Aurora R10, blinking yellow power button, no post

Question

Hello

I had been using my computer daily this week the suddenly I turned it on and nothing (everything turns on, fans,light but no video on screen), checked all cables reset connections on the board with no luck.

The power led (Alienhead) gives to yellow blinks then stops and gives a 3rd blink and keeps repeating, I started reading posts on various forums including here and reddit and according to most users that have the same symptoms and most seem to agree it's 2 things computer can't read memory and Bios error (also the error codes table that comes in the manual say the same thing), so I tried the following :

1.- What I mentioned before reseting all cables and card on the board.

2.- Reseting the BIOS (Unplug PC,move jumper,etc etc)

3.- Reseting the BIOS and removing the battery

4.- Replacing the memory (I was using aftermarket memory) with the original and repeating steps 2 and 3.

5.- Did the steps above several times with same results so I kept digging and fount the Bios recovery feature so I tried that first just by pressing CTRL+ESC and nothing.

- Used my service tag to get the latest BIOS in another computer and renamed the .exe file as mentioned here (put it on a FAT 32 formated USB Thumb Drive) : https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000132453/how-to-recover-the-bios-on-a-dell-computer-or-tablet

did that then repeated steps 2 and 3 several times (all this with original memory), same result.

- Found another post saying you should extract the .exe (13MB) file before renaming, you run it using some parameters and it results in a slightly larger file (16MB) rinse and repeat steps 2 and 3.

- Noticed that you can download the file in other formats and one matches the extension that you rename the file to in the steps above and it's a 32MB file so I tried that, rinse and repeat steps 2 and 3.

The only things I noticed different when turning on the PC while pressing CTRL+EXC is that the blinking alienhead happens 2 or 3 times then stops but no video signal so I left it a couple of minutes each time to see if something happens and nothing.

At this point I don't know what to do, my support expired Dec'21 and to renew it it would cost close to $200 before dell would even try and help or replace the mother board but from what I've read even replacing the board doesn't guarantee that this wont happen again in the future, for that amount I can buy a new motherboard and PS and forget about all this problems.

My Specs are :

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
16GB Dual Channel HyperX(FM) FURY DDR4 XMP at 2933MHz (original memory)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080,1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Windows 10 Home English (not relevante because it doesn't post)
CPU Liquid Cooling and 1000W Power Supply

A few months back I replaced the original memory with this :

VENGEANCE RGB RT 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 DRAM 3600MHz C16 Memory Kit – Black

I runs fine but only at 1.2V so It's limited to 3200 at that voltage, I could do manual config of the parameters and have it run a 3600 C16 but once you reboot or turn off the system it seems that it reverts to 1.2V (needs 1.35 to reach that speed) and wont start, reboots 3 times and reverts to no overclocking so you have to manually adjust so I stopped doing that and left it with the automatic settings (don't remember if it's the first or second profile) and had been working like that for months with no problems.

More recently I adjusted the timings manually to get the C16 leaving it at 3200MHz and 1.2V and it seemed to work fine for a week or so until this happened.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, otherwise I would probably have to go and replace the board and PS with an aftermarket solution (As I understand the 24pin plug for the MB is not standard so I would have to replace it).

Best Regards

Jerry

Vanadiel · Accepted Answer

Motherboard is not a standard form factor, so a standard ATX board will not fit in the case.

The case wiring itself is not standard ATX either. To replace the board with an aftermarket ATX board will require a new case.

If you have the original memory, put it in and disconnect all other devices including USB devices and do a CMOS reset by removing the coin cell battery.

It's not uncommon for aftermarket memory to act up, even if they have been working fine for months before.

If that does not work and a BIOS recovery option does not work either, than a motherboard replacement will be your only choice.

JeTeMa22 · Answer

Thank you for the reply, and yes I am aware that I will need to change the case and PSU, most of the testing I did with the original memory and the only USB devices that where plugged in where mouse,keyboard and the thumb drive when it didn't work without it (just pressing CTRL+ESC). Didn't try doing the reset without the battery so I'll try that this evening when I get home.

JeTeMa22 · Answer

I tried doing the BIOS recovery with the battery removed and it sort of worked, after several tries I got video and the recovery menu so I selected the recover bios option, takes a few minutes and then says press any key to restart, did so and got the alien logo after what felt like an eternity (actually it only took a while longer than normal) and I got a Cheksum error because the time was not set, gives you the option to continue, go in to setup so I went into setup, set the time and date, save an exit, so it continued the boot process and went into Windows, turned the PC off to put the battery back in, turned it on and again no video, removed the battery and cleared cmos again and no video back to square one.

Tried repeating the process with the battery still on and nothing so I know now it only seems to work with the battery off.

Removed the battery and tried several times until it gave me video again but now instead of the recovery menu I got a black screen with the following message :

*******************************************************************************************************************

New CPU installed, fTPM NV corrupted or fTMP NV structure changed.

Press Y to reset fTMP, if you have BitLocker or encryption enabled,

the system will not boot withour a recovery key

Press N to keep previous fTMP record and continue system boot, fTMP will NOT enable in new CPU,

you can swap back to the old CPU to recover TPM related keys and data

*******************************************************************************************************************

So I pressed Y and the boot process continued into Windows, the time and date where correct even when I had cleared cmos several times between tries and had no battery on so I guess Windows connects to the internet and sets it automatically, logged in to Windows and shutdown the system, didn't put the battery back in, turned the system on and blank screen again.

A couple of attempts more an got the recovery menu again and this time I only selected load Bios default settings didn't recover the BIOS again, and it reboots and goes on to boot, this is where I'm at now, typing this message on the Aurora R10, it will probably play dead again once I turn it off so I wanted to update the thread before I do so.

The Good : It's not completely dead

The Bad : I have to do this process every time I turn the PC on and it's hit and miss, not every time I turn it on and press CTRL+ESC will it go to the recovery menu need to cycle the power a few times and as you can see get different results sometimes, will probably hardwire a toggle switch for the bios jumper so I can reset it without opening the case and leave the battery off.

P.S.- All this has been done with the original memory it came with.

JohnnyRamone · Answer

Could you explain why there should be issues with aftermarket memory even if they have been working fine for months before? Did you experience any issues when you changed to the Crucial RAM after months? So far i could not see any issues since i changed to the Crucial memory in my R10 Ryzen edition...everything is working like the OEM-memory but with faster timings.

Vanadiel · Answer

It could happen when the bios is updated, often an update pushed by Windows update.

Some modules that worked before might all of a sudden stop working, or give issues.

It is hard to catch these bios updates pushed by Windows update and disable them. There's multiple posts from users experiencing problems with them.

Vanadiel · Answer

You could try changing the coin cell battery with a new one. The battery is used to maintain BIOS settings, and a dead battery can cause the issue you are experiencing.

The TPM is the trusted platform module, as long as you are not using disk encryption you should be ok resetting it.

The fact you seem to keep loosing your BIOS data leads me to believe you have a bad coin cell battery.

JohnnyRamone · Answer

Ok, I will observe that. So far absolute no issues with the Crucial memory in my R10. In the big aftermarket memory thread i saw that you also installed the red Crucial memory in your R10. Did you experience any issues since you installed them? The only 'save' alternative would be to buy oem Dell-memory which costs 3 times more (in my country germany) and has slower timings.

JeTeMa22 · Answer

Thank You Vanadiel for sharing your knowledge, I accepted your first solution of recovering bios without a battery because I didn't see that sugested in other posts I read about this problem and it did bring back the computer from the dead, I can now use it even with the inconvinince of having to clear BIOS every time I turn the PC off, on that I would like to add that after doing this a couple of times I decided to go back to the Crucial (aftermaket) memory (what else could fo wrong :Op ) and after that I've turned the PC on and off about 3 times normally so it seems to be working fine now with no battery, tested it and it shows 3.03V so it seems ok but will get a new one just in case it's part of the problem. Also the only thing I seem to loose configuration wise is the RGB lighting color it resets to green (the ring around the front IO) and I have to go in and move it back to blue once Windows starts but that's a minor inconvinience.

My power button no longer lights up when the PC is on for some reason, only lights up when I first turn the PC on to do the yellow flashing lights/signal and after that it turns off and stays off for the remainder of time I use the PC.

Hopefully some of this things get addressed on a future BIOS update but for now I can at least keep using my PC.

PCRead · Answer

Which BIOS version are you on? I had serious issues when mine updated from 1.8.3.

JeTeMa22 · Answer

I have the latest version at the time I started the thread which was v 2.2.4, I checked today and see the released 2.2.5 today so I might try that one.

Vanadiel · Answer

I had no issues with it, but I did do my research before I got it. Many don't, and that is usually where the issues come from.

Frodo312885 · Answer

Had the same light combination when trying to add ram, tried 4 sticks of 16gb fury Beast, experimenting, computer ran fine initially, then when I shut down and turned back on problems occurred, took away 2 sticks of 16gbs and plugged back in the 2 stock 8gbs sticks alongside the 2 16gbs, turned back on, viewed my bios setup, and just clicked save and reset, it had a shtfit for a minute, then everything was fine, not had anouther problem yet

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Aurora R10, blinking yellow power button, no post

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