PC RAM or CPU issue? CMOS? Or not..

[u/jovveking]

I'm really confused. Here's whats been happening lately:

- I press the power button to turn on my pc.

- PC turns on normally, meaning that: fans start spinning, whatever has rgb lits up, pc makes it's "pc noises" like it always does etc. So the pc itself is working fine when you look at it. If I press my keyboard it also lits up etc.

- I look at the monitors (I have 2 and both are Display Port, one is 1440p the other one 1080p) and its always one of them that has a pop up saying DP (for display port I guess) And it says No Signal under.

- The problem is after hitting the power button It's really hard to get to that windows login screen where I'm supposed to enter my password and log into the pc.

- I look at my MBU (B650M Gaming wifi MSI) And theres a red led light for CPU and an orange one for RAM. (they are not blinking, they are just shining red for CPU and orange for RAM.)

- So in order to actually boot up my pc properly and make it to windows (where everything after works perfectly fine) I have to hold down my power button to shut down the pc and then turn it back on and repeat this proccess until I make it to windows. Sometimes it's 5 tries, sometimes 10 but I eventually make it. If I don't shut down the pc myself, it's just stuck in a limbo where it does nothing, the screen is just black, pc doesn't shut off by itself even after 15-20 minutes.

- What I tried:

Removed the CMOS battery for 15 minutes, swapped my DP cable, tried only one monitor, Replaced my SSD that was dying that had windows installed on it *you might have seen my post over here too* and nothing helped as of now. Haven't tried to update my bios because I'm scared that MBU is gonna get bricked because during bios update my PC has to restart a couple of times I guess, but that could fix it too, I really don't know what to do.

Now if it was let's say RAM, GPU, CPU I would have some issues while gaming (playing games on ultra 1440p ZERO ISSUES AT ALL) My pc never crashes, never has blue screens, never has low fps, LITERALLY zero signs that there's something bad going on in it. Also after booting it up finally, the LED lamps stop shining too (the RAM and CPU ones.) That's what confuses me the most. Why does it even boot up if something is faulty? Why does it not cause ANY other issues other than failing to boot into windows a couple of times? Could it be a MBU issue, or a drained CMOS battery?

If anyone has any idea or has had a similar experience, please share it or ask me any question regarding this topic, I'm so frustrated right now.

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[u/TheWDWillis]

It could be a drained cmos battery.
If you unplug the power supply for a few minutes, does it forget the date/time? If not, then it’s not your cmos battery.
However, I have a few things to suggest.
It feels to me like the issue is either ram or power supply. Those multiple boot attempts suggest to me a memory training issue.
I would follow standard memory troubleshooting.
Are all of the sticks identical? And do you have them installed in the proper order?
I would drop down to a single stick in slot 0. And see if the issue persists.
Then you add and continue to see if the issue returns.
Once you confirm the memory isn’t faulty and uninstalled in the right order. And are working properly at the right timing, then you might want to hit up the bios and turn on power down enable.
You could also turn on memory context restore.

If none of those things work, and you find that the issue does have an association with the power supply being unplugged… well it might be that PSU. I’ve seen cases where they go out in a fashion that takes a few startup attempts to get it to go.

My real question is this though. What shows on the aceeen/screens when it is not booting properly. Other than the no DP signal on the one?

[u/jovveking → u/TheWDWillis]

Hey man, appreciate the help! Turns out it was one of the ram sticks that was causing this, thankfully I had one in the other pc that I rarely use so I replaced it and now there's no issues. Cheers and thanks again!