Potential P5B problems - ideas?

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svak

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Jun 25, 2007
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I recently upgraded to a Core 2 Duo system, including:
- ASUS P5B (not deluxe, just the regular kind)
- Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe
- EVGA GeForce 8800GTS
- Corsair XMS2 2x1GB DDR2 800
- Samsung SATA DVD burner

This worked great for a while (the 8800 is awesome), but then my components started acting up one by one. First, my USB ports were behaving oddly, but I chalked it up to my non-iPod MP3 player acting flaky again. A few days later, my network connection stopped working - no matter what I did, it said the network cable was unplugged. A day after that, my optical drive disappeared without a trace, not even showing up in BIOS.

Figuring I had a defective mobo, I sent it back for RMA as it was still under warranty. I received a brand new P5B last week. As before, everything was peachy for a while, but within a few days, my optical drive was once again AWOL and the network cable was perpetually unplugged, which apparently happened at the same time. Nothing wrong with my USB ports yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they went packing too.

I have a hard time thinking that I got two motherboards in a row that were defective in almost exactly the same way. I called ASUS tech support (who happened to be very friendly and helpful, surprisingly) and they suggested that the mobo was discharging against the case, so I removed the mobo from the case, unplugged all nonessential components, and ran it independently, and nothing was solved. I seriously doubt it's a power supply issue (I have an Antec 450w).

What could the problem possibly be? I'm supposed to be going into computer science, and my family is becoming increasingly wary of my future if I can't even handle my personal computer.
 
Personally i'd suggest the PSU could be the problem, 450W is very low by todays standards. I'd check the system out with a different PSU if you can. Just my thoughts.
 
Could very well be the psu. Antec has been having a lot of problems lately.
 
I had mine for almost three years, worked pefectly, they she went.
Bulging leaking caps, etc.
 
svak said:
I'm supposed to be going into computer science, and my family is becoming increasingly wary of my future if I can't even handle my personal computer.
Click to expand...

Isn't that WHY you go to school for it? To learn it....
 
Computer science is more programming than anything else. Hardware troubles are for the random geek people :cool: . If you really want to prepare for computer science, I'd monkey around with Linux.
 
What I'm studying is actually closer to technical writing, but technology-focused nevertheless.

Anyway, after I pulled it apart and put it together again, it seems to be working. I left out all nonessentials (wireless card, etc.) so maybe it is a power supply concern after all. If nothing disappears after a few more weeks, I'll consider it fixed. If it comes up again, I'll be back here again, I suppose. I'll probably invest in a different PSU next time I feel like dropping money into my computer again, even if that's not the root of this problem.
 
I ran my bench PC for two weeks on a 350W PSU with Asus P5B Deluxe, E6620, 7950GX2, two HDs and one CD drive. It ran as well as my 680W PSU.
 
So today I noticed that I had misplaced my RAM to run single channel instead of dual channel. So I moved one to get that to work, but after that the same problem came back -- network cable unplugged, optical drive not showing up in BIOS.

Seriously, what gives?

I'm running a fairly fresh install of Windows - I think I reformatted when I got my new parts the first time.
 
I just ran complete system scans in Symantec, SpyBot, and AdAware, and none of them showed a single problem. I was pleasantly surprised that there wasn't anything at all, but obviously that doesn't help solve the problem.
 
It's not an overheating problem is it? CPU and/or motherboard?

Are all your BIOS settings standard/auto? Nothing misbehaving in the BIOS? (eg your SATA settings)

If you have an ide DVD drive it might be interesting to try that instead of your SATA drive to see if that is picked up ok.

Sorry - just shots in the dark.

David
 
It's probably the motherboard. I've had several faulty P5B's now, and even the P5B-E Plus boards one kind e-tailer exchanged two of them for went foul. My last board actually lasted a whole 3 months before it died last week. So I'm back on my DFI S939 system atm, and really getting fed up wasting postage fees returning these pieces of crap. The people I built the systems for don't seem to understand it's not my fault and are getting very aggravated, but I can't really blame them. With all these RMA's, I've barely turned a profit now. I will never buy another Asus board again, although I do wonder if it's a problem with the P965 chipset itself. With that in mind, my next purchase is going to be a 975 board from another manufacturer, probably DFI.
 
davidc said:
If you have an ide DVD drive it might be interesting to try that instead of your SATA drive to see if that is picked up ok.
Click to expand...

I've only had trouble with IDE optical drives on these boards, particular with regard to being unable to burn CD's/DVD's. The SATA drives I've used (mind you, always the same Lite-On model) have been fine. Though that doesn't rule out the possibility, the fact that the onboard NIC doesn't seem to work does point more towards it being a problem with the mainboard.
 
Should I try and convince Asus to give me a refund? I've been toying with the idea since I RMAed the first time. The board cost me $120, I'm sure that would roll over nicely into another brand.
 
Yeah, I'm on the phone with Asus right now, they don't give refunds since they don't sell directly. I doubt that Newegg will give me a refund either, so I guess I'm out of luck there.

The guy I talked to said that it's almost definitely a hardware problem since my network port isn't lighting up. He said I should RMA it again, but through them instead of through Newegg like last time.

I can't reinstall Windows without optical drives, sorry.
 
I called Newegg just for kicks, and actually convinced them to refund my money even though I made the purchase in February (well over the 30 day refund policy, to be sure).

So now, screw Asus (even though they had very friendly tech support). What should I buy to replace it? Note the applicable components in my original components. Must also support at least 2 IDE components for my HDDs.
 
It's probably too late to post this if you're buying something else but i've had a similar problem with my 400gb hdd that I use for Vista. However, I think my board revision may be different. I can't remember exactly what caused the problem but what happened was that the hdd wouldn't show up after something went wrong (like I said I can't remember exactly what I did) but as soon as I moved it to a new sata port it'd show up and everything would be fine. That's really the only problem i've had with it. It sounds like the P5B's can be twitchy but if you get one to run the right way then they're great boards...
 
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