Southbridge overheating

J

jubalskeiki

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 27, 2005
Messages
454
My grandmother has an older socket a computer. It has an AthlonXP 2700+ barton processor with an a-bit KD7-e motherboard. Recently it started having problems. The first thing that happened is it would crash due to an ATAPI error. Then it started not turning on at all and something smelled really hot. (She lives in Hawaii so all troubleshooting I am doing is over the phone) My brother identified that the heat source seemed to be the southbridge (which would make sense with an ATAPI error if I am correct in my understanding of what functions run through it, including the IDE controller) since it was hot enough to burn him.

They had to replace the PSU fairly recently...I'd say within the past year. The new one they got had fewer than 12 amps on the 12v rail. So I think the PSU should probably be replaced again. I am just wondering if there were any possibility the MB won't need to be as well. Last time they tried to turn it on the computer would power on for about 10 seconds and then shut off...which sounds to me like some kind of overheating.

Or would it be better to just abandon the whole thing and start over?
 
if your grandmother is using it for email and stuff.....you really should make it as convenient for her as possible. troubleshooting and having the computer shutdown when you're sending an email... :(

any decent big brand found at Walmart, BB or such chains would be perfect.
 
id say the motherboards on its way out.. though odd that the southbridge is overheating.. you can usually find PC chips socket A boards online for pretty cheap.. been using one on my athlon xp 1700+ as a file server for about 10 months now..
 
Well the thing I am worried about is replacing the MB and it's the PSU so then another MB dies.

My grandmother lives right next door to my parents so they call me and we do the trouble shooting. I don't do that with my grandmother.

I found it odd that the southbridge was getting so hot too. My brother was able to identify it because there was so much heat radiating off it that as he was moving his hand near it he could trace the heat source...which isn't a good thing. The fact that it's the southbridge is part of what makes me suspect of the PSU since that's not something that I'd expect to be getting so hot.

They could get a big brand computer and if they are getting a new computer they most likely would but my grandmother is on a fixed income, like most older people and so doing something that isn't too expensive would be better and a MB and possibly PSU would be cheaper to swap out than buying a new computer.

I might look into those PC chips boards. I guess my main concern was how likely is it that this is just an MB problem?
 
you know what i just noticed.. there is no SB heatsink on the socket A boards.. just looked at my old dead sayo, my pc chips and a picture of the board your grandmother is using..

the only thing it has is the northbridge(which is a real northbridge like the intel systems, not a chipset)... on the abit the soutbridge is just that square chip to the right of the pci slots.. theres no way that thing should be getting hot enough to burn you..

i have no clue if speedfan works on all socket A boards.. but id seriously have them check the temps with that if it works.. or if they can check the temps in the health monitor on the bios before it shuts off..
 
No there isn't a heatsink...the actual chip on the board is what is getting hot. They can't use speedfan as they can't get anything to even boot. The board recieves power as the CPU fan and the NB fan spin up but as far as I can tell it isn't even posting. It just turns on..spins up the fans for 10 seconds and then turns off.
 
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