MPG Z590 No display output with known working GTX 1060/RTX 3070, works fine with GTX 1030

[kamiewtype]

I have a customer machine on my bench right now that's stumped all the techs, so I decided to come here for help.

The specs are:
MPG Z590 Gaming Carbon Wi-Fi (MS-7D06)
Intel core i9-10900kf
2x16gb Corsair Vengeance kit
BIOS ver is E7D06IMS.1B0, from 6/12/2023

The machine was brought in because it would not POST after a GPU upgrade from a GTX 1030 to an RTX 3070. The customer also brought in the original GTX 1030, as well as a GTX 1060 that the machine also wouldn't POST with.
I tested the 1060 and 3070 on my bench (ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4) and both were able to POST and seemed fine in general. I also tested them in the customer machine. They did not work with the machine as-is or with new memory, new psu, and cleared cmos (multiple times).
No matter what I do, as long as I'm using the 1060/3070, the RGB on the card comes on but the EZ-Debug VGA LED stays on as well as error code d6 on the motherboard 7-segment display.
I've also tried plugging into the 6pin PCIe power socket on the motherboard in addition to the one on the 1060, with no luck.
I'm at a bit of a loss here. Any help would be appreciated, I'm hoping not to have to write this off as a bad board, mostly because it works perfectly fine with the 1030.

[DynaxSC]

D6, means no keyboard attached, try with keyboard attached. Some board really stop on D6 when missing keyboard/mouse or keaybord/mouse usb key.
Eventually USB port is dead, shorted esd protection or w/o power.

[kamiewtype]

I have a keyboard and mouse attached, and it POSTs with the 1030 even if I don't. According to the manual (PDF), D6 is "No Console Output Device Found". D7 is for input devices.

[DynaxSC]

You're right, looked incorrectly into the list. Nethertheles this is a very strange behaviour

Try to check whether there are no ripped off 220 nF caps (0402 case) in the places below (top side: left, bottom side: right).:


.

This could mean some PCIe lines are not working preventing the card from initialising correctly.

Check also wheter the board boots with the GPU card in the other PCIe slots.

Try to set PCIe generation level to fixed value in the BIOS.

It might also be, that a driver is defect - U34-U37, you might measure the PCIe data lines with reverse diode test, the voltage measured should ca 0,3V +/- 0,1V, similar on all data lines. The drivers must be checked both from PCIe side as well as from CPU side (either on the drivers/caps or in the CPU socket - very carefully).

BV attached at link:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...g-wifi-ms-7d06

Finally the CPU might have a broken PCIe line.

There are also PCIe testers available on Aliexpress, but they do not work correctly with boards with drivers, so patience, DMM and reversed diode test is the only option.

If this all will be OK, then just this card is not compatible with this board, or a major BIOS bug is present.

BTW, overflashing the BIOS should be also done to rule out any issue/corruption of the BIOS image. Note that sometimes reflashing the BIOS with BIOS is not enough, when the corrupted data is in areas not flashed. To go 100% sure you must backup the current BIOS (dump before the DMI data from the original BIOS with DMI Edit to a text file), flash a stock BIOS with hardware programmer (eg. CH-341) and transfer then the DMI data to the new bios manually, eg. with DMI Edit (under Windows).

Also check the GPU card, there are also 32 pcs 220nF caps (0402 case) on the data PCIe lines just directly very close to the PCIe connector (usually on the backside of the card) - they must all be present there.

CPU socket OK? No bent pins, no alien objects, pins totally clean, CPU pads totally clean ???

[kamiewtype]

Thank you for the detailed reply! I went through everything I could, and here's what I found.

No ripped off caps. There are quite a few that are missing when compared to the boardview, but it looks more like they were simply never added on my board (rev 1.3).

The board does not POST with the 1060 in any of the other slots.

I tried this before, but this board doesn't seem to have that as an option in the BIOS. I can't set a target gen, only a max gen.

Unfortunately I may need some handholding with the drivers. I am still very new to component level repair, so I'm not totally sure how or where exactly I'm meant to test for this. Will need additional guidance if I'm going to try it.

I also don't have any sort of hardware programmer so I'm unable to do this step as well.

GPU looks fine, also remember these are known working cards that we have tested on our testbench.

Finally, I did go and take a look at the cpu pins. All of the pins looked fine, except this one.



It was somehow bent back on itself completely. I checked the boardview, and it looks like this is pin G30, a VCORE pin. I attempted to bend it back as gently as I could, but it was bent so badly initially that the tip broke off in the process of bending it back.



I reinstalled the CPU without issue but I'm unsure if the pin is making contact with the pad, and the behavior remains the same as before.

[DynaxSC]

OK, one VCORE pin is completely not relevant, there are a lot of them in parallel. So this is not the issue.


If you do not have a HW programmer, the change of the BIOS can be done also under Windows with an Intel tool called FPTW64.exe. It is part of the Intel software package CSME System Tools. Usually it works, but sometimes the BIOS descriptor might not allow to do it that way, so then only HW programmer.

Attached you find a .zip file (FPTW64_v15_Z590.zip") with the necessary FPTW64 version for Z590 platform (each chipset generation set has a binary different CSME System Tools version).

In the .zip file are also two ready batch files to be executed in a command line window under Windows:

1. "Read BIOS Image to fptw64_biosbackup.bin.bat" -> this batch file reads the whole BIOS from the BIOS chip into the file "biosbackup.bin"

2. "Write BIOS from bios.bin.bat" - it writes a BIOS to the chip from file called "bios.bin" - please note this means overwriting whatever is in the BIOS chip, no upgrade is made, no DMI data are transferred, no bios version check is done, you can program that way whatever you want, even garbage, so take care having programmed the correct file for the correct board version, otherwise the board will be bricked and not start again ! The file must be in the same directory like fptw64.exe.

So first backup the current bios with the first batch file "Read BIOS Image to fptw64_biosbackup.bin.bat" - check if the file has been placed in the fptw64.exe directory.

Then you can write a stock bios to the bios chip, just rename the stock bios file to "bios.bin", place in the same directory as fptw64.exe and execute the second .bat file "Write BIOS from bios.bin.bat".


Second thing which might have some chance to help is updating the Management Engine (ME) of the Chipset to the newest release by Intel (most of the times not available on the support site as vendors are lazy updating their support sites). The Management Engine is a kind of operating system of the Z590 chipset, mainly responsible for security, but has also many other functions. An old ME might not support newer CPU's/HW/WinOS.

Just extract the contents of the file "Z590 ME Firmware update.zip" into a separate directory and execute Install.cmd -> it will write the new Management Engine into the chipset/bios. It will reboot automatically after the update.

The file "check.cmd" will show the current version of the ME, it should be someting like 15.0.49.2573 (this is the currently lastest available).

Very important not to power off board during this operations, as then it might be bricked for good.

First I would update the bios to the newest stock release and check if this changes anything. If not then check what ME version is in the chipset/bios, and if it is older than the one in the file attached (important are the there last sections of the version, 15 is always for Z590, B560, ..., etc.), then update the ME.

Next steps we'll see after this has braught any progress.



BTW, the names of unpopulated devices in the boardview (MSI) begin with "x_" - this means they are not mounted during production. Other vendors do it differently, eg. "X" at the end of the name, etc..

[kamiewtype]

Hey, sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately the customer opted to take back his machine before I could attempt the fix. I've directed him towards this thread but beyond that it's out of my hands, sorry for the unsatisfying conclusion.