Dangit, my R2Gene and i7 Fried... need help with upgrading to x99

undertheradar

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 26, 2004
Messages
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Yeah, its been a while... what can I say. The ole i7 920 was enough to run triple screens, so I didn't upgrade, but last Friday night, I turned it on, and it shut off a few minutes later. Tried to turn it on again, and it just shut off right away. Then it just got worse and worse until nothing at all. The onlly thing that has changed recently is that I removed my dual GTX 580's and replaced them with a single GTX 980 Ti so that I could go from my old triple Asus 24" monitors to a single Acer Predator x34 (3440x1440). Yeah, the old cards don't have DP, so I had to get a new card to support the 3440x1440 monitor. Love the Acer x34 by the way... freakin' sweet display (for the last week that I have been able to use it).

I need help on 3 things:

1. maybe help trying to diagnose WTF went wrong... I've never seen a computer do this sort of thing before.

2. pick out some new stuff.

3. how do I go back and get my stuff off those old HDD's and SSD's that aren't going to recognize the new computer's motherboard and CPU as the right ones?

1) Rampage 2 Gene, i7 920: The power supply is providing standby power because I see LED's on the mainboard lit up. I tried starting the PSU by jumping the green wire to a ground and it fires up. I also swapped out the Enermax 1050 watter for a Seasonic 850 watter that I have in another box. The PSU seems fine. So I disconnected the sound card, video card, SSD and took all but one ram stick out. Still no power up. So I jumped the green wire to a black one WHILE the ATX connector was on the board. This caused the mainboard to fire for a second... things went blinky blinky, and then the PSU shut off again. Then, every few seconds, the mainboard tries to fire up again and again, as if it knows its trying to start, but it must detect a short or something???

Now, this system is watercooled (the new 980 Ti is the EVGA with the hydro block on it), with a block on the NB and CPU (the mosfets have a heatpipe attached to the NB so they get cooled too with one block)... so I did look the board over for signs of water getting into something. Nothing though. Not a drop. No signs of something dripping, arcing, burning, corroding, etc.

I wish there was some way to diagnose what happened, since this happened 1 week since I put the new 980Ti in the box. I am concerned that I will get a new board and CPU and just fry it if something is wrong with the GPU. I guess I will have to put the GPU in another box and see if it fries that also... lol.

2) What bites the most is that I really think RIGHT NOW is a horrible time to upgrade. Hell, I really didn't want to throw down cash on a 980 Ti right now with Pascal coming out later in the year. I also wanted to see what happens with Skylake and the LGA2011v3 socket, but oh, well... life can suck it sometimes.

So I need suggestions, but this is what I was thinking:
Mainboard: Asus Rampage V Extreme/U3.1: Best of the best? I was also looking at the x99 Sabertooth and the EVGA x99 Classified. I don't see a need for the Rampage, as its an overpriced almost 2 year old board, BUT... it seems I can find waterblocks for it the easiest. Its only $100 more than the others and has the best PCI-E layout for my likely eventual expansion into SLI again in the future (yes, I am considering triple Acer Predator x34's). I would like the Classified, but I hear the manuals are "short" and although customer support may be great, what happens after 5 years and I need to look something up? I was able to pull my R2Gene manual out and see what all the blinking LED's mean and what I could do to try and get this thing running again... no longer finding any support on the Asus website. I doubt whoever is at EVGA right now will still be there and remember what I need about an x99 Classified in 5 years. Anyways, thats what I thought. I also believe that although the Rampage 5 Extreme is getting old, its still top dog for an x99 and with maturity also comes stability in firmware (I hope!). But please, if someone thinks I am being an idiot here, let me know! If there is another x99 mainboard that I should be looking at with great waterblock support, I'm all ears.

CPU: i7 5930K Haswell-E: I would go lower, but I don't want to choke up the SLi lanes. I have had Sli 3 times in the past (dual 9800's, dual GTX 280's, dual GTX 580's), and will likely use it again. Is this the best bang for the buck CPU wise? I was considering going with the Asus Maximus VII formula since it has the waterblocks built in and then get i7-6700K (its a newer board and chip with slick new features)... but going down to an LGA1151 just seems like I might be shooting myself in the foot when I end up doing SLi again.

RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum Series 16GB DDR4 DRAM 3000MHz C15 Memory Kit for Systems 3000 MT/s CMD16GX4M2B3000C15 RAM is RAM. I buy it to match up with the mobo and cpu. I like Corsair. I'm open to suggestions or being told that I have made a mistake... rather hear it now than after I buy it all.

WATER BLOCKS: I run dual D5's in series (for pressure) with a MORA2 (9x140mm) radiator. I don't like "monoblocks" because then every time I just want to remove say, the CPU block I end up having to redo everything else on the board. That's a PITA IMO.

I currently have a Watercool Heatkiller rev3.0. I think I will have to buy some bolts or new brackets to mount it to an LGA2011 board. BUT, will it work for the hexacore LGA2011v3 that I'm using? Should I be looking at the Heatkiller IV instead? Or, is there some other water block rather than Watercool that I should be going with?

What about mainboard blocks? I could go with the Watercool brand, but once again, I haven't been keeping up with the reviews since I wasn't anticipating buying right now, so I could use some advice... perhaps I will repost this in the watercooling forums. What blocks should I get for the mainboard?

3) Once the new computer is up and running with a new HDD, I want to plug in my other HDD's and SSD's that were on the R2Gene to get my files off of them rather than just wiping them. I did this a long time ago with Windows 7 but I can't remember how to do it, or if its different for Windows 10.

Thanks to everyone ahead of time!
 
Can you pull the 980Ti and put it on a piece of cardboard keeping the hydro block on it, but then drop in one of your old GTX 580's to test with?

In other words, try to put it back to the old config as much as possible to test.

The system may still fail if the PSU took a dump, which I think could be likely. Just because it powers
up and has 5vSB, doesn't mean it's good. I have a 750W PSU sitting in a box that will power up a
system just fine until the system puts a heavy load on it and then 5V regulation fails.

So try one of the older video cards maybe with a different PSU and see what happens.

It's very unusual to fry a CPU unless you do something crazy to it.

Edit: Re-read your OP and saw that you tried another PSU...... try the old video card then.
Prolly either the 980Ti or the mobo went south on you.
 
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1. Sounds like it's failing to POST, most likely a motherboard failure. It could be the CPU, but that's far less likely.

2. Heh heh, this is the fun part. I'd consider some of MSI's higher-end boards (doesn't need to be the godlike one, but maybe a Gaming 9 or something) as the best out right now. The Asus is good, but aging, and the EVGA still has a terrible BIOS last I heard. The 5820k is fine for 2-way SLI, you don't really need the 5930k is really only needed for 3 or 4-way SLI. The Corsair Dominator RAM is way overpriced, I'd look at either G.Skill TridentZ or Kingston Predator DDR4 RAM if you want top-spec RAM. Waterblocks haven't really changed much in the last few years, if you want to upgrade to something like one of the newer EK or Swiftech blocks, it might give a few degrees better performance, but it's not a critical upgrade.

3. I've always been able to just plug all the drives back in and boot up with no trouble, Windows 10 as well. If you can't get to the files within Windows, you could always boot to a live Linux session (from a flash drive) and copy the data on the drives from there.
 
cmos reset jumper, also pull the battery, let it sit for a few hours, try again. See if it boots. Start ruling out ram by pulling all but one stick, and testing a few different ones. Do you see any signs of bulging caps or anything like that on the motherboard? did anything get nicked when you were changing out the video cards?
 
Can you pull the 980Ti and put it on a piece of cardboard keeping the hydro block on it, but then drop in one of your old GTX 580's to test with?

In other words, try to put it back to the old config as much as possible to test.

The system may still fail if the PSU took a dump, which I think could be likely. Just because it powers
up and has 5vSB, doesn't mean it's good. I have a 750W PSU sitting in a box that will power up a
system just fine until the system puts a heavy load on it and then 5V regulation fails.

So try one of the older video cards maybe with a different PSU and see what happens.

It's very unusual to fry a CPU unless you do something crazy to it.

Edit: Re-read your OP and saw that you tried another PSU...... try the old video card then.
Prolly either the 980Ti or the mobo went south on you.

Well, I did unplug the 980Ti to see if I could boot w/o it... no dice. (I assume the mobo should still boot even without a GPU... just no video output, right?) So I would guess that it means the mobo took a dive, or, the 980 Ti did something to it (is that possible?)

I'll try hooking up the old 580's again... its really not a problem to do since I used all compression fittings and I have plenty of tygon laying around. I just figured that since I tried to run w/ the video card disconnected (no PCI-E, no 8/6-pin power either) it would mean that its not the GPU. Am I wrong on this?
 
1. Sounds like it's failing to POST, most likely a motherboard failure. It could be the CPU, but that's far less likely.

2. Heh heh, this is the fun part. I'd consider some of MSI's higher-end boards (doesn't need to be the godlike one, but maybe a Gaming 9 or something) as the best out right now. The Asus is good, but aging, and the EVGA still has a terrible BIOS last I heard. The 5820k is fine for 2-way SLI, you don't really need the 5930k is really only needed for 3 or 4-way SLI. The Corsair Dominator RAM is way overpriced, I'd look at either G.Skill TridentZ or Kingston Predator DDR4 RAM if you want top-spec RAM. Waterblocks haven't really changed much in the last few years, if you want to upgrade to something like one of the newer EK or Swiftech blocks, it might give a few degrees better performance, but it's not a critical upgrade.

3. I've always been able to just plug all the drives back in and boot up with no trouble, Windows 10 as well. If you can't get to the files within Windows, you could always boot to a live Linux session (from a flash drive) and copy the data on the drives from there.

I was really itching to try EVGA, but yeah... sounds like they still have BIOS issues. And even though Asus might not be the best with service at times, I have had good luck with them AND a complete manual does come in handy. Also, I figure that with that external docking station, if I ever run into another problem like this, the diagnostics might at least tell me something. Thanks for the input.
 
cmos reset jumper, also pull the battery, let it sit for a few hours, try again. See if it boots. Start ruling out ram by pulling all but one stick, and testing a few different ones. Do you see any signs of bulging caps or anything like that on the motherboard? did anything get nicked when you were changing out the video cards?

I left that out, but I did hit the reset button on the board. This is what allowed me to actually get any power at all, since prior to that, when I would press the power switch the board wouldn't do anything at all. After I hit the clear/reset CMOS buttons, then at least when I try to start the computer, the motherboard tries to cycle the PSU, things flicker, and then things shut down (pulsing like this every 5-10 seconds).

I'll try pulling the battery.

I did pull all the RAM out but one stick... then tried one of the other 3 sticks (in the slot closest to the CPU as instructed for X58 chipsets).

I'll look for bulging caps. I was looking more for signs of arcing, spatter, corrosion... but not the caps so much.

I didn't knick or have to force anything really. The only thing I noticed is that the 980Ti's DP plugs seemed a bit high in the case's PCI slots, so the DP cable is touching the edge of the case as it is plugged in... like sliding on it when I plug it in. I didn't have to move anything though... I figure that the card bracket is grounded to the case also, so what's the difference as long as it fits?! It just wasn't the easiest plug to get in. No parts were dropped or got wet... nothing weird there. There was a cap that I was very wary of touching as I was pulling cards out and in as it is right next to one of the PCI-E release levers... I felt it, but I didn't really put much force on it.

I did just realize that I might want to remove the motherboard and redo the mounting screws in case the motherboard did shift and one of the screws is causing either improper grounding or a short with another contact. I'll try that tonight to see if that changes anything.

Thanks guys. Great ideas.
 
Well, I did unplug the 980Ti to see if I could boot w/o it... no dice. (I assume the mobo should still boot even without a GPU... just no video output, right?) So I would guess that it means the mobo took a dive, or, the 980 Ti did something to it (is that possible?)

I'll try hooking up the old 580's again... its really not a problem to do since I used all compression fittings and I have plenty of tygon laying around. I just figured that since I tried to run w/ the video card disconnected (no PCI-E, no 8/6-pin power either) it would mean that its not the GPU. Am I wrong on this?

Unless you have integrated video, no the system will not POST without a video card.
 
Sorry for the delays, I have had other "single guy" problems these past few days and not been able to get back to diagnostics... you know, friends want to go drinking, had to go see Dave Chapelle, girlfriend got a $200k/yr. job in San Fran and wants me to move with her... lol.

Anyways, I tried to undo the motherboard mount screws in case one shifted and was shorting or improperly grounding the board on something. No dice.

I put the GTX580's in and tried to fire it up, but I can't even get it to TRY to fire up the motherboard... its just a brick.

Pulled the battery. No change.

Checked the caps, even wiggled them. All looks in order.

Pulled the board and tried to look for damage, arcing, etc. Nothing wrong here. The board looks like new plus a little dust.

It looks like it just bit it.

Well, the R5E arrives today... so I can start putting on waterblocks and having new-build fun.
 
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Hmmm, check out my thread, here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1889492

I, too, lost an i7 in a similar manner. (Different generation.)

I tried new psu. No dice.
I tried new mobo. No dice.
New cpu shows up in a few hours.

I think you and I should start a class action lawsuit. Obviously, intel has some sort of "burn circuit" inside their cpus. You in? ;)

Ken (yes, I de-lidded with the hammer and block method, but intel never said I shouldn't take a mallet to my chip)
 
Well, I changed my sig to show what the new computer is running. The R5E board wouldn't fire up the first few tries... but maybe the display-port in the 980 ti was just making up its mind first about the monitor. After a few failed boots, I got a POST screen, got into the "BIOS", and away I went; Never a boot up or sleep recovery problem since. It looks like my old sound card wasn't Win10 supported anymore and it was giving me too many driver problems (creative titanium fatality or whatever), so I took it out. The R5E sound is good, but it doesn't allow me to "upmix" music/video that isn't 5.1 into surround, and it doesn't have an EQ... so I ordered a Sound Blaster Z on sale to slap in there. I used the Samsung 850 Pro to get going, but since I now have a M.2 slot... picked up a 950 pro and !!@#$!? is that thing fast. My desktop boots up like a tablet almost!

Yeah, I didn't want to go spending all this money nor did I want to upgrade right now (was planning on fall this year) but its done and I did it right.

I gave the cpu to a friend who still runs an x58 mobo. He slapped it in and it fired right up, so it was the Rampage 2 Gene board that fried.


I HAVE A THEORY:
Looking back, I am betting that the lack of complete watercooling on the R2Gene may have taken its toll over time. I had the northbridge cooler blocked but I never did get around to blocking the ICH10R southbridge since it would require some funky plumbing with my dual GTX580's. I remember that without a fan blowing on it, it would get pretty hot in summer. I never plumbed it/blocked it because it would require some pretty funky plumbing due to the SLi'ed 580's. Anyways, I bet time and heat took their toll and the southbridge ended up frying. I just find it odd that it happened a week after adding a 980 Ti and during the cooler temps of a Wisconsin winter.

Thanks for all the help guys.
 
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