive to memory.

 

[rkoenn]

I have done more troubleshooting and both sticks of memory are fine. I moved them around the various slots and the furthest slot of both pair with a stick in it boots. But add a stick to the second slot in each pair and it stalls with 2 red diagnostic LEDs frozen, of the four. I even got it to boot and run fine with a stick in the outer slot of each pair for a total of 32 GB. I may contact ASRock and see if they have any suggestions. Really frustrating as it ran fine for the first week and then suddenly, with no changes to the configuration I know of, locked up at power on. Thanks for the suggestions though.

 

[In2Photos]

Well, if the memory isn't on the QVL that's probably going to be what ASRock tells you you need to fix. It's also possible that you have a faulty CPU. Without a spare of either one it's impossible to know for sure.

Maybe try to see if a local shop will assist and let you test with a pair of their sticks?

 

[igor_kavinski]

I try to avoid Corsair RAM. Best if you can get Kingston.

 

[SK10H]

Time to start your tweaking journey to set the memory timings manually instead of relying on auto, bump up the default vsoc etc. Do some digging on what memory chips and go from there.

 

[daveybrat]

It's the ram. I had the same problem with a customer's new AMD build using Corsair Vengeance as well. I told him to return it to Microcenter and purchase the G.Skill DDR5 kit and it worked perfectly.

 

[Muadib]

It's the ram. I had the same problem with a customer's new AMD build using Corsair Vengeance as well. I told him to return it to Microcenter and purchase the G.Skill DDR5 kit and it worked perfectly.

i had the same issue with XMP ram and my 7950x. Took it back to Microcenter, and got 32GB of Expo ram. No issues since!

 

[In2Photos]

i had the same issue with XMP ram and my 7950x. Took it back to Microcenter, and got 32GB of Expo ram. No issues since!

For the record I'm running an XMP kit on my 7700 and I have it at 200MHz higher than the rating on the kit. But the RAM was on my motherboard's QVL. EXPO kits should work on AM5 no matter what up to the rating on the kit, but it is still possible for XMP kits to work as well.

 

[Muadib]

For the record I'm running an XMP kit on my 7700 and I have it at 200MHz higher than the rating on the kit. But the RAM was on my motherboard's QVL. EXPO kits should work on AM5 no matter what up to the rating on the kit, but it is still possible for XMP kits to work as well.

I didn't say XMP kits didn't work! Heck, some in this very thread are using XMP.

 

[In2Photos]

I didn't say XMP kits didn't work! Heck, some in this very thread are using XMP.

I didn't say you did say that!

 

[Muadib]

I didn't say you did say that!

Carry on then!

 

[Muadib]

 

[rkoenn]

If you are following this post here is the latest. Over the past couple of days I've researched more, mostly here, and also moved memory sticks around. I ALSO reset the BIOS to defaults but then did a little tweaking such as turning off wireless and setting a couple of peripheral items. I set AUTO on most of the memory and CPU settings, no overclocking or performance tweaking at all. I ran yesterday stably on one stick. Today 3 hours ago I decided to try two sticks in paired slots. It took almost a minute or more but finally POSTED and booted! I was surprised. I've had no problems since. Tomorrow morning will be interesting to see what happens. I agree it is persnickety memory but it is running good now. The BIOS reset may have had something to do with it but again, I did nothing to tweak any settings for faster performance. Thanks for all your suggestions.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It took almost a minute or more but finally POSTED and booted! I was surprised.

You weren't giving it time before? First time after inserting two sticks, it needs time to train the RAM. Add one more, it will take longer. Insert four sticks, it may take 7 minutes of staring at a blank screen before it may POST.

Is it running at full 5600 MT/s?

What are the timings?

 

[rkoenn]

You weren't giving it time before? First time after inserting two sticks, it needs time to train the RAM. Add one more, it will take longer. Insert four sticks, it may take 7 minutes of staring at a blank screen before it may POST.

Is it running at full 5600 MT/s?

What are the timings?

I found that out the first few times after first assembling it after Googling the problem. However when this problem first happened after running fine for almost a week that was not it. Today that was it and I let it go for a while after powering up. But yesterday I let it sit for 2 or 3 minutes with no luck. I can't explain and of the 500+ systems I've built since the mid-80s I have never had one similar to this. I even built a friend a Threadripper with 8 sticks of 16 GB each. I did that one two at a time until all 8 were in and had no problems. My rocket scientist buddy runs the machine 7x24 and has been since he got it in early 2019 and it has been rock solid. He uses it for all types of engineering simulations.

There is a picture at this link with the ASRock notice about the extended boot times. In all the machines I've built this is a first. I have a different model and did not have such a sticker on it but this explains it. I've found it is also true of other very recent model motherboards. It is probably related to the XMP setting in the BIOS which can be turned off I believe. I simply didn't wait long enough when moving memory around, my error. It take two minutes for the first boot with 2x16 modules.