I've got an Aorus H370 Gaming 3 motherboard, Intel Core i9 9900KF, and an Nvidia RTX 3060. I'm having a serious issue where my PC won't boot at all, not even to the BIOS screen. It powers on, but I notice a red VGA light, and nothing appears on my monitor. When I connect the monitor to the motherboard's HDMI port, it briefly flashes, but then the PC cycles through the CPU, DRAM, and VGA diagnostic lights before shutting down completely.
To give you some background, I tried to overclock my RAM thinking it would help fix an issue with Battlefield 6, which I later realized was server-side and not my fault. I enabled XMP in my BIOS, saved my settings, and after that, I got a message from Javelin anticheat that said secure boot was disabled, even though it was on before. Once I tried to turn secure boot back on, my PC just stopped working completely.
I've attempted a bunch of fixes, including clearing the CMOS (which hasn't helped), jumping the pins, removing the battery overnight, and even swapping out the CPU and GPU, not to mention rearranging the RAM. Still nothing—no motherboard logo, just a dead screen. Can anyone help me figure this out? Also, shoutout to whoever works on Battlefield 6; thanks for nothing!
2 Answers
First off, let’s try this simple reset: shut down your PC, unplug it, and take out everything. Remove your GPU and RAM, and then pull out the CMOS battery. Check your motherboard for CLR_CMOS pins, usually located at the bottom right, and short those two pins together with something like a screwdriver for about a minute. While you do that, hold down the power button for 30 seconds to discharge any leftover electricity. After that, remove the shorting tool and put your CMOS battery back in (replace it with a new one if you have one handy).
Now, place one stick of RAM in the right slot and leave the GPU out. Connect your monitor to the motherboard and power it on. If it works, you should see a message indicating that the CMOS has been reset. Give this a shot first!
Since you’re on a Gigabyte motherboard, you might have a feature for dual BIOSes. Unfortunately, your board doesn’t seem to have this or USB BIOS flashback capabilities. One option is to look into finding a USB BIOS flasher that fits your BIOS. Also, the 9900K(F) is getting a bit old—7 years is quite a stretch in CPU terms. You might want to be cautious with any overclocking since it's not exactly known for longevity. Just a heads up!
Geriatric CPU? That's a new one! I just got mine about a year ago—do you think I have much time before something goes wrong?
I fixed mine by going down to a single stick of RAM and used my old CPU with integrated graphics. Thanks for the tip!