What caused this big mess? 3 motherboards not posting.

B

brzee

n00b
Joined
Aug 12, 2014
Messages
6
I was testing my motherboards yesterday and used an Intel G4400 I use for simple tests and as I was restarting the system it all of the sudden wouldn't turn back on and kept trying to post. It would constantly loop from trying to post and restarting, I could just see the fans spinning up and stopping just to spin again. At first I figured this means my motherboard got shorted somehow. So I tried another board I knew works but same problem. At this point I figure it is the CPU because there is nothing else that I think could be bad. Went to go buy a new CPU and came back with the same issues. This had me dumbfounded as I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I tried a third motherboard I knew worked (Keep in mind all of the 3 motherboard used in this situation was getting POST that same day within the same hours), same issues with not being able to post and it just loops with restarting the fan. I was seeing the red CPU LED on the motherboard so I assumed it was the CPU.

This third board also smoked a little when I had my SSD with the OS connected to the SATA port on the motherboard which eventually made that SSD not bootable anymore. The SATA wire got really hot and I'm confused on why. I shut everything off immediately as I panicked not understanding what is going on. I then tried another PSU since that's the only thing I haven't tried. Same outcome. Tried a third PSU and I got the same outcome also. Tested all PSUs and they all came back good with the PSU tester showing correct voltages and everything. I've been using the first PSU all afternoon to test out the motherboards, everything ran very smoothly then all of the sudden as I was restarting the last motherboard testing it wouldn't turn back on.
I even tried a different RAM stick in case and still won't POST. I'm all out of ideas and am very tired trying to find out what is wrong. Can anyone with experience help me please. I've tried everything i possibly can think of and would RMA the motherboard but for some reason I highly doubt 3 working motherboards were all 3 taken out somehow. Could the first CPU be bad and taken out all the motherboards? Could the PSU take out 3 motherboards like that? I'm deeply terrified of trying another motherboard as I'm afraid to get the same results.

Sorry if this is confusing but pretty much I've exhausted all the options I could think of and still can't figure out what exactly is happening. All of these PC parts worked flawlessly minutes before this happened.
 
you mean the SATA data wire got hot?

what boards and power supplies also what were you plugged in to on the boards?

are you using adapters?
 
Not using adapters, the SATA data wire got hot yes. EVGA 750W GQ, EVGA 650W Gold G3, and EVGA 850W G2. I only had the CPU and motherboard plugged in at first but I also tried one with the SSD and VGA. I know i didn't need SSD to post but just thought I'd try and I regret it.

Now that I looked back I bought the CPU yesterday in a hurry not realizing I got a 300 (Coffee Lake) series chip instead of a 200/100 (Kaby Lake & Skylake) series chip. Oh boy am I stupid for this one, I think CPU is still in the play at this point then. I hope that didn't cause more issues that I've just created with putting a 300 series chip into a 200 series board. I doubt it since it's the same layout just not compatible. I'm really upset at a simple mistake I did if this is the case.
 
Of course a faulty PSU could have taken out all mobos. Also a bad CPU could. But this is something you could figure out yourself now.
Try the "original" PSU on another system in another power outlet/house.
Something takes other things out with it but what... maybe the PSU. Maybe there was a power surge that affected the PSU and everything after.
 
was the sata power plug or anything upside down?

did you plug a pci express connector in to the cpu power port?

nothing makes sense here.

also the 300 series cpu is identical to a 200 series cpu other than support.
 
Master_shake_ said:
was the sata power plug or anything upside down?

did you plug a pci express connector in to the cpu power port?

nothing makes sense here.

also the 300 series cpu is identical to a 200 series cpu other than support.
Click to expand...

Nothing was upside down, I double checked. I didn't plug a PCI-E connector to the CPU port. I made sure it was the CPU connector.

From what I've read 300 series CPU isn't backwards compatible on 200 series motherboard.

Link here saying that: https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...0025694/processors/intel-core-processors.html
 
brzee said:
Nothing was upside down, I double checked. I didn't plug a PCI-E connector to the CPU port. I made sure it was the CPU connector.

From what I've read 300 series CPU isn't backwards compatible on 200 series motherboard.
Click to expand...

it's not supported *officially* but they can and do work.
 
Master_shake_ said:
it's not supported *officially* but they can and do work.
Click to expand...

Not out of the box right? I've read it requires some modifications for it to work but not out of the box. So i still wouldn't POST if that's the case with a 300 series chip in. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one because I'm about to be a 200 series chip
 
brzee said:
Not out of the box right? I've read it requires some modifications for it to work but not out of the box. So i still wouldn't POST if that's the case with a 300 series chip in. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one because I'm about to be a 200 series chip
Click to expand...


but you shouldn't have had heat coming off the sata data cable.

the problem started with the g4400 anyway.

i bet the power supply had a fit and took out everything.
 
Absent the smoking SATA cord (which makes no sense) I’ll bet you have a bad stick of RAM. I went though this lately with a friend. The motherboard wouldn’t post at all. I pulled out one of the two sticks of ram and it posted. I moved the bad ram around in the slots for troubleshooting. Always when that one stick was plugged into any of the four slots the PC wouldn’t post. The other stick would post in any slot.

I never assumed it would be the RAM, because it so rarely goes bad, and my friend hasn’t messed with his PC and there’s no reason to go bad, but his symptoms were similar to yours.
 
Archaea said:
Absent the smoking SATA cord (which makes no sense) I’ll bet you have a bad stick of RAM. I went though this lately with a friend. The motherboard wouldn’t post at all. I pulled out one of the two sticks of ram and it posted. I moved the bad ram around in the slots for troubleshooting. Always when that one stick was plugged into any of the four slots the PC wouldn’t post. The other stick would post in any slot.

I never assumed it would be the RAM, because it so rarely goes bad, and my friend hasn’t messed with his PC and there’s no reason to go bad, but his symptoms were similar to yours.
Click to expand...

I assumed the same but after throwing in the RAM from my main setup it still wouldn't post. I'm gonna throw that RAM i've been using to test into my main and see if it'll read but doesn't seem like that's the issue at this point.
 
Did you mount the CPU cooler properly rather than just quickly for a test and shutdown? Maybe the heat in the socket is causing the issue?
 
Danny Dawg said:
Did you mount the CPU cooler properly rather than just quickly for a test and shutdown? Maybe the heat in the socket is causing the issue?
Click to expand...

Yea, I had it with thermal paste and everything. It was running while I was testing it at around 30 C so heat couldn't be the problem. Must be a short somewhere somehow. I'm hoping it's the CPU but I won't know for sure until another 2 days since I just ordered another cheap 200 series processor. Much prefer it being the CPU since 3 motherboards aren't posting it. I have an i5 I could use to test it but I'm not risking that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top