Mobo dead?

londonbairn · 26 Sep 2007 at 09:54

Last night, my PC ground to a slow halt, it was like Vista was running on a 486; max HD transfer in performance monitor started on a gradual decline, running anything just made it so slow. The HDD light then remained constantly on. I thought, ok, I wil restart to solve it. Cicked restart and it stood there for an age. I left it for 20 mins in case , but still at the same screen. I manually reset the PC and it seemed to follow the recovery it does, but then wouldn't POST; just stays at a black screen all devices have power. Tried this many times, no difference. So I then done the usual...tried a different GPU, different PSU, different HD, different RAM etc, changed where RAM is on the slots, resetted CMOS etc etc, putting in recovery disk....no difference!

So I reached a conclusion the mobo is shot...another indicator of this is the CPU heatsink remainds stone cold. I left it for 30 mins to see, and it still remains cold. On taking the CPU out, 2 pins looked slightly out of shape. Doubt its the CPU as its been running super cool and it looks fine.

I bought a P5K Premium to remedy this last night...do you think I reached the correct conclusion?

Teaf · 26 Sep 2007 at 10:31

I'd have personally looked at the CPU first and wanted to test it in another board due to the bent pins, but really it could have also been the motherboard dying and grinding everything to a halt. You only really had a 50/50 shot if you couldn't test either seperate before you bought something (ie. different CPU in current motherboard, and current CPU in a different motherbard), so it's one or the other and hopefully you made the correct choice. If not I guess you can always return the motherboard and exchange it for a CPU if the shop allows you :-)

londonbairn · 26 Sep 2007 at 10:42

flibby said:
I'd have personally looked at the CPU first and wanted to test it in another board due to the bent pins, but really it could have also been the motherboard dying and grinding everything to a halt. You only really had a 50/50 shot if you couldn't test either seperate before you bought something (ie. different CPU in current motherboard, and current CPU in a different motherbard), so it's one or the other and hopefully you made the correct choice. If not I guess you can always return the motherboard and exchange it for a CPU if the shop allows you

Yeah I am thinking CPU but if I loaded up a task before hand that was CPU intensive, it flown through (eg Sandra tests) but as soon as you involved a bit of HDD and RAM, it just failed miserably and grinded to an almost halt. The CPU contacts look perfect and I would be very surprised if it was the CPU. Taking the CPU out and booting gives no beeps for example. This happened rarely also before, and this was with another CPU, so I believe the mobo was on a gradual decline to be honest. I'm tempted to say the chipset is borked as it stands. The bent pins are on the LGA remember, the CPU underside looks immaculate and no signs of the cache etc burnt out. It all perplexes me as it all ran very cool, but there you go. I read another guy havingexactly the same problem with the same board and it turned out pins became bent on his LGA also over time, which is bizarre.

I'm not concerned about exchanges, I need the power to do my work, so if this doesn't work Ill just buy another Q6600. Ill sort the RMAs when I get everything up and running, I dont have time to wait for the turnaround.

Teaf · 26 Sep 2007 at 10:47

rafster said:
The bent pins are on the LGA remember

Ah yes, keep forgetting that. Could well be the motherboard then from your last post explaining more, hopefully that is the case you don't have to fork out for another Q6600.

londonbairn · 26 Sep 2007 at 10:49

flibby said:
Ah yes, keep forgetting that. Could well be the motherboard then from your last post explaining more, hopefully that is the case you don't have to fork out for another Q6600.

Yeah I hope so! Want to get back up and running tommorrow! So annoying when everything runs perfect then suddenly it stops :mad:

londonbairn · 28 Sep 2007 at 11:03

It was the motherboard. Changing it made the PC work again. I saw on the old motherboard wierd marks around the LGA socket which looks like burns on the traces. I bought another Q6600 to make sure as well, so now have a spare Q6600 and a replacement P5K Deluxe ill be getting rid of.