I haven't used my PC in about a week and when I tried to play a game, it completely froze. I couldn't even open Task Manager. After a hard reboot, I saw the motherboard screen briefly, but then the screen went black for around 3 minutes. On subsequent reboots, fans were running at full speed, and I couldn't even access the BIOS until finally getting into Windows after 6 tries. Once I was in Windows, I noticed that my Ethernet port wasn't working—no lights at all—so I reinstalled the LAN driver, which fixed that issue. However, the bigger problem is my RGB lighting; it doesn't work at all. The Gigabyte control panel doesn't recognize it, and even after reinstalling the software, I can only change colors without any effect on the fans. I'm considering whether a full BIOS update or even reinstalling Windows might help. My build includes a 9700x CPU, a Gigabyte X870 Gaming WiFi 6 motherboard, a 9070 GPU, and 64GB of G.Skill RAM (CL32).
1 Answer
Sounds like a rough situation! I’d recommend starting with a CMOS reset on your BIOS. If that doesn’t help, consider updating the BIOS. Running 'sfc /scannow' in the command prompt as an administrator could also help repair any corrupted system files. If all else fails, a Windows reinstall might be necessary, but keep in mind that if the motherboard is faulty, even that might not solve the RGB issue. You could try installing Windows on a different drive temporarily to see if it runs fine there before making any final decisions.
I do have another drive I could install Windows on, but I'll try the other steps first. I should mention, this build has been stable since March, and this issue just popped up. The RGB problem is a real pain!