Solved Brand new build, gets stuck with no video during Windows install?

NormAtHome said:

But the specs that I mention at the very beginning of my post are the specs of the computer I'm asking about, not the specs of my day to day main computer which the forum adds automatically.

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I've deleted a couple of my posts, which have led to things going a little off the rails. Responses to them will remain, unfortunately.

Have you tried the F5 hotkey in the BIOS settings to load optimized defaults? (I verified in the manual that hotkey exists for the board.)

Best of luck.

@NormAtHome

Have you tried running the ram at 4800 MT/s? And is the ram on the list of tested ram modules for your motherboard?

Ok so here's the deal: I got it to install and get to Windows but in order to get there every time during the install of Windows when it reboots and gets stuck in the condition I described i.e. a black screen with the hard drive light blinking I have to forcibly power the computer off with the PSU power switch (holding the front panel power switch will not turn it off) and wait 5 minutes, if I turn it on too soon it boots to the same condition; I turn the PSU power on and press the power button where I get a screen mentioning something about starting in safe mode and hit F1 to enter the Bios, when in the bios I hit F8 and select the Samsung Pro 990 as the boot device; I had to do this several times and eventually it opened into Windows.

Big but here, as a test in Windows I clicked that start button and asked it to "Reboot" and guess what I get stuck in that same condition. To me it seems like there's a bios bug with the reboot command and something goes wrong and it gets stuck in this condition. I can only get into Windows from a cold boot but because I forcibly shutdown I get that "safe mode" message and have to go into the bios and hit F8 and select the Samsung to get into Windows after a restart attempt.

I started up into Windows and tested the Shutdown option and the computer did shutdown and when I pressed the power button it did NOT properly start up but again got stuck in the black screen condition I've mentioned. The only why I can get into Windows is to force the computer off with the PSU power button then wait and power on, get into the bios and use the F8 to select the Samsung Pro 990 as the boot device.

I've got to say this is the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

bobkn said:

Have you tried the F5 hotkey in the BIOS settings to load optimized defaults? (I verified in the manual that hotkey exists for the board.)

Best of luck.

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Yes, thanks that's one of many troubleshooting steps I took before posting.

I suspect it is a ram issue.

Marcus Vinicus said:

@NormAtHome

Have you tried running the ram at 4800 MT/s? And is the ram on the list of tested ram modules for your motherboard?

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No, I haven't but see my latest post as I believe I've sort of identified the problem.

The list of tested ram for G.SKill only mentions 6000MT/s ram it does not mention a single 6400MT/s kit but the tech specs for this board say: 4 x DIMM slots, Max. 192GB, DDR5 7200 (OC)/7000(OC)/6800(OC)/6600(OC)/6400(OC)/ 6200(OC)/ 6000(OC)/ 5800(OC)/ 5600/ 5400/ 5200/ 5000/ 4800 Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory* so 6400MT/s is supported even if this specific kit is not tested. As I mentioned in my other posts, I built 10 other computers in 2025 with these specs just the previous version of this motherboard and the same ram kit and never encountered this problem.

Marcus Vinicus said:

I suspect it is a ram issue.

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It looks like that's the problem, when I disabled XMP and let the computer set the ram speed it booted up just fine and did not get stuck.

I don't understand this at all, I built 10 computers in 2025 with the previous version of this motherboard the Asus Z790 Gaming Wifi and the exact same ram kit and enabled XMP and the computers worked just fine; no boot problem even with the latest bios update.

NormAtHome said:

It looks like that's the problem, when I disabled XMP and let the computer set the ram speed it booted up just fine and did not get stuck.

I don't understand this at all, I built 10 computers in 2025 with the previous version of this motherboard the Asus Z790 Gaming Wifi and the exact same ram kit and enabled XMP and the computers worked just fine; no boot problem even with the latest bios update.

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I'm confused.

Based on (limited) past experience, I expect XMP to be disabled out-of-the-box. Or by using optimized defaults (F5). Did you enable it again before trying the Windows install?

I admit that I might have tried XMP from the start, given your experiences.

What speed does Task Manager/Performance/Memory report for the RAM with XMP disabled? (Just curious. The RAM in my primary system is at 6400MT/s.)

bobkn said:

I'm confused.

Based on (limited) past experience, I expect XMP to be disabled out-of-the-box. Or by using optimized defaults (F5). Did you enable it again before trying the Windows install?

What speed does Task Manager/Performance/Memory report for the RAM with XMP disabled? (Just curious. The RAM in my primary system is at 6400MT/s.)

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I did enable it because not a single one of the previous 10 computers had a problem with that setting and this ram kit; if I could have gotten my hands on the previous version of this motherboard I'd be happily motoring along with it instead of dealing with this ridiculous problem. I felt 100% certain from past experience that this was not problematic and apparently wrongly; I've got four desktop computers in my office, one server plus my main use computer plus two special use computers that are running ram not on the compatibility list with XMP on and not a single problem.

Taskmgr with XMP disabled reports 4000MT/s, with XMP enabled it showed DDR5-6400 32-39-39-102-1.40V-1.40V

NormAtHome said:

I did enable it because not a single one of the previous 10 computers had a problem with that setting and this ram kit; if I could have gotten my hands on the previous version of this motherboard I'd be happily motoring along with it instead of dealing with this ridiculous problem. I felt 100% certain from past experience that this was not problematic and apparently wrongly; I've got four desktop computers in my office, one server plus my main use computer plus two special use computers that are running ram not on the compatibility list with XMP on and not a single problem.

Taskmgr with XMP disabled reports 4000MT/s, with XMP enabled it showed DDR5-6400 32-39-39-102-1.40V-1.40V

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It's odd that the Max version seems less tolerant of fast RAM than the older version. It's supposed to be the other way 'round. (6400 isn't an extreme case.)

A single beep indicates a RAM issue, except when it doesn't. (Varies by BIOS maker, I believe.)

NormAtHome said:

Taskmgr with XMP disabled reports 4000MT/s, with XMP enabled it showed DDR5-6400 32-39-39-102-1.40V-1.40V

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I had a similar problem...
I used CPU-Z to set the RAM frequency, timings and voltage to manufacturer specs, with the AMD equivalent of XMP turned OFF.
It's worked fine ever since.

Here is the topic...

See if any of these links are useful:


(beep codes, asus irst/vmd, safe mode, RAM testing, drive testing, adv startup, blank screen troubleshooting)



















And see if a clean install of another operating system: Windows 10 or Ubuntu/Linux makes a difference.

Thanks for the information, it took a while but with the help of some of the other people we identified the problem as some odd issue with this 6400MT/s G.Skill ram kit where when XMP was enabled the computer would not reboot properly and it would get stuck in the state I mentioned.