Question about Z390

Hi, I registered to ask a question about a z390 motherboard. Thanks for your help.

Edited by Xaltar - 02 Aug 2025 at 4:34pm

Hi Thanks.
I have an older z390 phantom gaming itx/ac I built years ago.
Specs

I7 9700 3.6
970 evo 1 tb installed in M1
P.430 bios
Corsar 16 gb x 2
windows 11 pro 64 bit
850 watt ps

No other components installed

The issue, in 2021 I bought this card

MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 15 Gbps GDRR6 192-Bit HDMI/DP PCIe 4 Torx Twin Fan Ampere OC Graphics Card

When the card was install (with power to card) the motherboard lights were on but it would not power up at all no fans ext...if the card was removed it would boot normally. I ended up returning the card because i thought it was doa. After that I never tried a gpu again.

Fast forward I gave the computer to my daughter for her gaming fun (faster than her laptop) she really wanted a graphics card so I thought I would try again. I have a EGVA geforce GTX 1060 6 gb that is known working. I installed it and have the same issue as before.

I tried...
resetting the bios
Verifying that pci first for gpu is selected iun bios
Adjusted version speed settings from auto thru 3
card installed properly and latched
Correct power cable to card
Looked at windows device manager, all drivers installed and show working pci
Tested a fire wire pci card I have, system boots fine with it installed

She bought this card with her money (she is 15) so im really hoping I can get this working some how, I have searched for hours and found many with similar issues but no fix

Thanks so much for your time

What PSU are you using? Generally speaking if a system fails to turn on at all
when a power hungry component is added the PSU is high on the list of possible
causes. It wouldn't happen to be a BeQuiet 850w PSU would it? The reason I ask
is because I have seen a large number of people having issues with BeQuiet PSUs.
Many of their units are dual rail, in essence you can think of it as 2 smaller
PSUs in one and they then combine the ratings of said units for the total.

In other words, a 500w dual rail PSU typically consists of 2 x 250w 12v rails.
If your GPU requires say 300w of power then the PSU simply won't turn on because
it triggers an over current protection. This is an oversimplification but illustrates
the issue.

With an 850w unit it shouldn't matter if it's dual rail as each should be in excess
of 400w. However, if you are powering everything of a single rail it could be
too much for it.

If you don't have a BeQuiet PSU you can still check to see if your PSU is listed
as having 2 x 12v rails, it will be in it's specs, either on the sticker on the
unit itself or on it's product page.

It will say something like

5v - **A
3v - **A
12v1 - 36A
12v2 - 40A

If your PSU is a single rail unit (typical for most consumer and gaming PSUs)
then it may be faulty.

If you have another PSU you can test with, give it a shot, post back here if it
doesn't work and I will try walk you through some more complex troubleshooting.