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Z390A Dead After RAM Upgrade!

Basspig
Level 7
I fear my motherboard died. I had two sticks of Micron Ballistix RAM for 32GB total. Worked fine since December.

Today I installed a matched set of the same part number, but four sticks for 64GB.

System won't POST. Motherboard lights eventually turn white and a little green light next to the white one, but no display, monitor never wakes up.

After an hour of trying one RAM stick at a time, I had to give up and put in my original working RAM.

Unfortunately, my machine won't POST even back to original RAM!!

Thinking that the BIOS somehow reset to defaults, I plugged in an HDMI monitor in the motherboard HDMI, but no graphics signal on any port.

Before I RMA the motherboard, is there anything else I should try?
Regards,
Mark
...
"If it doesn't cause an earthquake, you need a bigger subwoofer."
2,517 Views
8 REPLIES 8

Zka17
Level 16
I am wondering what else did you need to disconnect/reconnect in order to change the RAM modules... Like the CPU cooler, or graphics card... Have you done the whole procedure in the case or you have removed the motherboard?

Basspig
Level 7
I did not remove or disconnect anything. It was an in place upgrade. Should have taken 3 minutes.

I disconnected power, jumpered the clear CMOS for two minutes and powered on. The system power cycled four times and then a whole minute passed and I was ready to shut it off when I saw the BIOS logo and a screen full of information appear on the on board graphics output on a temporary HDMI display. I wish there were no on board graphics. This thing cost me six hours last January thinking I had a bricked motherboard because the defaults got reset and disabled my GPU. If I didn't have an HDMI display to try, I'd have RMA'd the board.

So now I have this BIOS screen and a line says "The VGA card is not supported by the UEFI driver."

I tried disabling on board graphics but I get no display on either output now, so something else is wrong. I lost all my BIOS configuration, which took many days of configuring and testing last January, so I don't know if some other setting is depending on this to make the GPU supported.


Very odd: Under Too\Graphics Card Info\GPU Post, it's not showing any graphics cards. I forgot what other settings need to be in place to make the graphics card show. I have a GTX1060 in the X16 slot.
Regards,
Mark
...
"If it doesn't cause an earthquake, you need a bigger subwoofer."

Basspig
Level 7
Now I'm at the point where I got the system to boot Windows, but it's on the motherboard graphics, and my keyboard doesn't work now. I was able to go to Troubleshooting and select UEFI firmware and restart, but now I'm back to no displays. I'm seriously ready to toss this machine out the window and buy a new one.

I shut the machine down and powered it back up. It boots right into Windows 10, but on the on board graphics not the GPU. I cannot access the UEFI anymore. Just a blank screen.
Regards,
Mark
...
"If it doesn't cause an earthquake, you need a bigger subwoofer."

Basspig
Level 7
Some progress, but new glitches are making this more complicated than it should be.

I found that by disconnecting the auxiliary display from the motherboard, I was able to boot into Windows on the DVI monitor which is connected to my GTX1060.

However, it seems like many of my UI tweaks have been removed! I noticed first the desktop color changed to black. Then I notice the window title bars are much larger than before. And the latest thing is the gigantic two headed arrow cursors are back. Windows had 'fixed' itself back in February and I never saw the oversized cursors until today. So it seems like all the "learning" Windows 10 has done has been wiped and I'm back to a December 2018 system, with the bugs and quirks I was spending months to troubleshoot and fix.

I still can't get into the UEFI, so I have no idea what BIOS settings I had custom configured to make the system run properly.
Regards,
Mark
...
"If it doesn't cause an earthquake, you need a bigger subwoofer."

Basspig
Level 7
I just discovered Hypervisor is not running. I hav e to to into the UEFI and enable virtualization, but I can't get into the firmware. My monitor sleeps when I go into UEFI firmware from Windows.

I can only boot into Windows now. I can't get into the UEFI anymore.
Regards,
Mark
...
"If it doesn't cause an earthquake, you need a bigger subwoofer."

Basspig
Level 7
Man this just keeps getting stranger all the time. I finally get into BIOS and enable virtualization and load Windows only to find out one of my SSDs is not present. I took the drive out and tested it in an Innotek USB hub and it came right up. The controller channel is dead on the motherboard.
Regards,
Mark
...
"If it doesn't cause an earthquake, you need a bigger subwoofer."

In place system upgrade failed. Rolled back to corrupted system.

Decided to re image from a July backup. Running MemTest86+ now, just to make sure the new RAM isn't corrupting things.
Regards,
Mark
...
"If it doesn't cause an earthquake, you need a bigger subwoofer."

Basspig
Level 7
I am finding many things broken in WIndows now. I ran System File Checker and it found corrupt system files and could not fix.

I am about to do an in place system upgrade in the hopes of fixing this mess.
Regards,
Mark
...
"If it doesn't cause an earthquake, you need a bigger subwoofer."