MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX - CPU LED (no POST)

esKo · 12 Sep 2019 at 21:21

Hi, so I recently received the MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX from OCUK to complete my new PC build however I cannot get the PC to post. The VGA LED has been on a few times, same with BOOT and DRAM but the CPU light is on almost constantly.

I have tried to POST with one RAM stick, with no GPU, with no USB peripherals plugged in, flashing to a newer BIOS (2 different BIOS).

Do you guys have any ideas what I could've done wrong or what the issue could be? If you need more info let me know what you need and I will try and answer asap.

Specs -
MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX
AMD Ryzen 3600X
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 cooler
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 3200Mhz (2x8GB)
PowerColor RX 5700 XT Red Devil
Corsair AX760 PSU
Coolermaster H500

EsaT · 12 Sep 2019 at 21:59

Welcome to forum.

Post debug LEDs apparently tell stage of POST process, so stuck light means process is stuck on that phase/part.
Could try clearing CMOS to see if that wakes things up.
Unplugging PSU from wall and then removing BIOS battery for few minutes is sure way.

Minibiker · 12 Sep 2019 at 22:02

That would indicate something wrong with the CPU, Make sure there are no bent pins and make sure all seated properly

esKo · 12 Sep 2019 at 23:48

EsaT said:
Welcome to forum.

Post debug LEDs apparently tell stage of POST process, so stuck light means process is stuck on that phase/part.
Could try clearing CMOS to see if that wakes things up.
Unplugging PSU from wall and then removing BIOS battery for few minutes is sure way.

I tried clearing CMOS but I'll give it another go before I go to bed.

Minibiker said:
That would indicate something wrong with the CPU, Make sure there are no bent pins and make sure all seated properly

I removed the cooler and double checked and none of the pins appear damaged and it is seated correctly.

an0nym0us · 13 Sep 2019 at 00:50

Could be a bad BIOS flash. Try using a different USB stick (preferably less than 16GB capacity) to do the BIOS update again.

EssexBoy · 13 Sep 2019 at 03:36

You need to short the bios pins next to the battery while it's off if removing battery did not help.

esKo · 13 Sep 2019 at 13:59

I left the CMOS out overnight and I've put it all back together again this morning, same problem with the CPU led. However for the first time this morning for about 10 seconds my GPU's fans started spinning, not sure why. I assumed they weren't spinning because it wasn't hot enough so not sure why they randomly started this time. I tried both a 1GB and 16GB USB stick to flash and neither made a difference, the flashing process seems to work perfectly every time if the BIOS flash LEDS are to be believed. All the evidence seems to suggest the CPU is dodgy, if I can't make any progress by the end of the day I'll go about returning it but if I get a new one and the same situation arises would the next part to consider replacing be the Motherboard?

Jamin280672 · 13 Sep 2019 at 15:22

esKo said:
I left the CMOS out overnight and I've put it all back together again this morning, same problem with the CPU led. However for the first time this morning for about 10 seconds my GPU's fans started spinning, not sure why. I assumed they weren't spinning because it wasn't hot enough so not sure why they randomly started this time. I tried both a 1GB and 16GB USB stick to flash and neither made a difference, the flashing process seems to work perfectly every time if the BIOS flash LEDS are to be believed. All the evidence seems to suggest the CPU is dodgy, if I can't make any progress by the end of the day I'll go about returning it but if I get a new one and the same situation arises would the next part to consider replacing be the Motherboard?

With the MAX boards, the bios shouldnt need flashing, id say you've received a DOA part, to save time, I would RMA the CPU and Motherboard, get them both tested at the same time.

If you have been flashing the bios, I hope you've been using the right bios for the Tomahawk MAX board and not the regular Tomahawk board ??? they are both identical except for the bios chip.

This one: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-TOMAHAWK-MAX

NOT this one: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450-TOMAHAWK

Tomahawk Max Bios Chip: https://imgur.com/7OAhdWR

Regular Tomahawk Bios Chip: https://imgur.com/oIv1B3c

an0nym0us · 13 Sep 2019 at 15:45

And also hope you were extracting the correct file from the downloaded zip before renaming the file.

esKo · 13 Sep 2019 at 16:15

Yes I was downloading the BIOS for the MAX variant, I tried 7C02v32 and 7C02v331 (beta) and renamed the E7C02AMS.320 and E7C02AMS.331 while trying either on 2 different USB sticks. The BIOS Flashback LED indicates everything went through OK, it does the flashing for a few minutes as it should then reboots but the CPU EZDEBUG LED is always on. Occasionally it will turn off and switch to DRAM for 1 second before switching to BOOT and then back to being CPU constantly. Every bit of info and reply I've had so far seems to suggest the CPU is broken so if nothing changes come later today I will return the CPU and get another one. If that doesn't work would my next course of action be returning the motherboard?

Steveocee · 13 Sep 2019 at 16:30

esKo said:
If that doesn't work would my next course of action be returning the motherboard?

It's already been said. Return both to be sure. It could be either so why wait a fortnight waiting for what sods law would deem be the part that was working to come back in order to send the bad one away and wait another fortnight?

monsterhax · 18 Sep 2019 at 22:30

I bought this board recently which was meant to be flashed already to support 3000 series, and had the red cpu led. Downloaded the 30 bios version and flashed it myself. This worked.

Was bit of a faff having to take it all apart again, and the flashing does take several minutes, but im up and running finally.

Oddly though I was getting a red light on GPU as well, now admittedly I hadnt plugged the card in but was getting nothing from the onboard video?

an0nym0us · 19 Sep 2019 at 01:17

monsterhax said:
Oddly though I was getting a red light on GPU as well, now admittedly I hadnt plugged the card in but was getting nothing from the onboard video?

Were you using an APU? If not, there's no iGPU on Ryzen CPUs.

peterwalkley · 19 Sep 2019 at 10:30

an0nym0us said:
Were you using an APU? If not, there's no iGPU on Ryzen CPUs.

Yeah - that threw me for a while coming from a Haswell build. On-board graphics only works with a 'G' Ryzen processor e.g. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-...ith-rx-vega-11-graphics-retail-cp-3ba-am.html

an0nym0us · 19 Sep 2019 at 10:36

peterwalkley said:
Yeah - that threw me for a while coming from a Haswell build. On-board graphics only works with a 'G' Ryzen processor e.g. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-...ith-rx-vega-11-graphics-retail-cp-3ba-am.html

There are some Athlon APUs as well (e.g. AMD Athlon 200GE VEGA Graphics AM4 CPU 3.20GHz (Socket AM4) Processor), but they're not very good.

bertybenno · 19 Sep 2019 at 12:32

Heads up there's a new bios on msi's site that's fixed (for me anyway ) the pbo issue .Now I get boost to 4.4 on 3600x

Justo · 19 Sep 2019 at 15:09

bertybenno said:
Heads up there's a new bios on msi's site that's fixed (for me anyway ) the pbo issue .Now I get boost to 4.4 on 3600x

same, updated but was getting black screen on cold boot but changed erp to enabled and works perfectly now 3600x boosting as advertised and not sitting at max voltage on desktop with icue enabled

CritHit · 23 Sep 2019 at 20:30

esKo said:
Every bit of info and reply I've had so far seems to suggest the CPU is broken so if nothing changes come later today I will return the CPU and get another one. If that doesn't work would my next course of action be returning the motherboard?

So what did you do at the end? New CPU does help? I have the same situation, unfortunately.

esKo · 24 Sep 2019 at 03:11

CritHit said:
So what did you do at the end? New CPU does help? I have the same situation, unfortunately.

Hey, so an update on this is that it ended up being a BIOS issue. I was prepared on the day I last posted on this thread to take it apart and send the CPU back but I just decided to give it a bit more time and keep trying the BIOS. I sat there and flashed the BIOS over and over on the same version and I guess eventually it just decided "this'll do" and POSTED. Once I managed to get into BIOS and set everything up and running it is for the most part fine, I still get the odd issues here and there but the drivers aren't the most stable right now.

Alt-tabbing out of games for example will be hit and miss whether or not the game will hook when I tab back in (spamming left click seems to get it to hook most of the time). Sometimes the Graphics driver (I think) will just flat out stop working and my monitors seemingly go into stand-by mode and won't come out of it without a reboot.

CritHit · 24 Sep 2019 at 17:28

And I'm almost in the same situation again. I didn't reflash bios, just sit there and wait.
Did you install "chipset" drivers? The first problem I get was right after the installation of radeon adrenalin edition that somehow uninstall my nvidia driver.