Weird random dimming behavior

[An0maly_76]

First, this system has been driving me crazy since I built it. Current system specs are in my profile.

First it was no video startups every 8-12 cold boots (board didn't like the RAM I used? Seems to be a Ryzen thing )

Changed RAM, still either freezing or no video in sleep mode (simple fix, disable sleep mode, who needs it anyway?)

Due to frequent power glitches, I have a UPS. But for some inexplicable reason, every time the system lost power (PSU rocker switch or disconnecting from power for maintenance / cleaning), the GPU and mobo RGB defaulted to rainbow cycling, which drives me nuts. Finally have that under control (I think) using Asus Armoury Crate, though I think it may be conflicting with the Corsair iCUE controller / software for my LL120s.

Strangely, since installing Amoury Crate, I have under certain circumstances noticed what appears to be artifacting in Armoury Crate and MS Paint 3D, mostly when I initially installed Armoury Crate. Seemed to go away after a boot cycle or two.

I found a thread indicating a BIOS setting for standby power, which I tried with no effect.

I run two displays, a 75" Hisense A6, and an old Dell ST2310 (mainly for recording movies and viewing apps I don't want on my 75". I have noticed random dimming for no reason on the 75" occasionally, but it's so sporadic I can't figure out why (maybe twice in one day, then might not do it again for a month). Today the Dell 23" started doing it, but much more frequently, to the point I turned it off because it was irritating me.

I have had suspicions that either the board or the GPU have some sort of problem, emphasized by a recent discovery that I can no longer toggle the board's line-in input, where I could before. I have also had random issues with my audio playing peek-a-boo by either randomly lowering itself to near-mute, or jumping to a different device (Speaker Out vs HDMI out, for example).

Can anyone give an idea as to how to tell whether it is one or the other, or if what I've so painstakingly built is a Charlie Foxtrot?

 

[Calenhad]

Make sure Armory Crate is not applying any automatic "performance" profiles to your hardware. Artifacts like that are often due to vram overclocking.

You can uninstall Armory Crate to check if that is the cause for the artifacts.

Random dimming could be the tv itself. Check if there is a light sensor, automatic dimming, or similar setting in settings on the tv.

Do the bios settings revert to default as well? Or just the rgb rainbow puke? If so, replace the bios battery. The battery should be fine for years to come since that motherboard is relatively new. But there is no harm swapping it to check. It could be a dud or damaged due to repeated power failures.

 

[An0maly_76]

Make sure Armory Crate is not applying any automatic "performance" profiles to your hardware. Artifacts like that are often due to vram overclocking.

You can uninstall Armory Crate to check if that is the cause for the artifacts.

Random dimming could be the tv itself. Check if there is a light sensor, automatic dimming, or similar setting in settings on the tv.

Do the bios settings revert to default as well? Or just the rgb rainbow puke? If so, replace the bios battery. The battery should be fine for years to come since that motherboard is relatively new. But there is no harm swapping it to check. It could be a dud or damaged due to repeated power failures.

Checked last night and did not find anything along these lines. I do wonder about the repeated power failures, because that is what prompted me to get a UPS in the first place.

ADDED: Forgot to mention, also seems to think my Blu-Ray and 8TB HDD are a possible RAID after a power loss in addition to RGB puke.

Strangely, I did not see any such GPU behavior on the ASRock B450M-HDV 4.0 / 3600X setup I tested the other components on when the Asus TUF B550 board was out for RMA. So that could kind of strongly suggest a board issue, perhaps a PCIe issue, maybe from repeated power failures as you stated. Does that hold water?

If so, I wonder if it would still be okay for a media NAS with an APU. If that's the situation, I could just put it in a solid case with a 3200G / 3400G and a couple M.2s for that. And I'm strongly considering the ASRock B550M-HDV for the 5900X as a replacement. Their B450M-HDV seems to handle a 3600X just fine.

 

[Waldorf]

i would uninstall asus/corsair sw, never seen the benefits outweighing issues they can cause.

but can also come from board/ram/voltages. are you using XMP/AMP?
if so, turn it off and apply settings manually, so your 100% sure the board wont "boost" clocks/vol on auto settings.

 

[GerKNG]

Strangely, since installing Amoury Crate, I have under certain circumstances noticed what appears to be artifacting in Armoury Crate and MS Paint 3D, mostly when I initially installed Armoury Crate. Seemed to go away after a boot cycle or two.

armory crate does this since at least 3-4 years now.

 

[An0maly_76]

i would uninstall asus/corsair sw, never seen the benefits outweighing issues they can cause.

but can also come from board/ram/voltages. are you using XMP/AMP?
if so, turn it off and apply settings manually, so your 100% sure the board wont "boost" clocks/vol on auto settings.

But will the fans still run without iCUE? Also, I did disable DOCP to set the RAM speed at its native 2400.
One other thing. An ASRock B450M-HDV with a 3600X, using a Corsair Lighting Node and 3600 RAM clocked to 3600, doesn't do any of this with the same GPU.
Which would kind of suggest the board is to blame.

armory crate does this since at least 3-4 years now.

But not all the time (at least in my case) and that's what I find strange.

 

[Waldorf]

IIRC, only needed for the led stuff, fans still get controlled by the board.

and if uninstalled, it will probably be, never..
test and see.

also, turn off any settings in "bios", that allow the board to dl sw/drivers.

 

[GerKNG]

But not all the time (at least in my case) and that's what I find strange.

yeah i know it's really random but it's a thing.

 

[An0maly_76]

IIRC, only needed for the led stuff, fans still get controlled by the board.

and if uninstalled, it will probably be, never..
test and see.

also, turn off any settings in "bios", that allow the board to dl sw/drivers.

In my case, only the CPU cooler is on the board headers, the RGB fans are on the Corsair Commander's fan power ports.

Interesting bit, the ASRock B450M-HDV / 3600X setup is in an iCUE 4000X RGB with a Lighting Node, and did not have any of this problem with the same GPU installed as a test bed when the Asus board was out for RMA. So I have suspected it may be a conflict between the Asus and Corsair software.

However, that board is set up with two three-head splitters for fan power, and for some odd reason, one fan has a delay in spinning up when powered on. Doesn't seem to affect the system otherwise. Any ideas on that one?

 

[A Computer Guy]

Checked last night and did not find anything along these lines. I do wonder about the repeated power failures, because that is what prompted me to get a UPS in the first place.

ADDED: Forgot to mention, also seems to think my Blu-Ray and 8TB HDD are a possible RAID after a power loss in addition to RGB puke.

Strangely, I did not see any such GPU behavior on the ASRock B450M-HDV 4.0 / 3600X setup I tested the other components on when the Asus TUF B550 board was out for RMA. So that could kind of strongly suggest a board issue, perhaps a PCIe issue, maybe from repeated power failures as you stated. Does that hold water?

If so, I wonder if it would still be okay for a media NAS with an APU. If that's the situation, I could just put it in a solid case with a 3200G / 3400G and a couple M.2s for that. And I'm strongly considering the ASRock B550M-HDV for the 5900X as a replacement. Their B450M-HDV seems to handle a 3600X just fine.

Careful B550 might not work with 3200G / 3400G (in general Zen/Zen+ CPU)

And I'm strongly considering the ASRock B550M-HDV for the 5900X as a replacement. Their B450M-HDV seems to handle a 3600X just fine.

That motherboard doesn't have VRM heatsink from what I can tell. If you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel with Asrock with 5900x (under $100) I'd go with something that at least has a VRM heatsink.
such as...

• ASRock B450M PRO4 (I run a 3950x with this board)
• ASRock B450M PRO4 R2.0
• ASRock B450M Steel Legend
• B550M Phantom Gaming 4

 

[An0maly_76]

Careful B550 might not work with 3200G / 3400G (in general Zen/Zen+ CPU) - That motherboard doesn't have VRM heatsink from what I can tell. If you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel with Asrock with 5900x (under $100) I'd go with something that at least has a VRM heatsink.
such as...

• ASRock B450M PRO4 (I run a 3950x with this board)
• ASRock B450M PRO4 R2.0
• ASRock B450M Steel Legend
• B550M Phantom Gaming 4

Too true. I was looking at the size of the VRMs, but hadn't considered the heatsink angle. As for the 3200G / 3400G on the B550, maybe a 5600G then.

Here's the skinny. I do have three Ryzen machines and would really like to condense the major components into rack-mount or ITX / mini-ITX setups, but I really don't want to spend that kind of money (can spend a little, but on a very fixed budget with disability) -- Specs below.

1700 / AMD Wraith / MSI B450M Bazooka / 32GB 3200 Ballistix / Tuf Gaming GTX1650S / Channel Well 500W in CyberPower Onyx case
(runs, but 1700 and board do not like the RAM)
3600X / Scythe Mugen 5S / ASRock B450M-HDV / 32GB 3600 Ballistix / Asus Phoenix 1650-OC / Corsair CX650F in Corsair 4000X RGB case (Lighting Node / SP120s)
5900X / Scythe Mugen 5 Black / Asus Tuf B550-PLUS / 32GB 3200 Viper Blackout / Asus KO-RTX3060ti-8GB / Corsair RM850x in Fractal Pop Air XL (Commander / LL120s)

After more consideration, I'm leaning towards this thought process to save money.

Swap cases and GPUs between the 3600X and 5900X setups. Maybe swap the M.2s between boards. I'm sensitive to heat and humidity, and I've wondered if the heat output of the 5900X is causing problems with that as well. The 3600X runs a documented 10-20C cooler than the 5900X. The 5900X is already doing double-duty as my gaming rig and a Plex server. If I do this swapping around, I can move the 5900X to the living room as a NAS.

That would relegate the RGB puke elsewhere and reduce the heat in my room, as well as give the bullheaded relative I live with a better option than his worn-out laptop that he has to use a magnifying glass for (when he has a perfectly good Hisense A6 that would make it easier for him to see what he's doing). He actually likes the heat, and a 5900X with a 1650 would be perfect for double-duty as a daily and NAS, as he games on an older Playstation. Hell, a 5600G would probably be fine for that scenario. But swapping things around costs a lot less.

This way, I'd only have to buy a couple wifi / BT cards and maybe another UPS. Does anyone know of any good x1 wifi cards, or are they all x4 / x8? I'd like to be able to use the 3600X or 1700 to record DVDs, then dump the compressed files to storage on the NAS, is that possible through Bluetooth / wifi?

And does anyone have any better ideas than this that can be done on a budget?

 

[freeagent]

A stock 5900X should be no problem to drive, it only gets 105w of actual socket power. What a weird situation you have going on here.

If it were me, I would go back to basics and wipe the system. Then I would start with a basic build, no Corsair junk running, no Asus junk running, just basic.

With 3 GPUs I haven't seen artificing when using AC.. but admittedly, I rarely use or install AC, so I am not a voice of reason there lol..

It could be your ram? I only know my B-Die kits, and they have never ever given me any troubles on 3 CPUs and 2 boards. But a lot of people seem to have trouble with Corsair ram on Ryzen.. not everyone though.

 

[An0maly_76]

Swapped my ASRock B450M-HDV / 3600X and Asus Tuf B550-PLUS / 5900X setups between cases this evening. Yes, swapping GPUs would have been a simpler first step, but I wanted to see if this is possibly a board / PSU glitch. Same RGB puke, so I think this GPU may have some sort of hardware issue where it does not retain the last RGB settings and has to have Armoury Crate smack some sense into it. But what does that mean for my Asus board's audio playing "catch-me-if you can?

Swapping HDMI ports changed nothing on the 23" Dell... It's kinda old, so I wonder if it might just be the monitor itself dying. I've found nothing to indicate it has a proximity sensor.

Hate to say it, but this BS has me ready to just get another board / GPU and sell these. And if I do, I don't plan to buy Asus again if this is the kind of BS I'll have to deal with. My 1700 apparently does not support the 3200 Mhz Ballistix I put in it, and has been sitting idle, so since I found some 8GB HyperX Fury 2666 sticks on eBay, I'm considering strapping my Mugen 5S on the 1700, overclocking it to the moon, loading it up with 32GB, and getting a non-RGB 3090.

It's a shame, this KO is a pretty bad-ass card for a 3060ti, but having sensory issues, I'm not big on RGB that does whatever it wants to. I'm a set-it-and-forget-it kinda guy.

 

[An0maly_76]

Random dimming could be the tv itself. Check if there is a light sensor, automatic dimming, or similar setting in settings on the tv.

Do the bios settings revert to default as well? Or just the rgb rainbow puke? If so, replace the bios battery.

UPDATE:

The random dimming turned out to be a combination of TV settings and Nvidia Control Panel settings.
The BIOS being confused about my HDD and Blu-Ray (on SATA_1 and SATA_6) seems to be fixed after CMOS battery replacement. I owe ya a beer @Calenhad

However, the RGB rainbow puke on power loss remains. Thinking about @freeagent 's remarks about the RAM, I remembered the BIOS was updated during or after my initial RAM issues, so in case this might have been the reason, I even rolled that back to the original version. No dice.

I'm curious. My PSU has two sets of PCIe 6+2. Do these have different pinouts perhaps? Could that have anything to do with this, or do the higher-end cards use both?

Is there any safe way to verify whether this is related to slot power loss vs PCIE power loss without risking damage to the board or GPU?