what's wrong - motherboard or processor?

D

dualblade

Supreme [H]ardness
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Nov 19, 2000
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dumped an image i had onto a new build to check for stability under load. everything's going fine until i reboot to install the os i actually want. i'm in windows setup and i get some file copy errors (can't find file on cd) so i reboot to start setup over. system doesn't come back up - no post or beeps. removed the memory and still no beeps (and the motherboard should certainly complain about no memory) so i'm pretty sure it's some faulty hardware. the question is just motherboard or processor? i don't really have access to either as this is my first a64 system so no spare parts and no friends with s939 parts either. i'm trying to get it right on the first try with your help. thanks
 
sounds like the mobos bad. and make sure the mobo is properly grounded/isolated. i just ran into that issue. both issues actually.

just pull the mobo out of the case and then test it. if it does the same thing out of the case, then its highly probable that the mobo is bad.
 
i'll give that a shot. all mb standoffs are used (and no extra ones are there to short components), and all the screws have that little washer under them so i was careful
 
well if it is fully isolated, then chances are the mobos bad. if it doesnt even post, then its most either the CPU or mobo, but higher chances its the mobo.
 
hey, how accurate is speedfan? it just occured to me that i ran it last night and it told me my 12v was 9.5v. thought that was quite a bit odd, threw a volt meter on one of the molex connectors, and i had 12.05 so everything was good. now that i think about it, was the program on crack or maybe my mb had some bad connection so that part of it was only getting 9.5v

the only other thing i forgot to mention is that i'm using a 20 -> 24 pin convertor. my ps is only 20 so i wanted to but the manual for the mb says that i don't even need it - i can just plug in the 20 pin connector and my 12v rail should be able to do more than 18a (it can). i guess i doubt this is the problem because i'm not having stability issues; the mb used to post and now it doesn't. i'm guessing there was something weak on the mb and under heat and load it failed
 
that could be a possibility. have you removed it from the case, though? thats the first thing to do when a pc is having symptoms like that.
 
thanks, yes i will try replacing the board. i guess i'm just a bit nervous that the cpu is bad also and might do damage to the new mb. we'll see...

it's a brand new mb on a brand new chipset (msi mb using the new ati chipset) so i guess it's reasonable to expect higher failure rates
 
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