Author Topic: Decent motherboard? edit: motherboard or processor problems? I dunno! (Read 2834 times)

SirPeale · « **on:** March 29, 2005, 10:50:56 am »

Edit: see posts after this one.

I've been having some thermal problems with my PC for a week or so. I knew what it was, dust builds up in the CPU heatsink, and needs to be vacuumed out. No big deal, right?

I do so, reassemble, and the computer shuts right down after five seconds. It repeats this ad naseum. This usually means that it won't boot because a fan isn't attached somewhere. It shuts down to protect itself. Smart, right?

I suppose it would be, except the damned fans ARE attached!

I completely disassemble the system (which I'd actually been planning on doing for some time anyway so I could make the cable placement more prone to airflow). I check everything. Nothing! Not a darn thing.

I pop out the processor and inspect. Nothing to note. I reassemble, and...

It boots! Wonderful. I put the hard drives back, and hit the power.

You know that dreaded sound of calm before the storm? The silence is actually deafening. Then I hear it. Like the sound of Rice Krispies in milk. Then I see the magic smoke being released from my board! Crap! I pull the plug. Power is still going in! Curse this good power supply with it's robust capacitors!

I am not precisely sure what I did, but I have a suspicion. I think I plugged the floppy power plug in one pin off. The power supply is *supposed* to automatically shut down when that happens.

It actually still boots - for a split second. Then shuts right back down. If you boot without any drives, it stays up, but what good is that?

So I'm guessing my northbridge is blown. Going to do some shopping on NewEgg for a new motherboard. Right now I'm on an old P133 I had kicking around. 16 colors, because I can't find the drivers for the video card (and frankly, don't care enough to search). The board looks *really* funky in just 16 colors.

See you guys when I puzzle this out...

tommy · « **Reply #1 on:** March 30, 2005, 01:00:09 am »

Did he just say he ate rice crispys off his motherboard wtf.

SirPeale · « **Reply #2 on:** March 30, 2005, 10:25:19 am »

How's this for a replacement board? I should have ordered yesterday. They had my exact motherboad in the refurb section for $39. It's gone today.

Bloinkxp · « **Reply #3 on:** March 30, 2005, 10:50:51 am »

I have two and love'm.

Just remember that Newegg Refurbs do not come with accessories. Sometimes they don't even have I/O backplates.

Luck,
D

SirPeale · « **Reply #4 on:** March 30, 2005, 10:53:35 am »

Hm...that'd be about the only thing I need. Should have ordered yesterday!

And according to this the RAM I was using in my A7N8X is compatible with this board. Good.

JoyMonkey · « **Reply #5 on:** March 30, 2005, 10:59:28 am »

I have a spare A7V8X at home if you want it. I used it for about a year, then upgraded to an A7N8X Deluxe so I could set up some RAID drives.

ften · « **Reply #6 on:** March 30, 2005, 07:53:26 pm »

Quote from: Bloinkxp on March 30, 2005, 10:50:51 am

I have two and love'm.

Just remember that Newegg Refurbs do not come with accessories.

AmericanDemon · « **Reply #7 on:** March 30, 2005, 08:29:33 pm »

Just FYI I would use condensed air to remove the dust. If you vaccuum you run the risk of messing your mobo up.

jcrouse · « **Reply #8 on:** March 30, 2005, 08:41:50 pm »

Quote from: AmericanDemon on March 30, 2005, 08:29:33 pm

Just FYI I would use condensed air to remove the dust.

DrewKaree · « **Reply #9 on:** March 30, 2005, 09:45:13 pm »

They had that board on sale a few weeks back, but I get the feeling you don't/can't wait for it to go on sale again. I almost bought two since it woulda been two-for-one, refurbed, but wasn't digging the policy.

I'm glad I bought a new one. It's currently being set up for my FreeVo, and should be put into service within the next week or two. LOVE it. They make setups so sweet!

SOAPboy · « **Reply #10 on:** March 30, 2005, 10:05:33 pm »

Quote from: jcrouse on March 30, 2005, 08:41:50 pm

Quote from: AmericanDemon on March 30, 2005, 08:29:33 pm
Just FYI I would use condensed air to remove the dust.

SirPeale · « **Reply #11 on:** March 30, 2005, 11:14:01 pm »

I didn't vacuum the entire PC. I just removed the heatsink from the CPU and sucked the dust from that.

The refurbs have a 15 day return policy, and this board has a manufacturers warranty after that.

DrewKaree · « **Reply #12 on:** March 31, 2005, 11:58:29 am »

I may have to re-read their policy.

I could have sworn that, while you are correct on the 15-day policy, it doesn't apply to motherboards and one or two other specific items that I can't remember, although power supplies seems to ring a bell.

I'd also have to believe the manufacturer's warranty wouldn't apply to a refurbished board, although they probably would give you something like a 30 day deal.

*edit*
Their policy - my bad:

"Refurbished merchandise are OPEN BOX products that contain components that have been owned by other clients and returned to Newegg.com. The products are sold considerably under cost. Newegg.com guarantees all Refurbished products for 15 days only. CPUs, however, only have 7 days for refund. All Refurbished items are considered OEM "barebone" parts."

I now firmly believe if I don't throw $29 at this, I should be smacking myself!

It's terrible getting older - way more crap to remember, and I think it's pushing out stuff I really SHOULD be remembering that's more important $:-\$

DrewKaree · « **Reply #13 on:** March 31, 2005, 12:01:01 pm »

Peale, I dunno if you checked it yesterday, but I just checked it and it's $29 today.

I'm really thinking to myself that I can afford to throw $29 at this myself - my wife may be stopping by to smack you in a bit

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #14 on:** March 31, 2005, 04:14:20 pm »

Personally, I've had good luck with NewEgg refurb's, but it's hit-or-miss.

ften · « **Reply #15 on:** April 01, 2005, 02:08:45 am »

Quote from: DrewKaree on March 31, 2005, 11:58:29 am

I may have to re-read their policy.

I could have sworn that, while you are correct on the 15-day policy, it doesn't apply to motherboards and one or two other specific items that I can't remember, although power supplies seems to ring a bell.

I'd also have to believe the manufacturer's warranty wouldn't apply to a refurbished board, although they probably would give you something like a 30 day deal.

*edit*
Their policy - my bad:

"Refurbished merchandise are

DrewKaree · « **Reply #16 on:** April 01, 2005, 02:26:40 am »

No, there's more to their policy than that, that was just a portion of it.

Their refurbs are done by the manufacturers, they don't resell used items.

SirPeale · « **Reply #17 on:** April 01, 2005, 07:08:29 am »

Quote from: DrewKaree on March 31, 2005, 12:01:01 pm

Peale, I dunno if you checked it yesterday, but I just checked it and it's $29 today.

Yeah, *that* board was always $29. The board I was looking at (a straight replacement for the board I already have) was $39. But it was gone the next day.

Tiger-Heli · « **Reply #18 on:** April 01, 2005, 08:28:20 am »

Quote from: DrewKaree on April 01, 2005, 02:26:40 am

No, there's more to their policy than that, that was just a portion of it.
Their refurbs are done by the manufacturers, they don't resell used items.

I think it varies - if you send a board back and say - "Hey, I thought this board had a network controller and it doesn't, I don't want it", they will sell it as-is as a refurb. If you send it back as "PC won't boot, replacement board works fine, they send it back to be reconditioned."

I've bought a couple of refurbed boards from them. One came with full manuals, driver CD and cables and looked like what I would get retail. One came with just the board and driver CD and you could see where a jumper wire had been soldered onto the board to complete a faulty trace. They both worked well, though.

BTW, from what I remember, they tend to post a ton of refurbed mobos between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M on Wednesdays EST, and the really good ones are gone by 11:30 A.M., FWIW!

SirPeale · « **Reply #19 on:** April 04, 2005, 07:55:57 pm »

I got JoyMonkey's board, an Asus K7V8X-X. It seems to work well. However, my problems seem to have followed me, which means (at least I believe) that the original board is still good!

It appears to be a faulty processor. Strange. I swapped it out with a 1GHz Athlon and it comes up just fine (I'm tying on it right now) although for whatever reason I can't get it @ 1GHz, I'm stuck @ 750MHz. If I try to go higher it locks.

I've got a Duron 650 I'd like to try as well. But if I try booting with my Athlon XP 2400+, it flashes the BIOS screen for a microsecond, and shuts down. Just like it was doing on the other board (with the exception of having the HD attached, it would boot then.)

Time for more testing!

elvis · « **Reply #20 on:** April 04, 2005, 08:28:29 pm »

Quote from: Peale on March 30, 2005, 10:25:19 am

How's this for a replacement board? I should have ordered yesterday. They had my exact motherboad in the refurb section for $39. It's gone today.

In my experience, a VIA board is a VIA board is a VIA board. Any old KT400 will perform much the same, and most likely not even require an OS rebuild if you use your old hard disk and software install.

Certainly, ASUS are a little higher on the scale of reliability, but so are ABit, LeadTek, and even Jetway these days.

Regarding your current CPU problem: it could well be memory too. Your FSB dictates your clockspeed, and your FSB is just as easily limited by the system memory in VIA boards as it is the CPU. I'd be running both Memtest86 and Memtest86+ overnight on the system to make sure the RAM is fine, or try some different RAM if you've got some lying around.

SirPeale · « **Reply #21 on:** April 04, 2005, 08:37:59 pm »

Running MemTest certainly is a good idea. I'm going to be doing a lot more testing as I go on.

I hope there's a CD bootable version of MemTest, I don't trust my floppy drive now.

SirPeale · « **Reply #22 on:** April 05, 2005, 07:28:40 am »

Well, I just tried my original motherboard with a Duron 750 I had kicking around. Came right up. Hooked up the hard drives, booted just fine.

I dunno how the processor could have boogled, but it seems I've found my culprit.

The good news is that assuming I can get everything running, I've got a new board for my cab. I can safely replace the 450MHz K6/2 I've got now.

JoyMonkey · « **Reply #23 on:** April 05, 2005, 07:55:09 am »

Those boards would work nicely in a cab, since you can hide all the boot screens with a bitmap.

spiffyshoes · « **Reply #24 on:** April 05, 2005, 10:32:00 am »

You might look and see if a pin is bent on the processor. That happened to me once.

SirPeale · « **Reply #25 on:** April 05, 2005, 10:44:23 am »

Quote from: spiffyshoes on April 05, 2005, 10:32:00 am

You might look and see if a pin is bent on the processor. That happened to me once.

First thing I checked. Besides, it wasn't bent on installation, and I did that in '03. I dunno how a misaligned floppy power pin could have done that, but...

elvis · « **Reply #26 on:** April 05, 2005, 05:12:01 pm »

Quote from: Peale on April 04, 2005, 08:37:59 pm

I hope there's a CD bootable version of MemTest, I don't trust my floppy drive now.

Ultime Boot CD has got you covered:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Every motherboard/CPU/harddisk/system testing tool you could think of, all conveniently packaged on a single bootable CD, and totally 100% free. Keen.

SirPeale · « **Reply #27 on:** April 06, 2005, 08:26:42 am »

Good link, thanks!

Nocturnaloner · « **Reply #28 on:** April 11, 2005, 05:44:39 pm »

Just wanted to chime in and say that I just had to get an RMA for a refurb Newegg motherboard that was DOA. My first and last refurb. So the question is... do you feel lucky, punk?!

SirPeale · « **Reply #29 on:** April 11, 2005, 07:18:20 pm »

I've been using the board that JoyMonkey sold me. It's been good, except I can't use my 1GHz processor at anything except 750MHz.


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Author Topic: Decent motherboard? edit: motherboard or processor problems? I dunno! (Read 2834 times)

tommy