Blown Motherboard??

marcus.slee

marcus.slee

marcus.slee

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Joined
14 Dec 2009
Posts
50
Hi all,

I built my PC 4 or 5 years ago and it's had no issues. Within the last year I added another gb ram and OC'd it to 2.3ghz with an arctic freezer pro.

Again no issues until last night when out of nowhere I got a blue screen with error messages. this popped up for maybe half a second so I didnt get a good look and then it shut down.

when I've tried to reboot it won't get past the first Abit motherboard page (just black with Del to enter Setup, Tab for something else). The keyboard doesn't work at this stage so I have to just power down

My Pc has always double booted when first switched on (powered on for 3-5 secs before powering down and back up properly). I've noticed that the initial boot is now longer.

I'm thinking that the motherboard has gone? I don't really want to buy a replacement to find that it's in fact something else. similiarly I don't know how to do any diagnostics when I can't even get it to the BIOS.

Or maybe it was OC'ing it that's blown something?

I have a quad core 6600 processer that I've been meaning to install - is it worth getting this in and seeing if it changes anything?

Specs below - any help appreciated!!




Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - OC'd to 2.3ghz
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (and one additional gb Ram - make unknown)
Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK)
Arctic freezer pro
 
Hi,

Start with one stick of memory and clear the CMOS settings to set everything to default and unplug everything you aren't using, Drives, USB headers etc.

If you can get into the BIOS then go from there until you find the issue.

My guess would be memory, either a failed stick or when you overclocked the CPU you accidentally overclocked the memory as well.

AD
 
Keyboard not working could just be that the BIOS doesnt support USB hardware by default. My Abit motherboard (older one though) didn't work with USB keyboards at all so I needed a PS2 board lying around.
 
Thanks for prompt responses.....

I managed to get into the BIOS by hammering F8 during start up (read that this would kick into safe mode)

it stated that the CPu was unworkable or had changed. when I checked the CPU settings it had reverted back to 2ghz. I tried saving and exiting and it still wouldnt boot.

so i upped the clock speed to 205 and suddenly it booted fine!!

however - I'd still like to know the cause.

what can cause the CPU clock to reset to pre-OC'd levels and make the whole thing fail to boot until you mess around in the BIOS slightly?!

It dont think it will have been the temperature - I was just browsing the internet when it went down and i'd tested the OC with core temp thoroughly.

guessing I should replace my CPU to be safe?
 
Pretty much.

Might not be the culprit though....

[edit] Highly doubt it's the CPU. In my experience they either work or they dont.
I would suspect the mobo might be on the way out -old age.
The battery would be something cheap to try though.
 
Last edited:
Theres no reason it would be your CMOS battery, it would just boot at stock if it was.
Check your BSOD and see what error it through up.
 
forgot to mention it happened again. Worked fine for 48 hours then when I tried to start it up this morning it booted ok until it got to my desktop picture and froze there (i.e. no windows bar just a picture and mouse cursor).

restarted and it's frozen at the boot screen again. didnt have time to go into safe mode again but I'm guessing that I'll need to tweak the clock speed again to get it running like last time.

I read on another forum that the CMOS battery can cause this so I'm hoping it's all that simple?

if a new battery fails I guess I'll have to try sticking in a new MOBO. Are there any other easy tests I can do before buying replacement parts?

i.e. could one of my ram slots have blown and caused this? could I test that from BIOS?

Thanks!
 
A new problem:

- I removed the CMOS battery to see what that did then replaced. when I did none of the USB's were working so i booted down

- I replaced with a new CMOS battery and USB's worked, however it's now saying that I need to validate my windows before I can log on. I don't want to format my hard drive as I still have some data on there, and in any case I don't have a windows disk so it's not really an option

I can access the internet because I can't get far enough to connect to wireless. So I cant get bluescreenview or do anything.

Does this suggest it's actually my hard drive that's failing or could it all be symptomatic of the Mobo?

Is there anything I can do besides formatting and reinstalling windows, then replacing the mobo if the issues reccur??

Thanks for responses as always......
 
You can change a setting to make the BSOD stay on the screen instead of immediately rebooting.

Right click My Computer> Properties> Advanced> System and Recovery settings... from here you will see a tick box that says Automatically Restart. Untick this and the BSOD will remain on screen. Then you can get the code and hopefully it'll give you some idea as to what's going on :)
 
I don't think I can even get that far - when windows asks for activation it won't even let you log on. I'll have a crack tonight and hope it fixes itself temporarily.....
 
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