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Did I kill my mobo? (apologies if thi...

Trish's Escape from Hardware Hell Help Board » Hardware » Dead, Dying or Booting Problems » Did I kill my mobo? (apologies if this is a double post) « Previous Next »

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Caevert Emptus
Posted on Tuesday, November 26, 2002 - 12:56 pm:   

This is pretty long, but I think most of it is necessary, although the last couple paragraphs might be enough to make a diagnosis. Here's what happened:

Firstly, my old system specs:
ASUS A7A266
Athlon Thunderbird 1.4GHz
Copper HSF
256MB DDR RAM
GeForce DDR 64MB
Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
3Com Network Card
Win98SE

My system had started to give me random blue screens early on this year. I couldn't figure out what was wrong until I tried running my processor at 1050MHz, when suddenly everything worked fine. I forgot all about the problem for a few months, when suddenly, I started having the same problem very infrequently at the lower clock speed. Since it didn't happen more than maybe once a week, I thought nothing of it, until my system hung and wouldn't POST on restart. All my devices started up fine, but the monitor never got a signal and I never heard any system beeps. It had been running pretty hot all this time (60 degrees C), but I had heard my mobo reports rather high temperatures, plus the dorm rooms are usually pretty warm and dusty, so had I figured it was no problem if I kept my case relatively dust-free.

At that point, I figured my processor had died. The heatsink was almost clogged with dust in places, and I kicked myself briefly for not taking the fan off and blowing out the heatsink. I checked out prices for Athlon XPs and bought a 2000+. Although I read that my motherboard was compatible, I didn't find out until later that that was only true when running the latest beta BIOS version, which I didn't have. However, that was a moot point.

I wanted to make sure that it was in fact the processor that was causing the problem. I removed the old processor and HSF, figuring that if my mobo gave the same results without a processor as with this one, I could be sure. I think I might have made my mistake when I locked the CPU slot...

Anyway, I turned on the machine, it started to power up, and then I heard a loud pop and saw a flash of light somewhere between the parallel port and the CPU slot. Then came the tangy smell of ozone. I turned off the power and checked that area of the motherboard for any discolored capacitors or burn marks, but I couldn't find any.

Finally, my question: did I completely kill my mobo, or is it somehow salvageable? If so, who would I need to take it to? Am I completely off track on the nature of the problem?

Again, apologies for the lengthy description, but I try to be as complete as possible when I'm describing something like this. Thanks for bearing with the reading.
E.S.
Posted on Wednesday, November 27, 2002 - 11:00 pm:   

The loud POP you heard was probably a capacitor in the Power supply blowing up, You can unplug the Power supply from with in the case all drives and disconnect from the mainboard and remove the 4 screws holding it in. Most shops will be able to check the power supply for free for you.
Caevert Emptus
Posted on Thursday, November 28, 2002 - 8:35 am:   

The power supply tests out OK. One thing I did neglect to mention--before whatever it was got zapped, everything was powering up. Now, the case fans begin to spin up, but then quit, at which point I have to turn the computer off and back on from the power supply to get any response.
E.S.
Posted on Sunday, December 1, 2002 - 9:09 pm:   

Check the Capacitors around the CPU Socket.

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