No POST Without "b2" Code

I am having a lot of trouble with this PC I have. I built it a while ago, and ever since a few weeks after I bought it, I have been having a pretty major and annoying problem getting the thing to even POST. The PC will not boot unless I see the "b2" code appear on the Q-Code readout. This means that I have to power cycle the computer, usually for around 10-15 minutes, in order to get my PC to boot. As you can imagine, this is incredibly frustrating. I have built a lot of computers for friends and never ran into this issue. I should mention that once the PC does boot, it runs fantastically. I am not overclocked at all, as I am trying to fix this problem first, and the only thing changed in the BIOS is that the memory is running on an XMP Profile. Everything else about this system is at optimized defaults. I have all of the expected performance and I have never once experienced a blue screen or crash on this PC. I have been through 2 motherboards and 2 power supplies trying to diagnose this problem, I have disconnected all non-essential hardware, tried booting with just one RAM stick, etc, and I am just out of ideas. I am willing to try anything, so please help if you can.



Specs:

Ryzen 9 3900X

EVGA RTX 2080 Super XC Ultra Gaming

Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (2x16) (On Motherboard's QVL)

Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master Motherboard (BIOS Version F12)

Crucial P2 500GB NVME SSD

Seagate Barracuda 2TB Hard Drive

EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G5 850W PSU



Accessories:
Corsair H100i Water Cooler

Corsair LL Series 120mm fans



Thank you to anybody who is able to help!

Bruce said:

what does your motherboard manual say for error code B2?
have you got the latest BIOS firmware?
sounds like the main thing left to try is another GPU, any GPU, just to test the theory.

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Thanks for the reply!

The motherboard manual states that b2 is "Legacy Option ROM Initialization". I am not sure what this means. I am running Windows 10, certainly not a Legacy OS, and I don't have any older components in my PC either.

I don't have the absolute latest BIOS. I have F12, which is 2 BIOS versions old at this point, as there is an F13a and F13 now, I will update soon, however I don't believe that's the problem as I have updated the BIOS many times before

I would try another GPU if I had one to test. The VGA light sticks on when I don't see a B2 code. I tried to RMA the GPU when this was first happening, but EVGA said it was probably the power supply, so I switched it out for a new one. I will try to RMA again if you think that is a smart decision

Bruce said:

some Googling on this issue suggests some options; maybe the GPU is not UEFI compliant, turning on CMS in BIOS, disabling Legacy ROM mode, and others. (I'll let Google be your friend there)

are you running Windows 10?
I see you have also posted about this on the Linus Tech Tips forum.

moving forward, I'd certainly be getting the latest BIOS firmware installed - why not, nothing to lose and it may just fix it.

and getting your hands on any other GPU (friend, family, neighbour, work) would certainly quickly rule it out as the root cause.

Click to expand...

I will definitely google those things and see if I can apply them in my BIOS. I already have some things switched to UEFI Only in the BIOS.

I don't know why the GPU wouldn't be UEFI Compliant, it is an RTX 2080 Super, so I would think that those would be UEFI compliant as they are only a few years old. Some elaboration on that would be helpful!

I am running 64 Bit Windows 10 Pro, yes. And windows has the BIOS Version listed as UEFI in System Properties

I just installed the latest BIOS last night (F13) and I still had the same problem this morning.

I am going to try and test out another GPU with a friend's RX 580 and see if that makes a difference. I should note that when the PC does NOT turn on, I see that a VGA light stays on on the motherboard and does not turn on, so I'm assuming that has something to do with it, but I am unsure. As I have said, eveyrhting works fine when the PC is on, no crashes or poor performance, so it would be weird if it was just a random boot thing with the GPU.

Thanks for the help so far and I look forward to more of your thoughts and assistance while we try to diagnose this thing! Thank you!