19 replies to this topic

[Spiny Norman]

Hi guys

I just completed a new build. It's not my first but I'm not an expert either, and I have two issues I don't seem to fix.

Specs are:
ASUS M5A99FX motherboard
AMD FX 6300 CPU
XFX Pro650W PSU
Sapphire HD7850 graphics card
Samsung 840EVO SSD
Western Digital 1TB hard drive
Samsung Optical drive
Gskill Ripjaws 2X4GB RAM

1. I've completed the build, on powering up I get two beeps and the DRAM LED on the motherboard lights up which I believe indicates a issue with the RAM. The manual instructs me eo press the MemOK button until the LED starts blinking indicating that the memory compatibility is being tuned for a successful boot. This gets me to the first screen which confirms a successful boot and instructs me to enter the BIOS memory and save the settings. And here's the trouble when I enter the setup I'm not quite sure how to save the settings. And when I shut down and start up again I have to go through the same procedure.

2. Once I've done the above procedure the Boot Device LED lights up indicating an issue with the boot device. I have the boot order set at Optical drive, then SSD.

I'd appreciate any advice, to maybe walk me through the steps to try to fix this.

Many thanks

[8210GUY]

Can't be sure at what stage you’re at, but I'm guessing this is the proverbial 1st boot after completing the build ? And as such there is no OS loaded yet ?

From that point of view the boot order is fine, although when installed reverse the boot order you list so the SSD becomes the 1st boot device, then DVD, after that unless there is specific need, disable any other boot device options, it will improve boot times, but for us to get a better idea, can you tell us what the BIOS maker is, this will flash up on the screen during boot, and confirm\expand about the beeps, e.g. are they both short, 1 long 1 short or anything like that ?

 

Should saving the BIOS settings be the only thing stopping you moving on, that's simple, either press F10 and confirm save and exit, or use the Save and Exit option in the BIOS menu, but the major point to ensure here is you have changed nothing else, unless you know what that will do to the system, and the biggest point of all, make sure the time and date are correct, if this is wrong you will have no end of issues installing, hope this gets you started at least.

[Spiny Norman]

Hi there, yes it's the first boot. It says AmiBios and the beeps are two short ones. Yes I figured out how I was supposed to save settings and they never save, it simply resets and almost all the time hangs with the DRAM_LED lit

[8210GUY]

Right there may be a couple of possibles going on here, at the top of the list it would appear you have bad ram, but with the BIOS not saving, that makes me wonder about the CMOS battery, and or the CMOS jumper settings.

 

I suggest the first thing to do is ensure the CMOS battery (it's a cell battery) is inserted correctly on the board, and then more importantly, look in the manual for clearing the CMOS, some boards have a jumper (peg kind of) that sits on specific set of pins on the motherboard, make sure this is NOT set to clear the CMOS, if it is, you need to move it to the correct\normal setting, as opposed to clear, because this would cause the BIOS not to save.

 

Next check if the motherboard has a clear CMOS button that is reached from the back of the case, on the I\O plate, some makers have added this as a clear CMOS button for convenience\safety, so it can be done without the need of going inside the case, if it has this, then just press it a couple of time (with the system turned off), and see if it feels smooth and not sticking kind of thing, if it feels wrong it could be the board is faulty, unlikely, but not impossible, but given what you describe it's definitely worth looking at given it's quick and simple to do.

 

Now if all of that comes back as being OK, that leaves just the ram, what you can do here is to try and boot with 1 single stick in, if that works or fails, try the 2nd stick on its own and see what that does, if one does work and the other not, then you have found the bad stick causing the trouble, you would need to contact where you got them from and get them replaced, and they would need to BOTH be replaced, as they are probably a dual channel pair, so you need to have matched pairs for dual channel without issues.

 

Needless to say use the safe way of working as always when it comes to electrical things, power turned off AND removed, touch the case before touching any components to minimise the risk of static killing anything, I assume if your building a system(s) your already aware of this, but I mention incase others may not be and try to copy anything mentioned due to similar issues, but hopefully something here will help find out what’s going on, see how you go, fingers crossed for you.

[Spiny Norman]

Thanks 8210GUY

 

I checked the battery seating, took it out for 15 minutes and reinstalled it. The date went back to 2008 and I was able to save the current date. I think that should mean the battery is ok right?

 

I don't have a clear CMOS button on the outside but the jumpers are set to normal so I left it alone.

 

I did all the swapping of RAM and rebooting and there was no difference. So your advice is to replace the RAM? It'll be under warranty and if that's the only issue I'll be happy.

 

But what do you think could be causing the Boot DEVICE LED to light up? Every time I power up, first the DRAM_LED lights and after pressing MemOK, the computer boots but then the Boot Device LED lights.

Edited by Spiny Norman, 24 December 2013 - 05:07 PM.

[8210GUY]

Right the battery sounds OK, BUT, are you able to set the BIOS up and save it, without it forgetting the changes you made (not counting the clock)?

 

When you were swapping the ram in and out, did you try any of the other slots on the board? It may highlight a motherboard fault.

 

Do you have a comparable system\ram to try and see if the ram works in another system, and if the problem system works with other ram, that's another fast way to test this if you have such problems?

 

 There are 2 other things it may be wise to try before deciding if the ram is at fault, the simplest in a way is to get and burn memtest to a disk, then boot to the disk and leave it running say overnight, if that spits back errors then it supports the theory that it is the ram at fault, but I couldn't swear to it giving a false report due to another hardware issue, so it may be wise to do the following as well before making a final decision.

 

Sometimes the only way to isolate an issue is to remove the board from the case, and boot the system externally out of the case, being a new build you probably have the motherboard box still at hand, it is very useful at such a time, you can place the motherboard on top of it, and leave the back edge of the board right on the edge of the box, or you will struggle to keep it steady with the video card in due to the leg that goes past the motherboard.

 

Needless to say take extreme care doing this, and do NOT use the anti-static bag under the board thinking you would maintain isolating the board, the outside will actually short the board, it's only the inside that is safe, the box will be fine on its own, and remember do not touch it when you power on the system, safe handling and anti-static rules still apply, if it works out of the case (obviously it's still wired to it) then you need to check the standoffs are correctly placed, and there are no loose wires or screws that could be causing a short to happen.

 

 See if any of this gives any clues as to what may be wrong, but the only other possible that "could" be an issue, is if the ram is either not compatible with that board, or it may need to be manually set to specific settings before it will work, if when you try all this out and report back, can you also tell us the manufacturers number for your ram, and also what version your BIOS is, sometimes the answer is a BIOS update, but this should not be done lightly.

 

Hopefully when you supply the extra info, we can check if there is a newer version available, and more so see what was changed that brought it about (as issues are found they update the BIOS to overcome such issues as they arise), but let’s see if anything above helps first.

Edited by 8210GUY, 24 December 2013 - 07:49 PM.

[Spiny Norman]

Thanks again for the reply 8210Guy. I haven't done all the items you advised in your last post. There were other developments which I thought I should post and see what you think.

 

As you know, when I switch on the motherboard DRAM_LED lights indicating a memory issue. When I press the memOK button the computer does go into the BIOS. If I then discard changes and exit BIOS the computer continues. This way I was able to load Windows, install Office and various other items. However, the computer would always shut down after about an hour but I could restart it by following the above procedure and the computer worked for a while at least. I did notice that certain websites crashed the computer and trying to download Skype, crashed it every time. That was a couple of days ago.

 

This morning even following the above process doesn't work any more. The DRAM_LED light appears, I press memOK and the motherboards goes through some more checks but the light returns and the computer won't post.

 

Does this give any other clues?

[Spiny Norman]

Thanks again for the reply 8210Guy. I haven't done all the items you advised in your last post. There were other developments which I thought I should post and see what you think.

 

As you know, when I switch on the motherboard DRAM_LED lights indicating a memory issue. When I press the memOK button the computer does go into the BIOS. If I then discard changes and exit BIOS the computer continues. This way I was able to load Windows, install Office and various other items. However, the computer would always shut down after about an hour but I could restart it by following the above procedure and the computer worked for a while at least. I did notice that certain websites crashed the computer and trying to download Skype, crashed it every time. That was a couple of days ago.

 

This morning even following the above process doesn't work any more. The DRAM_LED light appears, I press memOK and the motherboards goes through some more checks but the light returns and the computer won't post.

 

Does this give any other clues?

Update - the computer will now post again after I reseated the RAM, seems after all my fiddling I didn't put it back in right. I still have the problem that POST stalls with the DRAM_LED error. Pressing memOK does get me into setup. If I discard the changes the computer does boot and windows loads. I can then use the computer but it always crashes after a while.

 

I did the memtest thing and that showed no errors.

 

Where dies this leave us? appreciate the help.

 

Cheers

[8210GUY]

Well it may be a case of that system just does not like that ram, can you give me the exact makers code for that, and confirm the motherboard model, taking special note if it shows that it's listed as being a Revised board, eg v2 or v3 or the like, then I can have a look at this more closely.

[Spiny Norman]

Yes,

 

the mother board is Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0

RAM is F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

[8210GUY]

Well there is little under the motherboards QVL, the only Gskill they list as compatible is F3-1866C9Q-32GXM, but that doesn't mean many other models won't work, but following the QVL is the surest way of a hassle free build, but again there will be far more makes and models that work just fine that they do not list in the QVL.

 

Now under the ram makers QVL it does not show your board, BUT, it does show what appears to be an immeadiate familly member, namely the M5A99X EVO R2.0, this starts to qualify my suspeicion of the ram and board just not playing nice (incompatible).

But it is far more involved than that in some cases, ram that is often not listed as working, often turns out to work fine if you go in and manually set the values, but you have to take great care, and know what your doing, as you can damage both the board and ram if using the wrong settings, so it's an advanced user area.

 

So been hunting for info on this issue, and similar issues, and have come across everything from bad CPU\PSU to bad RAM\Board, so lets try and test what we can, you have already done the swapping the ram around bit, and note you said it made no difference, but can I just check the following, that you are using the same colour slots for both sticks (eg both in the blue, or the black ones), as that enables the dual channel enhancment.

That you have tried booting with 1 stick only in, and possibly most important, that the sticks are fully inserted, I saw a comment about this, they said you should be virtually inserted up to the ram's heatsink, but don't exert that much pressure it could damage the parts.

 

The next thing I suggest checking is the ram settings in the BIOS, I am not experienced enough in this this area to suggest changing beyond the makers spec, but I have seen numerous times people going outside of the makers spec and making a massive difference in some cases, but getting this wrong could damage hardware, so I would stick with the spec, so ensure the voltage is set to 1.5v, and the speed is set to 1600MHz.

 

If these are not set in the BIOS, change to manual setting, and set to these values, don't change anything else, then save and exit the BIOS, see if this makes a difference.

 

Another check if you have a meter is the PSU, once you can check the PSU is outputting the correct values within the +\- 5% 0r 10% for some readings, they are listed Here so you can see what should be showing on your meter, needless to say if one of these are outside of the tolerances listed at that link, then you have a bad PSU, if the readings are what they should be, then that's another component to cross off the suspect list.

 

Do you have access to a system that takes DDR3 ram ?

If you do can you try the suspect ram in that system, and test the known good ram (assuming you have some) in the troubled system, it may help show if it's bad ram (if it does the same in another system), or a bad board or other component (if the good ram doesn't work), such tests helps to show where an issue may be.

 

And finally the BIOS version, if you can say what version you are running, it should show this briefly very soon after it is powered on as it lists\checks the system as it boots, the latest is v2201, and it's only just been released, it lists improved stability and newer CPU support as being done, looking back through the revisions thay list v0707 as rectifying ram compatability, so if your systems version is older than this, then a BIOS update may well be the cure.

 

BUT, there is a saying many go by, "if it ain't broke don't fix" as they say, a BIOS update should not be taken lightly, you can kill a board getting it wrong, and should there be a power loss to the system during the update (eg power cut or similar) then it can brick your board, so it always a last resort, and only if it lists something as rectified that may help with your specific issue.

 

So have a look at these points, and see if any of it helps.

[Spiny Norman]

Thanks so much for the help again.

 

I checked the ASUS QVL in the motherboard manual and my RAM is listed so perhaps the info you were looking at is old? Also I contacted G-Skill and they confirmed that there are no compatibility issues between my RAM and my motherboard. As far as setting the values, I tried to set it to 1600 Mhz but it won't save it, nor the voltage. In fact the only way I can get the computer to boot is if I specifically discard any changes, so I couldn't make manual changes if i tried. I'm afraid I don't have anything to test the PSU. I also don't have another system I can try my RAM nor any known good RAM to try in my system.

 

However my BIOS is Revision 1503, there's no mention of any version so I hope the revision is what you're looking for.

 

The RAM sticks are both in the blue slots. That's what the manual recommends. I tried each stick in the A2 and it's the same as having both sticks in A2 and B2 (the blue slots).

 

Apart from finding another similar computer to test all my parts, I guess I'm stuck?

[Spiny Norman]

Oh one more thing, I mentioned above that I was able to start the computer by pressing memOK, so the computer works for a while. I notice d however that it won't run any video. I tested youtube and Amazon Prime and neither of them work. Is that RAM? or is it my video card? Thanks

[8210GUY]

I was looking at it's QVL list on the Asus site for this board, and it does not show up in there, but if the physical manual you got with the board lists it as compatible, then that would seem to rule that out as an issue now, more so if the ram makers confirmed it is compatible, and TBH if the board won't save the BIOS settings then that is now prime suspect IMHO, I would suggest getting in touch with Asus about it being a faulty board, because if you can't save the BIOS settings you enter, then that may mean it's using the incorrect setting for the ram, and could be whats behind all this, did you note what settings it was using for the ram in the BIOS set up ?

 

The BIOS you have is old, but it's not as old as the one where it specifically covered the ram, the following is what they have listed since:-

2013/01/31 

M5A99FX PRO R2.0 BIOS 1503 <- Your version
Fixed F8 function is abnormal under fastboot

 

2013/05/14

M5A99FX PRO R2.0 BIOS 1708
Fix HDD(1TB up) read error under win XP of IDE mode.

 

2013/08/01

M5A99FX PRO R2.0 BIOS 1903
Fixed Power On By RTC function failed.

 

2013/10/11

M5A99FX PRO R2.0 BIOS 1903
Fixed Power On By RTC function failed

 

2013/12/19

M5A99FX PRO R2.0 BIOS 2201 <- Newest version
1.Improve system stability.
2.Support new CPUs. Please refer to our website at: http://support.asus....SLanguage=en-us.

 

Just wondering, if this board has an LED display, what number(s) is it showing when this is playing up ?

That may give a clue, not being able to test the PSU is a pain, as we can't prove it as OK\bad, so it remains as a possible, but it doesn't mean it is faulty, but it remains as an area of doubt, but I would certainly try testing this out of the case, as I described above, if there is a short being caused by the case, then that could be all it is, so if it works outside the case, then it's the case that's the problem, in which case ensure all the standoff screws are in the correct places.

 

There is usually 9 in my experience, but I may have seen ones with less, but in simple terms you should only have a standoff in each fixing point on the board, if you have other standoff's in then they are shorting it out and could be the problem behind all this, but definitely start approaching Asus about this, they may be aware of such an issue, as well as being able to say if it should be RMA'd.

 

Your video issue could be a simple case of you haven't got flash installed or something, all the time you have this issue don't go crazy installing, you will be best served with a fresh install with the new board if it is faulty, because there is no knowing how much (if any) corruption could have happened due to the current issues, so for peace of mind when you get a stable system I would reinstall, but obviously the choice is yours.

 

So get hold of Asus, and\or the place you got the board from, and say the BIOS will not save to the settings, the MemOK is supposed to automatically set the correct values to ensure booting, as best I can make out anyway, but by the fact this issue keeps repeating, there is something causing the board to lose the settings, so you are in a vicious circle, but testing the board out of the case is definitely something I would do, if it is a shorting issue, you may be charged for shipping to get the board back if they say it is OK.

 

Also while it is out, can you take a close up picture of the case wires pinned to the motherboard ? 

the section with numerous wires on pins, as opposed to the bigger "plugs" that can only be inserted one way, and if you have connected the firewire lead, double check that this lead is in the correct socket, and that you haven't put a USB plug in it by mistake.

 

Not all boards are that obvious which is the firewire, but wrongly connecting to it can cause permanent damage, but definitely start looking into the board as faulty (try the outside case test first IMHO), something is definitely not right there for whatever the reason, hope this starts to get things sorted.

[Spiny Norman]

thanks again for the help, it's really appreciated.

 

I have everything out of the case and connected up on the kitchen work surfaces, My wife doesn't seem to mind at all

 

I'm hesitating a little becuase I'm not too sure how to turn the thing on with out the case switch. I imagine I just touch a screwdriver or something briefly across the on and off prongs?