Have I screwed up my motherboard.

nheather

nheather

nheather

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Horsham, West Sussex
My motherboard is a Gigabyte 990X-SLI-Gaming in a working system with a Phenom II X4 955.

Got myself an FX-8320 as an upgrade.

Pondered whether to remove the motherboard or do the swap in-situ and decided to go with an in-situ swap.

Very simple

1) remove the CPU cooler
2) pull the Phenom II
3) drop in the FX-8320
4) put the cooler back on

Connect the computer up, power on and nothing - fans are spinning but no post beeps, no video.

Thinking the CPU must be duff I go through the process again to put the Phenom II back.

Power up, but again fans spinning but no beeps, no video.

I’ve double checked all power cables are in place, reseated RAM, tried a different graphics card.

Any ideas of what to check before condemning the motherboard.

To be honest it was a pretty straight-forward process, the only thing disturbed was the CPU. The only thing I can think is that either the FX-8320 was faulty a fried the board (is that possible) or that pushing down on the cooler to remove the clips with the motherboard in situ has flexed the board to break some component connections.

Appreciate any advice.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Bit annoyed with myself - my gut feel was to remove the motherboard to do the swap, but I decided to do it in situ as it would be quicker.

Anyway, got the board out now, minimum setup, nothing. At one point I got the onboard ambient lighting to come on but mot again.

Found that I had some old spares from my son’s PC that included an AM3+ motherboard.

Tried that and the good news is that my PSU, graphics card, Phenom II and FX-8320 are all fine.

It seems that my 990X-SLI-Gaming is toast. I can only imagine that trying to release/fit the sprung CPU cooler clips must have mechanically stressed the board and broke a trace or socket or chip connection.

Annoying really, I should have listened to my gut and done the swap with the motherboard out.

At least I know what is wrong now, and I can use my son’s old motherboard.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Quartz said:
That sounds like it's location inside or outside of the case would have been irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Why do you say that?

The cooler uses the standard motherboard plastic brackets, and the cooler is held on with strong sprung steel - you have to push down quite hard to detach and to fix. My fear is that with the motherboard in situ it is sat on spacers so can flex when ut is pushed down. If I had taken the motherboard out first then it would have been laid on a flat surface so would have been supported across its whole surface.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Any way I have a motherboard that I could use but I fear that it might not be as suitable for hosting the FX-8320 especially for overclocking.

My alternative motherboard is an Asus M5A97 R2.0 which I understand has 4+2 power phasing compared with the 10+1 of my 990X-SLI-Gaming.

What do you think - would the M5A970 be okay for running the FX-8320 or should I be looking at something else, if so what?

Don’t want to spend too much, feel this is all going a bit south - the idea was a low-cost CPU to drop into my current PC to give it a little more oomph. Just spent £45 on the CPU (which happy with) but if I have to go spending £100 on a second hand motherboard it won’t be such an attractive proposition.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
If the on board lighting came on then it may not be dead
Try taking out the bios battery for at least 10 minutes preferably half an hour
Easy to try and nothing to lose
My new x570 build went totally dead on me tried everything and as a last resort before Rma I pulled the bios battery though had to do it for 30 minutes 10 didn't work
It's magically sprung back to life been working fine for days now
Click to expand...


Will try the battery idea - thanks for the tip.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
You are welcome hopefully it works I spent hour after hour trying stuff and something that simple fixed it lol
And back in the old days you had to put a flat blade screwdriver in the heatsink retention clip and push down hard then push outward/inward to detach/attach the heatsink
I really flexed a few boards doing that in situ but never broke any so hopefully they are a bit tougher than we think
Click to expand...

Yes that’s the type, horrible mechanism.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
This is what I read about forcing the backup BIOS - hold power so PC starts and then shuts down and then press start again.

Well I tried that and no different.

Also tried leaving the BIOS battery out for a couple of hours, that didn’t help.

So in summary, it starts, the ambient lighting on the motherboard lights, the fans spin but nothing else, no beeps, no video output.

The PSU, RAM, CPU and RAM all work, as I’ve tested them on another motherboard.

So sadly, it is looking like the motherboard is screwed. I imagine it is something as simple as one broken joint somewhere but that is enough to stop it working and not a chance in hell in tracing it.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Joxeon said:
Time for am4?
Click to expand...

Yes having a very bad day. A few days ago I was happy with my Phenom 955 system, then I read that the FX-8320 would be a cheap drop-in to give it a little more oomph. I didn’t really need it but for the sake of £45 it seemed worth a try.

My gut feel was to take the motherboard out to fo the swap but I was convinced that an in-situ swap would be fine.

Now I have a screwed PC. I have an alternative MoBo but from what I have read, its VRM will struggle with the FX-8320.

So now faced with trying to find a decent second hand board or spend £500 or so on newer CPU, RAM and MoBo.

Truly a crappy start to the New Year.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Joxeon said:
A decent msi b450 with 1st or 2nd gen ryzen CPU and 16gigs would set you back around £250 and you would have the option to upgrade to a 3rd/4th gen in a few years. Selling both your old am3 CPUs and ram would lower the cost aswell so maybe around £150 when all said and done.
Click to expand...

I’m really out of touch with CPUs, not really looked since 2011/12, what should I be looking for?

Cheers,

Nigel
 
General computing and some 1080P gaming. Why I am kicking myself is that the system I had working yesterday was doing what I needed fine. I had the idea that a little oomph would be nice occasionally and was tempted by a mild CPU upgrade.

To be honest, wish I’d left well alone now.

The graphics card is a GTX 1060.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Thanks for the suggestions. Yes maybe risk my son’s MoBo - we have no use for it anyway.

I think if I were going to go AM4 or Intel equivalent, I would want a decent jump. I’ve seen a Ryzen 5 3600 bundle for £329 - so something like that. I don’t want to spend a fair amount for a upgrade that I will barely notice.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
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