Problem: My relatively new PC build would not “post” or “Boot” up. There are four lights on the motherboard that indicate the boot steps. It would stop at the white light or “VGA” which is supposed to indicate an issue with the graphics card.
Motherboard debug lights (CPU, DRAM, VGA, BOOT) indicate potential hardware issues during startup (POST). A solid light means a component is not detected or failed, while a flashing/cycling pattern often indicates testing. Common indicators are: Red (CPU), Yellow/Orange (DRAM/RAM), White (VGA/GPU), and Green (BOOT/Storage).
Solution: I tried the following.
1. Removed graphics card, cleaned contacts and reseated.
2. Removed graphics card, plugged monitor into motherboard display port
3. Removed CMOS battery and restarted computer
4. Checked all connections and reseated all power connections
5. Removed RAM sticks and put only one in the farthest slot from the CPU
What finally worked was a combination of trying a different RAM sticks in the first slot (farthest slot from CPU) and removing the battery. Starting it up and BIOS software came up and it booted to Windows.
I put everything back in (all the RAM) and it works!
Other things to try if you have a similar issue:
1. Try having the monitor off before starting PC
2. Try have monitor on when starting the PC
3. Swap in a different graphics card if you have one
4. Rotate a single RAM strip for others if you have multiple strips. One might be bad.