Solved! Possible Dead 3700x?

[MBrown]

So on last Thursday I bought a 3700x, an Asus X470 Prime Pro and 16GB of GSkill 3600Mhz. It booted up into bios, and I tried setting memory to stock 3600 speeds, but it would fail. So it defaulted to 2133. Windows was not stable so I updated to the latest bios. Put ram at 3600, then I ran some Prime95 for a bit, played some BF1 and BF5. Everything was good with no crashes for a whole day. Then suddenly last night I get two crashes in row from just browsing the internet. After the second crash the system wont even post. So I tried everything with this motherboard (cleared CMOS, re-installed the battery, moved the ram around, tried another video card, unplugged all unnessesary fans, removed SSDs). Still would not post. Nothing at all on the screen. So then this morning I went a bought a brand new PSU thinking maybe my PS was going bad. Still would not post. Then I went out and bought another new motherboard (MSI B450 tomahawk Max). Still wont post with all of the troubleshooting I did with the previous motherboard. I even plugged the PC into a different power socket. The MSI board is not throwing any error LEDs. To test, I removed the CPU, and the CPU error LED lit, up....same thing when I removed all ram. At this point I think I have done everything I can do to troubleshoot. The only thing that happens is the fans turn on. Is it really possible that I have a bad CPU even when it was working for about a day and a half? What else could I check?

Cliffs.
- New PC build suddenly stopped posting
- Wont post with even another new MB swapped out
- Wont post with a new PSU
- Did all the troubleshooting I could think of
- unplugged and moved memory modules
- unplugged SSDs
- swapped video cards
- etc
- Still wont post
Any recommendations of what else to test because going back to microcenter and exchanging the CPU for another one?

 

[sdifox]

Have you tried reseating cpu and cooler? With new grease

Oops you swapped boards. Take it back to microcenter, they'll test and let you know.

 

[DrMrLordX]

@MBrown

Sadly your board doesn't seem to have USB flashback, but I've seen circumstances where the UEFI can be corrupted and it might also temporarily "brick" the CPU in other boards. Might. Does your other board feature UEFI flashback? Can you reflash the UEFI on that B450 Tomahawk with the affected CPU installed and see if it will POST after that?

 

[MBrown]

Thanks for the responses.

@sdifox, I did in fact re set the CPU in the MB although I admit, lazily I kept the same grease on there instead of applying some fresh artic silver.

@DrMrLordX, the b450 does have USB flashback but not UEFI flashback I believe. However I can't get a bios on USB for this. In any case, this is a tomahawk max, so it is 3000 compatible out of the box.

I will replace the CPU and come back with an update.

 

[DrMrLordX]

In any case, this is a tomahawk max, so it is 3000 compatible out of the box.

I know it is, but sometimes reflashing the UEFI will revive a system that seems to have bricked itself. It might revive the 3700x. Or it might not.

 

[MBrown]

I know it is, but sometimes reflashing the UEFI will revive a system that seems to have bricked itself. It might revive the 3700x. Or it might not.

This is true. I guess I was just growing impatient so I just went ahead and replace the 3700x. Dropped it in with no issues so far. Looks like the CPU was bricked. I have to say, I initially went into microcenter to pick up the Tomahawk Max after all the research I had done, but then the microcenter salesman sold me on getting the Asus X470 prime pro because it was cheaper. I knew there were a lot of bad reviews on the Asus board having all kinds of boot issues but I took the chance and went against my judgement. I should have known the salesman didn't know what he was talking about because he was trying to tell me the 3600mhz memory wouldn't work on the b450, but I just gave him the benefit of the doubt. That was the first and last time I buy an Asus motherboard. My previous build had a MSI board and it worked like a charm. smh. Sorry for my rant. Thanks for all of the input.

 

[Shamrock]

Just a thought. Have you tried different RAM? Not just moving current ram around, but different brand, or speed?

 

[MBrown]

Just a thought. Have you tried different RAM? Not just moving current ram around, but different brand, or speed?

I did not as I only had one set of DDR4. It turns out that the ram was not the culprit anyway. The CPU was dead most likely because the Asus Prime X470 Pro UEFI bricked it.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Ryzen chips have been . . . curiously sensitive about corrupt UEFI since the Summit Ridge days. We've had at least one forum user here revive a dead 3700x system just from reflashing the same UEFI to a board that has USB flashback. I would consider USB flashback to be a "must have" feature for all AMD systems in the future.

 

[moinmoin]

It's not so curious if you consider the convoluted boot up sequence that involves first booting ARM with some proprietary firmware that's included in the UEFI BIOS which only then starts the actual x86 portion of the chip. Ryzen just makes UEFI a more crucial point of failure due to that dependency.