Fried that Mother

[will546]

I recently bought a new power supply and assumed that the 4 pin plu
that was bundled next to the 20 pin plug was to plug into the 4 pi
slot on my motherboard. Well, apparently it was an extension for th
20 pin. OK, I'm new to this stuff.

So now, upon powering up, my processor starts up fine, but after abou
15-20 seconds, everything slows down and begins pulsing and the M
starts flashing FF. I had a friend look at it and he is convince
that the MB is toast. He also told me, that in order to be able t
restore it so that I can turn it on and not have to reloa
everything, I will have to find the same exact board. Is that true
This MB is atleast a year old and it may be tough to find one. Her
are the specs (that I know)

NVIDI
EP-8rda3i (these are the #'s directly printed on the Board

Thanks for any info you can give me
Wil

 

[Rod Speed]

I recently bought a new power supply and assumed that the
4 pin plug that was bundled next to the 20 pin plug was to
plug into the 4 pin slot on my motherboard. Well, apparently
it was an extension for the 20 pin. OK, I'm new to this stuff.

So now, upon powering up, my processor starts up fine, but after about
15-20 seconds, everything slows down and begins pulsing and the MB starts
flashing FF. I had a friend look at it and he is convinced that the MB is toast.

Yeah, could be, the voltages on the two 4 pin connectors are completely different.

He also told me, that in order to be able to restore it
so that I can turn it on and not have to reload everything,
I will have to find the same exact board. Is that true?

Nope. If you are running 98 it should be fine without doing anything special.

If its XP, you can just do a repair install and that will work fine.

This MB is atleast a year old and it may be tough
to find one. Here are the specs (that I know).

 

[Paul]

I recently bought a new power supply and assumed that the 4 pin plug
that was bundled next to the 20 pin plug was to plug into the 4 pin
slot on my motherboard. Well, apparently it was an extension for the
20 pin. OK, I'm new to this stuff.

So now, upon powering up, my processor starts up fine, but after about
15-20 seconds, everything slows down and begins pulsing and the MB
starts flashing FF. I had a friend look at it and he is convinced
that the MB is toast. He also told me, that in order to be able to
restore it so that I can turn it on and not have to reload
everything, I will have to find the same exact board. Is that true?
This MB is atleast a year old and it may be tough to find one. Here
are the specs (that I know).

NVIDIA
EP-8rda3i (these are the #'s directly printed on the Board.

Thanks for any info you can give me.
Will

If you used another motherboard, you could always fix up the
system with a "Repair Install". That keeps all your user data
and application settings, but it "resets" the OS. You have to
reinstall any Service Packs, and security updates/patches, after
the Repair Install.

You could also shop for any other motherboard with Nforce2
Ultra 400 chipset on it. Then plug the hard drive and CD/DVD
drive into the equivalent connectors on the new motherboard.
That might work well enough to not require any (substantial)
changes. Chances are, you might need a different driver for
the sound chip, and for the Ethernet interface, but otherwise
the OS should boot OK. You'd get some "new hardware" type
messages on the screen, on the first boot. Then, you can use
the sound driver and Ethernet driver on the motherboard CD.

The major manufacturers have stopped making S462 motherboards,
a while ago, but there are still some small suppliers making
them. The trick is, to find something you won't regret buying.

When you plugged the 4 pin extension of the main ATX into
the 2x2 12V connector, that probably raised the voltage on
the 3.3V and 5V rails. The power supply might not like
that, and I can see that messing with a bunch of other
stuff. It will be interesting to see, once you get the
new motherboard, how many other parts from the old computer,
are still having problems. For example, I hope the hard drive
is still OK.

The Newegg site is a bit strange. I ran into this entry, while
searching on Pricewatch, but didn't find it via searching
under S462 on Newegg. It is $73. It is out of stock today,
but the page leading to this one (a listing of all Epox
motherboards), says it will be in stock on July 17. You won't
need to do a repair install on this one, but will have some
new drivers to install after it boots.

EPoX EP-8RDA3+ PRO Socket A
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123233

Paul

 

[DaveW]

He is correct about having to use the exact same 2nd motherboard in order to
not have to reformat the harddrive and reinstall the OS.

 

[Rod Speed]

He is correct about having to use the exact same 2nd motherboard in order to not have to
reformat the harddrive and reinstall the OS.

No he isnt. 98 wont care and you can do a repair install with XP.