How did my mobo bust?

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w00tguy123

n00b
Joined
Mar 30, 2011
Messages
7
I was in the middle of playing a game when suddenly the computer shuts down and refuses to turn back on. I figured it was a problem with the PSU so I changed it with one I know works and I at least get the power LED to flash, but nothing beyond that. Eventually I took the mobo out of the case and removed everything but the CPU and the speaker/indicator wires. Still nothing but a short LED flash.

I'm pretty sure the mobo is broken, but I want to know what caused this to happen.

Some important things to note:
-I was overclocking the CPU multiplier to 47 from 33 and using "auto" settings.
-The CPU was not overheating as I had a warning beep set up for that.
-The entire case was hot when it shut down. Ventilation wasn't as good as I thought.
-The PSU was especially hot, comparable to the CPU heatsink.
-No burn marks anywhere. No weird smells.
-This is my first build

Is there anything worth trying or should I get rid of the motherboard? I'm hesitant to get a replacement of the same mobo because I don't want this to happen again. What did I do wrong? Shouldn't the mobo shutdown if it's getting too hot? Was overclocking with auto settings a stupid thing to do?

My setup:
CPU: i5 2500k
MB: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H
RAM: Samsung Green DDR3L 1600 mhz 4GB x2
GPU: Nvidia GTX 460
PSU: 550 Watt
Storage: Samgung 840 and Crucial M4 SSDs
DVD RW drive
 
There are several red flag warnings I'm seeing here: 4.7GHz using auto settings (I'm assuming voltage too?), you were relying on a system beep instead of monitoring the core temps, everything was hot, unknown PSU, unknown HSF, and this is your first build. :eek:

First, what power supply and CPU HSF were you using?
 
Well, automatic voltage is dangerous. I tried that once with my i7-2600k and set the multiplier to 4.8 GHz. I use a Prolimatech Genesis cooler, which is really massive, but even that did not stop the CPU going to over 90° within a few seconds at 1.4+ V with Prime95. Basically you cannot do something like that without watercooling. There may be a few CPU samples around that can do that, but a lot of them will not survive that for an extended time.

Do you know at which voltage you CPU was when your system crashed? Which CPU cooler do you use?

EDIT: Just took a look at the mainboard type you use, it does not have heatsinks on all MOSFETs. A board like this should only be used for a mild overclock and then not with a tower cooler that does not cool the MOSFETs at all.
 
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The power supply was a Logisys 550W w/ 120mm Ball Bearing Fan. I've just found out that it is also no longer working. Could the overheated/overloaded PSU have killed the mobo? Should I be worried about the other components?

I use a Hyper 212 Evo for my cooling, and after running prime95 for about 30 mins I would occasionally heat up past 80c on 4.7 ghz. 4.8 ghz put me past 90c after a few seconds so I decided that 4.7 was the sweet spot. I went into overclocking like an idiot and didn't check voltages or anything. I can very vaguely remember seeing ~1.4 - 1.5v in BIOS, but I can't say for sure. I assumed 4.7 was a "modest" overclock for this chip, and was planning to shoot for 5ghz+ once I read up on how to properly go about an OC.

I'm returning this board and have just placed an order for an ASRock Z77 Extreme4. It's a more popular board and has more sata III ports, supports SLI, and best of all it's not the board that broke on me (even if it was my fault). Would you recommend this board over the one I just had (for OCing)?
 
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It's a crap power supply, and there's a good chance that it can take out your other components when it dies. You should NEVER EVER cheap out on a power supply.

The only way to make sure is get a GOOD power supply and make sure nothing else is broken.

Read a few guides, and make sure to do things properly this time.
 
I agree with Tsumi. Get rid of that PSU right away before it kills off the rest of your PC! You see, that Logisys ranks on a par with a Deer/Allied/L&C PSU that can't provide even half of its claimed power without causing serious and expensive harm to the major PC components. And that's because the Logisys PSUs are, indeed, manufactured by Deer.
 
Your board was not the problem. You and your PSU are the problems. Any halfway decent Z77 board from a good manufacturer (Gigabyte is better than ASRock) will be capable of overclocking a SB or IB CPU to its max on air.
 
w00tguy123 said:
The power supply was a Logisys 550W w/ 120mm Ball Bearing Fan. I've just found out that it is also no longer working. Could the overheated/overloaded PSU have killed the mobo? Should I be worried about the other components?

I use a Hyper 212 Evo for my cooling, and after running prime95 for about 30 mins I would occasionally heat up past 80c on 4.7 ghz. 4.8 ghz put me past 90c after a few seconds so I decided that 4.7 was the sweet spot. I went into overclocking like an idiot and didn't check voltages or anything. I can very vaguely remember seeing ~1.4 - 1.5v in BIOS, but I can't say for sure. I assumed 4.7 was a "modest" overclock for this chip, and was planning to shoot for 5ghz+ once I read up on how to properly go about an OC.

I'm returning this board and have just placed an order for an ASRock Z77 Extreme4. It's a more popular board and has more sata III ports, supports SLI, and best of all it's not the board that broke on me (even if it was my fault). Would you recommend this board over the one I just had (for OCing)?
Click to expand...

And I will bet that your motherboard will be rejected for returns due to abuse. Damage caused by using an extremely shitty-quality PSU will not be covered at all by any warranty or RMA procedure. In other words, you've just thrown away $154 in addition to what the replacement mobo costs you, plus the cost of a good replacement PSU.
 
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As the others have said, it was your crappy PSU that killed the mobo. You better hope that the PSU didn't damage the rest of the parts in the PC as those cheap PSUs tend to do.

Get this PSU as a replacement:
$55 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU

Unlike the PSU you chose, the above can actually provide 520W of power under real world conditions without harming your hardware.
 
What the others above said. Even if its a spare POS comp, I still dont cheap out on the PS.
Also dont use auto voltages, try and see what the lowest is thats stable.
 
I had no idea the PSU I had was "shitty-quality". It had been used in an old machine for over a year without issue. Before I posted this thread it seemed to me that the mobo crapped out for no apparent reason. Now it seems the PSU dragged the mobo down with it to the grave.

If whatever happened to this board isn't covered by warranty then that sucks for me, but I'm still not sure if the PSU broke the board in the first place. Like I said, there were no burning smells and nothing visibly wrong with the board. I figure I can at least try to return it. It's no use to me to have a dead mobo laying around, and it can probably be brought back to life by a professional.

@Danny: Thanks for the recommendation. That will be my next PSU, or at least the brand I'll buy from. I kind of want to go for a higher wattage just to be safe and maybe run cooler.

Lessons learned so far:
-Never use auto settings
-Blame the PSU before the MB
-F*** Logisys

Thanks for the input everyone. Hopefully the next learning experience will cost under $100.
 
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w00tguy123 said:
I had no idea the PSU I had was "shitty-quality". It had been used in an old machine for over a year without issue. Before I posted this thread it seemed to me that the mobo crapped out for no apparent reason. Now it seems the PSU dragged the mobo down with it to the grave.
Click to expand...

It's likely that your old system did not draw even the maximum amount that PSU could realistically provide. But overclocking your new system by even a tiny amount (say, from 3.4GHz to only 3.8GHz) would have likely pushed that crappy PSU over the edge.

w00tguy123 said:
Like I said, there were no burning smells and nothing visibly wrong with the board.
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And even if you don't smell anything unusual, a poor-quality PSU can (and does) still cause major and expensive damage to some of the most sensitive parts of your PC because the voltages run out of spec (and sometimes way out of spec). Unfortunately, there is no good way to determine this through software alone (since this method relies on the sensors on the motherboard, which can themselves be improperly calibrated, and can't be easily fixed).
 
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Also to add, buying based on brand is extremely stupid. Antec has had both good models and crap models, so you can't judge based on brand alone.
 
I cannot comment on that PSU brand (not available here I think), I only bought Seasonic (X-850 in my desktop) during that last 4 or 5 years, but an overclocked i7 and an GTX460 should normally not kill a remotely good 550W PSU. I ran a Q6600 at 3.6 GHz (I assume it alone consumed over 200W at full load) together with an overclocked GTX260 with a Seasonic 500W (or was it 550W?) supply for 2 years and that supply still works fine.

The reason Antec has good and bad PSUs is that they are not an OEM. They sell PSUs from different manufacturers, greatly varying in quality. I only had one Seasonic PSU die within this time and that was most likely due to a lightning strike, the rest of the system survived just fine. I'm not implying that Seasonic is the best manufacturer or that all their PSUs are good. Just stating my experience.
 
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Tsumi said:
Also to add, buying based on brand is extremely stupid. Antec has had both good models and crap models, so you can't judge based on brand alone.
Click to expand...

And thats why they make those computer forum things for people to ask questions.
Dont you wish everybody used them? hehe
 
Tsumi said:
Your board was not the problem. You and your PSU are the problems. Any halfway decent Z77 board from a good manufacturer (Gigabyte is better than ASRock) will be capable of overclocking a SB or IB CPU to its max on air.
Click to expand...

If Gigabyte's BIOS engineers would get off their ass and address the sluggish navigation issues and lack of organization in their 3D BIOS, I would be inclined to agree you. I had a choice to go with either the GA-Z77X-UD5H or the P8Z77-V and I chose the ASUS board instead.

I hate how nearly everyone is crapping on ASRock, even with the leaps and bounds they have made in the years. My Z77 Pro3 was admirable overclocker for a sub $100 board, and was rated one of the best sub $100 overclocking motherboards out there. The amount of reviewer bias leaves a bad taste in my mouth too. It's not an elitist brand by any means, but it's not ECS either.

I know that RMA feedback and other things keep users loyal to certain brands, but how should I put it; "Don't knock it till you try it".
 
From the little research I did, it seems like Corsair, Seasonic and Antec are the best brands to buy a PSU from currently. I guess that makes sense if you go by the you-get-what-you-pay-for rule. I ended up going for the cheapest (but not too cheap) 600 watt I could find. It's 80-plus certified, which is more than I could say for my former $20 hunk of failure. I got a nice case fan out it, though!

From what I read of the reviews on newegg, there really doesn't seem to be much of a difference in motherboard brands. ~50-60% love the board they got, ~10% get DOAs or other forms of bad luck, and the others have some nitpicks but are generally happy. For a while I thought I had to avoid ASRock like the plague, but the board I found has features better suited for me and has the same if not sllightly better reviews than my Gigabyte one (though, the ASRock is more pricey so it's likely to be a little higher quality anyway).
 
ASRock has been known to have major QC issues, especially in the older boards. Usually it's something small, like a single SATA port not working, or front audio not working, or a single USB port not working, that you usually don't find unless you're testing everything. Sure, they recommend great value, but that reputation isn't good. I'll stick with Gigabyte, Asus, and MSI, and my RMA experiences with all of them have been excellent thus far. Don't get me wrong, I would get an ASRock motherboard for the right price, but it's not a preferred brand.

The ModxStream is okay for the price, but I have seen that as low as $40 with a free DVD burner. The Antec 520C would have been a better buy.
 
w00tguy123 said:
From the little research I did, it seems like Corsair, Seasonic and Antec are the best brands to buy a PSU from currently. I guess that makes sense if you go by the you-get-what-you-pay-for rule. I ended up going for the cheapest (but not too cheap) 600 watt I could find. It's 80-plus certified, which is more than I could say for my former $20 hunk of failure. I got a nice case fan out it, though!

From what I read of the reviews on newegg, there really doesn't seem to be much of a difference in motherboard brands. ~50-60% love the board they got, ~10% get DOAs or other forms of bad luck, and the others have some nitpicks but are generally happy. For a while I thought I had to avoid ASRock like the plague, but the board I found has features better suited for me and has the same if not sllightly better reviews than my Gigabyte one (though, the ASRock is more pricey so it's likely to be a little higher quality anyway).
Click to expand...

Don't worry, i'm with ya. I'm liking ASRock more than Gigabyte, at this point in time.
 
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