A moment of silence, please...

J

jfreund

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 3, 2006
Messages
1,635
...for my EVGA X58 SLI motherboard. She wasn't feeling well last week, and locked up. I restarted and she came back, but then locked up a couple days later. This time a restart only resulted in the POST code display reading "FF", the fans spinning, but no startup. A different power supply didn't help. She'd had ground-out problems before, to the point that I had squares of electrical tape between the board and the case stand-offs. I pulled her out of the case and set her on a piece of closed-cell foam, but there were no signs of life.

She is survived by the W3690 she was running, an X5690, an i7 930, my original i7 920, an Asus Rampage III Gene, Asus P6X58D-E, EVGA X58 Classified, and more sticks of DDR3 than I can count.
 
did you try a new cmos battery and a good cmos clearing? did i already ask you that in another thread?
 
jfreund said:
I tried unplugging power and removing battery overnight. Didn't try a new battery.
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did it post at all, like the FF code is still being displayed? i know its not the same but i had a z97 acting really weird with intermittent post problems and a new battery solved it. its worth $1 to try and has helped several others too.
 
Probably dead sadly. That FF code is usually it. You still have lots of good X58 boards though!
 
janas19 said:
Bake it. Might reflow a solder joint with micro cracks. Probably not, but since it's dead no harm in trying :LOL:
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Op, if you try this you must remove everything that can be, plastic and heatsinks etc, to allow hot air to get at soldered junctions, and to prevent plastic melting.
A fan assisted oven is a must.
Best to look up other peoples experience to determine the temperature and how long it takes to get a definitive result, the less time it is in the oven the better.

Dont knock or drop it when solder is melted, that could be an almighty screw up.
Have a surface ready to put it on close to the oven to let it cool slowly. ie a box.
 
Wouldn't it always display FF even when it was working? I thought that was generally the last post code signifying the handoff to the OS.
 
Furious_Styles said:
I think that's usually A0 or AE.
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IIRC, EVGA's last code was FF (Fully Functional). But if it just goes right to FF without any other post codes, it's a bad board (at least according to EVGA forums) or a corrupted bios. If it's a corrupted bios, you might be able to swap a different one in if it is still a socket bios chip (no idea on those EVGA boards).
 
kirbyrj said:
IIRC, EVGA's last code was FF (Fully Functional). But if it just goes right to FF without any other post codes, it's a bad board (at least according to EVGA forums) or a corrupted bios. If it's a corrupted bios, you might be able to swap a different one in if it is still a socket bios chip (no idea on those EVGA boards).
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Ah yes I forgot evga is different than the other manufacturers. I've tried to revive an evga mobo like OP's but the bios flash did not work sadly.
 
I might try baking it this weekend. BIOS chip is soldered on. I remember hot flashing BIOS chips for my nForce 2 boards - always made me nervous.
 
Are you sure you redid everything with new CR2032 on ? You should put everything on and probably fix the motherboard in the case : the case makes the grounding. Should have some good RAM, CPU+cooler, graphics card and something to boot on, like a DVDR+ Window 7 install would be nice. Push well the graphics card and look there is no dust in the PCIE x16, eventually put your vaccum cleaner at work but without to forget to finally blow on it (reverse your vaccum). Don't forget to pplug all PCIe power cable and those on the motherboard. Also try reseating your CPU, look there is no curved pin that would have made contact until now.
I had 2 times problems with A C2Q with Vista (an Raid1 setting) that still works. Twice it was the PCIe x16 port the problem. The system wasn't even booting. Once the graphics card had problems and I replaced it It was a HD 4850. The other time I couldn't make it boot either and after reseating several times, I put the vaccum cleaner on the PCIe, cleaned the PCIE side of the graphics card with isopropanol, and everything was fine and still is (I'm posting). I kind of reinstalled once to upgrade the BIOS to a hacked one that was made compatible with IRST instead of Intel Matrix and detached to Raid1 and remade it on iRST after upgrading the BIOS with the hacked one. :D

I'm so sad I may have to replace that unit because Firefox 52 on Vista starts to be advertised as incompatible on some official web services. Fact is it is huge, full ATX, big PC box and I went on mini-ITX or micro-ATX everywhere. :(
 
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Hey OP had a better idea, you said there's possible shorting with the standoffs and whatnot. A more permanent solution is use nail polish to cover the PCB that contacts the standoffs, it functions as a low grade conformal coating. If it were me I'd go so far as to clean the entire motherboard and remove all dust and dirt traces.

Did you check the spring tension on the CMOS battery? The spring will get loose over the years and may not keep enough tension for good contact. You can push and tape it down with electric tape to make a good solid contact.

Just some ideas to think about ;)
 
Just FYI

CMOS battery is not needed to post a machine. replacing a battery to fix post issue are a waste of time and effort.
You computer will run fine without a battery at all and save cmos settings when turned off as long as your PC is not in G2 power state

People keep giving out this advise and claims some claim that it works but I have yet to see a single case on any of the tech forums I visits where it helped.

Clearing cmos yes.
Battery replacement No.

If you really believe the battery is negatively affecting you PC post ability, simply pull it out. it is NOT needed for POST unless you have a very weird motherboard
I have had several computer running with no cmos battery at all ( not recommended in case of power outage)
 
SvenBent said:
Just FYI

CMOS battery is not needed to post a machine. replacing a battery to fix post issue are a waste of time and effort.
You computer will run fine without a battery at all and save cmos settings when turned off as long as your PC is not in G2 power state

People keep giving out this advise and claims some claim that it works but I have yet to see a single case on any of the tech forums I visits where it helped.

Clearing cmos yes.
Battery replacement No.

If you really believe the battery is negatively affecting you PC post ability, simply pull it out. it is NOT needed for POST unless you have a very weird motherboard
I have had several computer running with no cmos battery at all ( not recommended in case of power outage)
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read closer. people recommend a new battery and clearing the cmos together. bioses act weird or dont hold settings correctly when a battery is dying.
 
Such a great motherboard, when it came out it was an amazing choice, it rocked for 10 years, which says a lot about it's build quality.
 
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