Hey everyone, I just helped my friend put together a new PC, but we're facing a weird issue. The unit powers on – fans and lights are active – but there's no display on the monitor. The USB ports don't seem to be getting any power either. We're not seeing any Q-code or error beeps to indicate what's going on. We suspect it might be a faulty motherboard, but I thought I'd reach out to see if anyone has suggestions on what we might have missed.
We've stripped down the build to just the essential components: CPU, fan, graphics card, and one stick of RAM. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any change with those either. We even tried a different GPU. We don't have spare RAM or a power supply to swap in, but the fact that the system powers on with no RAM at all – without triggering any error messages – makes us lean towards a motherboard issue.
Interestingly, we noticed that when the system powers on, the monitor initially shows a blank signal, but then we hear a quiet "click" either from the motherboard or the power supply. After that, the monitor loses its signal and goes into power save mode. We even tested with another monitor and different HDMI cables just in case.
For context, the build includes an Asus PRIME X870-P motherboard, AMD Ryzen 9900X processor, 2x32GB Crucial 6400 RAM, and a Corsair 1000W power supply. The only potential compatibility concern might be the RAM, as it's faster than the board's rated maximum of 5600, but I didn't think that would prevent the board from showing any errors.
1 Answer
Sounds like you might need to give it a bit more time on the initial post. With DDR5 RAM, sometimes the system can be finicky during the first boot. Have you tried just using one stick of RAM in different slots? Some boards can be picky about which slots to use.
We initially tried with the 2x32GB sticks and gave it about 5 minutes. Do you really think we needed to wait longer for the first post?