Well that couldn't have gone worse

[Rubber Bullets]

So the new CPU arrived, and the new memory.

I put them in, fire the fucker up and all goes remarkably well. PC detects new chip, makes necessary changes, 1 restart later I'm flying through Photoshop without a care in the world.

then i decide to try CoH, and start by trying the performance test to see if the changes have improved anything.

Half way through the test there is a very muted 'crack' from the PC and it goes instantly dead. It will not reboot.

At this point I think is probably the PSU, it is a bit close to the minimum according to online calculators, so I had wondered if there would be a problem.

I disconnect the PC and open it up, no smell of burning, nothing obvious at all. I then connect it to another power cable and try booting, not connected to anything. Now the fans spin up and everything seems OK.

I decide to hook it up to mouse keyboard and monitor again and see what happens.

Well nothing much is the answer, the fans all spin, and everything looks normal, but there is no output to the monitor and the USB keyboard doesn't boot.

I take out the new RAM, and replace the old CPU. No change.

Sadly the case speaker has never worked, and so I don't know what the POST signal is.

SO now I guess the mobo is fucked, it really is unlikely to be anything else really.

Which means that I am fucked.

The mobo is no longer made, and not in stock anywhere. There are skt939 mobos around, but they will need a clean install which is a major pain.

Regardless of this it means having to buy a new board that is already old technology, though I could e-bay I suppose I don't feel that good buying second hand, especially as the new (second hand off e-bay) RAM may have caused this problem anyway!

Just at this moment I am feeling more fucked off with my PC than I have ever felt before. Apart from anything else I was already stretching a bit far financially and with Christmas coming I can't really buy anything else for a while anyway.



RB

 

[TdC]

damn RB that's unlucky mate sorry, no other advice, but I do feel for you

 

[nath]

I absolutely HATE when shit like that happens. Same as Teed, I have no useful advice, just sympathy :\

 

[Lazarus]

what kind of board is it RB?

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks for the thoughts guys, they are appreciated.

Laz, it's a Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI nForce4.

Don't seem to be available anywhere anymore

RB

 

[nath]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=172710&source=Froogle

Could be worth popping an e-mail to scan and asking if they'll sell you the motherboard by itself - I have a feeling they'll tell you to sod off but may as well give it a go.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

The Ironic thing?

That's exactly the product I bought in the first place. It was that 6600GT card I just upgraded. I didn't even know that it was still for sale, and certainly isn't worth anything like that money.

I'd be amazed if Scan would sell separately.

RB

 

[WPKenny]

Sound similar to what I had happen. I ended up having to just get another brand afterI got sniped on ebay a couple of times. It's a shitty replacement motherboard with no Soundstorm goodness but it'll do till I've got the cash for my next major upgrade.

 

[Lazarus]

RB, took a while :

http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=17699

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Hey Laz, thanks for looking.

That's almost right, it is just the non sli version I think.

Given that I'm not that bothered about sli do you think that it would be similar enough to run from my current install?

The next question of course is: if my current mobo went bang it's got to be for a reason. What was that reason and will any replacement do exactly the same thing? Could faulty RAM cause the mobo to fail? Was it something I did in installing the new chip? Was it an underpowered PSU?



RB

 

[throdgrain]

Crap
Funnily enough Ive been installing my new mobo and video card today as well, been doing it since 10 am
So far I keep getting corrupt downloads so am running on the stock video drivers, have had to buy a new psu, and am STILL installing all the Steam stuff off my back up DVD.
Hey ho

 

[Trem]

It exploded because AMD explode, end of argument

Seriously though RB, nowt worse, maybe its the PC god telling you to spend more money on shiny other things.

 

[Mazling]

Nowt wrong with AMD, shut yer trap.

 

[Lazarus]

Hey Laz, thanks for looking.

That's almost right, it is just the non sli version I think.

Given that I'm not that bothered about sli do you think that it would be similar enough to run from my current install?

The next question of course is: if my current mobo went bang it's got to be for a reason. What was that reason and will any replacement do exactly the same thing? Could faulty RAM cause the mobo to fail? Was it something I did in installing the new chip? Was it an underpowered PSU?



RB

no idea about the exploding bit RB, but the specs show it for an SLI version

Manufacturer GIGABYTE
Agp slot No
Audio 8-channel AC97 audio with Universal Audio Jack (UAJ) support
Bios type DualBIOS
Chipset Nvidia Nforce 4
Cpus up to Althon 64 FX-55
Firewire 3 x IEEE1394b ports (800) Texas Instruments
Form factor ATX
Ide ports 2 x UltraDMA 133/100/66/33
Lan Dual Gigabit LAN
Max memory 4GB
Memory Dual channel DDR400
Memory slots 4
No of pci express x1 slots 2
No of pci express x16 slots 1
No of sata ports 4 x Serial ATA (Silicon Image 3114)
No. of pci slots 3
No. of usb ports 10

 

[throdgrain]

Nowt wrong with AMD, shut yer trap.

Trem's such a noob

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Seriously though RB, nowt worse, maybe its the PC god telling you to spend more money on shiny other things.

I've no doubt the PC god is telling me that, it always does.

Sadly the Household god is telling me that if I spend another penny this side of the new year I'll be sleeping in the shed, with the PC. Lets face it she's the god that can actually throw things.

Laz, are you mixing up 1x PCI-express with 16x? It is the later that the GPU goes into.

RB

 

[Lazarus]

Laz, are you mixing up 1x PCI-express with 16x? It is the later that the GPU goes into.

RB

Can you tell I dont have a clue???

I took the specs straight from the website

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Can you tell I dont have a clue???

I took the specs straight from the website

Mate, I really appreciate the effort you made, whether you've got a clue or not you're trying to help and that means a lot.

RB

 

[Insane]

I've tried to respond to this thread 3 times only to be dragged away by work for something else to fix

I would physically inspect your CPU, i remember something similar happening back in the AthlonXP days, and the core had essencially "split" apart because the HSF had too much pressure on the CPU itself.

Of course Im presuming you've done the usual which is take all the new stuff out, put in your old CPU, memory and see what that does?

because the fans spinning up, it would indicate power to the board, which is normally a good sign, if the fans are connected to the motherboard and not a standard molex connector (doh!)

when you hit the power button, does any of the hard drives spin up or do they stay powered off? might be a posability one of the rails in the PSU has cooked itself but not taken the whole PSU with it.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Hi Insane,

Yup I've put everything back in as it was with no luck.

The chip looks OK and there is no difference with the old 'working' one.

The Fans that run off the mobo do start, the case ones and the heatsink one.

No I don't think that the HDD spins up at all.

Thanks for your help, and to everyone who has chipped in.

(I'm at work now till midnight, so I don't have to look at the fucking thing )

RB

 

[Trem]

Personally and with all due respect, I would never buy the same mobo if it had done something like this on me. Have a search for an Asus one me old china.

We use Gigabyte at work and they are fantastic but we only ever build Intel systems with Intel chipsets on the mobo so I dunno if that has anything to do with anything.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Cheers Trem,

A Plan:

I buy a cheap mobo that supports the bits I have.

I install XP on an old drive.

I test all components

I take everything I need off my main drive.

I format it and do a proper clean install.

I don't see a choice.

But this still means that I have to buy a mobo and quite possibly have to buy a new PSU anyway

Still Sharon has been reasonably sympathetic so far, in a 'everything you ever do turns to shit, why do it again?' sort of a way.

RB

 

[Ch3tan]

Have you not got another PSU you can try it with?

Work by a process of elimination before you spend cash on anything.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Have you not got another PSU you can try it with?

Sadly not It does concern me that Insane thinks it could be PSU and I can't test it.

On the other hand I do need a new PSU anyway probably, so I could just buy one first and then get a new mobo if it doesn't work. Then I owuld have a spare and no christmas presents

RB

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Oh and by the way Chet, thanks for not saying 'I told you so'.

The same goes for Smurkin,



RB

 

[throdgrain]

I bought a new PSU today, you can have my old one if you dont make me post it?

edit, btw, wtf are credit cards for, if not to get you out the shit?

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I bought a new PSU today, you can have my old one if you dont make me post it?

edit, btw, wtf are credit cards for, if not to get you out the shit?

Hey Throddy, that's a kind offer. No way to get it other than by post though.

I would gladly pay more than the postage costs mind, that's if you don't simply have an aversion to post offices

Chin, thanks for the input mate

RB

 

[Trem]

Throd isn't allowed into post offices since the shotgun incident.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Yeah, that makes sense.

RB

 

[throdgrain]

Its just the boxing and the drama of it all I could I suppose if you want though. Its only 250w mind, but is obviously of good quality because its powered everything from a xp2000+/gf3 to a 4000+/6800gt. Came out of an Evesham PC originally.
One thing though, when I fitted this mobo it needed a 24 pin plug, that psu only has a 20 pin, is that a problem?