Vote: Dead motherboard or cpu?

I

Ignad

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 13, 2001
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(somewhat long description of troubleshooting steps coming up!)

MSI Neo K8T NEO-FIS2R
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (w/ Factory HSF)

Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480w Powersupply
ATI Radeon 9800 vid card
Kingmax PC-4000 512mb ram (1 stick)
HD, CD-burner, fans, ect.


System is about 3 months old. This morning would not boot without any warning...

Cleared cmos, checked all connections... nada... Disconnected all but cpu, hsf, ram and vid card. No change. Hit power, and the cpu fan 'twitches' but no other signs of life. Swapped in other AGP & PCI vid cards, no change. Swapped in generic stick of ram I had lying around, no change.

Pulled motherboard out of case. Set up board with spare 350w power supply. Same behavior (fan just twitches when hit power)

I discover that if I disconnect the extra 4pin 12v wire (with either power supply), the system will spin up when I hit power, but still no video or bios beeps or anything, it just spins up and idles along with black video.

Two days ago I delivered a system and could have tested cpu & motherboard, but now have no A64 cpu or motherboard to check my two parts with. Any guesses whether it might be motherboard or cpu? I'd rather not RMA both parts if its not needed. :( <sigh>
 
I would blame the mobo before the CPU in this case. Too bad you don't have the parts to swap around :(

Do any other devices connected to either PSU function? Fans or something? the PSU fan itself? And just out of curiosity, since it's very strange for a computer to just die out of nowhere when it's been turned off for the night... Have you been using the same wall outlet for all of this, and do you know for sure it's working right? I know this is way out there, but I've seen building wiring do very strange things to all sorts of electronics...

And is there anything between the wall and the PSU? surge protector, power strip, UPS?
 
I had a motherboard go out and do that. Upon closer inspection I noticed that every capacitor on the board was blown or swelled. I would RMA the mobo and hope for the best when it gets back.
 
Major_A said:
I had a motherboard go out and do that. Upon closer inspection I noticed that every capacitor on the board was blown or swelled. I would RMA the mobo and hope for the best when it gets back.
Click to expand...

But in 3 months? I suppose it could happen, but it sounds like he's shutting it down at least some nights. I thought they were done making mobos with really sketchy caps. It was my first thought as well, but I've never experienced it myself so I don't know. I agree with you though, that it could be the problem. He should check them out.

I ask about power stuff because it sounds to me like he's got everything else taken care of and there's not much else he can look at inside the box, so the only place left is outside.
 
Well when mine went out like that I would hit the power and the fans would spin for 1 sec then stop and nothing would happen. I am not saying that his capcitors are swelled, but that's what happened to me.
 
sysjack:

System is plugged into a cheap 'Energizer" brand UPS which is in turn plugged into a high end (yes, high end) power strip. Three other pc's were running overnight on the same circuit (but different power strip/ups combo) and they are still chugging along fine, so i don't think its a power problem. For kicks, I just ran and plugged the motherboard into another outlet on the other side of the room and there was no change. Yes, the power supply and cpu fans (in either power supply) spin up, as long as the extra 12v connector isnt connected.


Major:

When I pulled the board I inspected the board both visually and with my nose and could not detect any problems whatsoever. The thing is still sparkling new, grrrr.
icon8.gif

 
So much for my theory :p

You won't always be able to tell when caps go bad. A lot of the time they'll explode or swell up, but they can also sit there and look fine. Do you have a multimeter with capacitance on it? That's all I can think of. Apart from parts swapping I don't know what else you can verify here.
 
I know...


But the poor motherboard was too young to die. <sniff> <sniff>

I hadnt even had a chance to go back in and re-do the wiring so it looked nice. Heck, it was only about a month since I added the vid card and swapped out a 256mb corsair stick.


Oh well, maybe someone will have another guess/theory to add overnight. Just want to make the best guess whether its the cpu or motherboard... or both. Thanks for the help guys.
 
Don't feel too bad.... Mine's doing exactly the same thing. And I just got my processor in today. P4 2.4B on an MSI 845PE Max2... Luckily, it's a secondary system and we have one to fall back onto... I'm thinking about shutting this one down and verifying the integrity of the CPU. God, I really can't afford another mainboard right now.
 
Bump for daytime opinions before I ship the part(s) back to the 'Egg tomorrow :(
 
Wish I could ship my mainboard back, but it's a year and a half old.... Oh well... *Disappears to the FS thread*
 
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