Intel Z690 motherboard setup mess help

[LongLensPhotography]

A long shot, but more ideas are better than none...

So we have 1) brand new boxed fully legit Intel 13700K
2) MSI Z690 board off-ebay. Apparently it was all working prior and I left it there in the bag for months until I bought the CPU and eventually had a few spare days.... That's DDR4 board and I only have 32GB kit of that thing. It really is NOT enough.
3) All other known working components in my PC.

Z690 BIOS was apparently never updated and I tried to do flashback following the manual. It flashed for a long time in red then it restarted. I don't know if that means anything

CPU goes in, all cables in and all I get is RED CPU light for half a minute and reboot loop. CPU fan is running quite slow if that makes any difference.

I tried all sorts of sensible things like reseating the CPU, switching out ram, even changed BIOS battery and tried flashing again... No change.
Online there are all sorts of similar threads with MSI boards with no resolution. I wonder if the flashback is just a worthless gimmick or we have a bigger problem.

Most options I can think off involve spending some money and the most expensive one is Black Friday Z790 + 64GB DDR5 kit. That's gonna hurt the wallet pretty bad but would be a very nice setup / Of course that cash could instead go into upgrade to Nvidia 4070 / Ti or Sony A7RIV either of which would be more bang per buck.

Please let me know your thoughts.

 

[Box Brownie]

FWIW I had issues with my new build using a Gigabyte Z790 board here

New build has a significant issue.,...BSOD and beyond!

Hi all My newly completed build was seemingly working well. It had been on most of yesterday but I went back to it to find a BSOD with., Stop code: WHEA_UNCORRRCTABLE_ERROR rebooted OK and ran SFC /scannow with no errors or integrity issues :) I rebooted to access the BIOS to disable the...

www.talkphotography.co.uk

I never used the Gigabyte Q-Flash Plus method of BIOS update where (as you mention above) it is done on the bare motherboard (IIRC there were strict caveats about capacity & formatting type of the USB stick used). I did however do an initial bios once the new build was completed update using Q-Flash and it worked perfectly.......to begin with.....see my post thread above.

Long story, short......the supplier tested both the motherboard & CPU and found the fault I reported but did not determine which component was at fault. The technician declared both items to be faulty and they replaced both parts.....having tested both together.

In your case my surmise is that the motherboard is faulty and/or a failed bios update has bricked it ???

 

[LongLensPhotography]

I wish I had spare components lying around to test everything "in isolation". Sadly I am not a PC shop. I'm not in a mood to start buying and reselling random base spec components but may eventually have little choice.
The only thing I can claim on is the CPU and they are strongly suggesting that I look at the motherboard / BIOS first.

In retrospect, my Asus B550F board refusing to run RAM at advertised 3600MHz speed (or the other way round) now seems like a minor niggle. I am rather grateful that setup boots up and runs stable at 3200... so I can still do work.
These components just aren't very reliable or well tested together. I also had to bin half of Crucial 2x32GB RAM kit. Memtest full scan come back as PASS in green, but one stick would quickly cause series of BSODs or even POST failures. Go figure that one out... Maybe DDR5 with some basic error testing is indeed the way.

 

[Snapsh0t]

I think it's either the mobo or the BIOS. The base BIOS doesn't support your CPU, as you probably know, so it may need a compatible CPU in there to be able to upgrade. I would get the cheapest CPU that is compatible with the earliest BIOS and see if that boots. If it doesn't then you've found why the mobo was on eBay. If it does boot then you should be able to update the BIOS and re-install your 13700K.

I recently built a new PC based around an MSI B650 mobo and Ryzen 7 7700. It was an easy build and, apart from a possible issue with one of the GPU ports, works very well. Okay, I've been building PCs for over thirty years......

 

[Harlequin565]

If you do decide to go for a Z790, I had significant problems seating the RAM on it and it was the cause of a number of issues where the thing wouldn't (obviously) boot up. The relief when I discovered it was just the RAM and nothing more serious was profound. Still, it's stopping me adding more, but 32Gb seems like it's enough to run what I need running.

 

[Milo King]

What is the exact model number of the motherboard?

So it is in a boot loop type scenario?

Are you able to get into your BIOS at all?

When you boot up press Ctrl+Alt+Del at the same time to get into your BIOS

If you can at least get into the BIOS check and see if secure boot is enabled, if it is disable it and try rebooting

 

[LongLensPhotography]

If you do decide to go for a Z790

I think research needs to be done which brand and / or model to go for. They sadly don't appear to be made equal. Even if I don't require flashback functionality I will be somewhat sceptical of MSI, and I read pretty negative comments about Gigabyte and ASRock. Lately even ASUS got a lot of negative press so that basically leaves me looking for the least bad option.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

so it may need a compatible CPU in there to be able to upgrade. I would get the cheapest CPU that is compatible with the earliest BIOS and see if that boots.

Celeron G6900, or ebay special 12400 or 12600. Can you trust a used CPU? Would rather not spend more than the motherboard or I just get Z790 instead

 

[LongLensPhotography]

Are you able to get into your BIOS at all?

When you boot up press Ctrl+Alt+Del at the same time to get into your BIOS

If you can at least get into the BIOS check and see if secure boot is enabled, if it is disable it and try rebooting

No, no signs of life at all

 

[Milo King]

No, no signs of life at all

I asked because you said.....

CPU goes in, all cables in and all I get is RED CPU light for half a minute and reboot loop. CPU fan is running quite slow if that makes any difference.

Can you connect it all up again, plug in a monitor and keyboard/mouse, and try as I suggested - even if you do not see a signal on the monitor

It has to be worth a try

 

[Snapsh0t]

What is the exact model number of the motherboard?

So it is in a boot loop type scenario?

Are you able to get into your BIOS at all?

When you boot up press Ctrl+Alt+Del at the same time to get into your BIOS

If you can at least get into the BIOS check and see if secure boot is enabled, if it is disable it and try rebooting

Ctrl+Alt+Del is not a keystroke combination I've ever seen for BIOS access. It's normally just Del or F2.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

Ctrl+Alt+Del is not a keystroke combination I've ever seen for BIOS access. It's normally just Del or F2.

I have equally good chances with either ones now

 

[Milo King]

Ctrl+Alt+Del is not a keystroke combination I've ever seen for BIOS access. It's normally just Del or F2.

I have equally good chances with either ones now

I asked because the OP said.....

CPU goes in, all cables in and all I get is RED CPU light for half a minute and reboot loop. CPU fan is running quite slow if that makes any difference.

As the OP tried to flashback the BIOS it may have enabled secure boot, so if you encounter problems booting up or think you are stuck in a no signal loop, using Ctrl+Alt+Del should help you gain access to the BIOS where you can disable secure boot.

Sorry I am just trying to help, an IT technician does not know everything about anything, my suggestions are based off of experience

And again as the OP said:

A long shot, but more ideas are better than none...

Good luck getting this resolved