Possible Dead Motherboard or CPU

[smithdoerr]

Had a blue screen crash last night while browsing. At the top it
said something along the lines of "system shutting down to avoid
hardware damage..." before shutting off. Unfortunately I was
unable to read more since it was only displayed for a few
seconds.

Now, on powering up the machine will not go into post. All the
fans turn on, the power light turns on, the sound card + LAN
lights turn on, the hard drives are spinning, so everything seems
to be getting power. But there is no signal to the monitor and
there is no hard drive activity. When I press the power button,
everything powers up for a few seconds, powers off for about a
second, then powers on again and then does nothing. The lights
are on but nobody is home.

I've checked over the connections and tried resetting the bios by
unplugging and pulling the battery for about 10 minutes. No
good.

The system is home built and about 3 years old so the motherboard
and cpu are out of warranty. The last hardware upgrade I made
was the video card 6+ months ago and there haven't been any major
software changes since then other than a few games installed. So
there haven't been any changes to the system lately.

I'm guessing I'll need to replace the motherboard or CPU. Any
way I can determine which? I don't have another CPU to drop in
so I can't check that way.

Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R revision 1.1.
CPU is Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

Thanks for your time.

-smithdoerr

 

[Paul]

Had a blue screen crash last night while browsing. At the top it
said something along the lines of "system shutting down to avoid
hardware damage..." before shutting off. Unfortunately I was
unable to read more since it was only displayed for a few
seconds.

Now, on powering up the machine will not go into post. All the
fans turn on, the power light turns on, the sound card + LAN
lights turn on, the hard drives are spinning, so everything seems
to be getting power. But there is no signal to the monitor and
there is no hard drive activity. When I press the power button,
everything powers up for a few seconds, powers off for about a
second, then powers on again and then does nothing. The lights
are on but nobody is home.

I've checked over the connections and tried resetting the bios by
unplugging and pulling the battery for about 10 minutes. No
good.

The system is home built and about 3 years old so the motherboard
and cpu are out of warranty. The last hardware upgrade I made
was the video card 6+ months ago and there haven't been any major
software changes since then other than a few games installed. So
there haven't been any changes to the system lately.

I'm guessing I'll need to replace the motherboard or CPU. Any
way I can determine which? I don't have another CPU to drop in
so I can't check that way.

Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R revision 1.1.
CPU is Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

Thanks for your time.

-smithdoerr

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128048

Check the customer reviews under the "Feedback" tab.

"2/17/2008 9:56:02 PM "Rebooting Cycle (3 sec.) after 6 months"

After 6 months it started the rebooting cycle mentioned so often here.
3 seconds on/off. This was after unplugging it over night. I was able
to get it to boot by removing one stick of memory (Corsair Dominator
2X1024 DDR2 1066 PC2 8500). After it "recovers" I can soft power it
on/off with no problem and unplug it for a short period of time to
replace the memory. I increased the memory voltage to +0.3 to see
if that helps.

DDR2 and 1066 is a bad combination."

Give that a try. Try just one stick of RAM and see if POST starts.

Paul

 

[smithdoerr]

On 9/20/2010 11:26 AM, smithdoerr wrote:

The motherboard and CPU carry a 3 year warranty, so if "about"
= "slightly less than," you should still be covered.

You're right. For some reason I was thinking they were just one
year warranty. So checking my invoice history at newegg.com I
see that I purchased them on [drumroll please] 9-4-2007.
Sometimes you just have to laugh.

The last hardware upgrade I made
was the video card 6+ months ago and there haven't been any
major
software changes since then other than a few games installed.
So
there haven't been any changes to the system lately.

I'm guessing I'll need to replace the motherboard or CPU. Any
way I can determine which? I don't have another CPU to drop
in
so I can't check that way.

It might just be a bad power supply, or a bad video card
jamming up the start.

Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R revision 1.1.
CPU is Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

I would take the system down to a minimum state. Pull the
board from the case and set it up on a non-conducting service.
Up on a short box is good in case you have to plug in an
expansion card.

Inspect the motherboard for domed, vented or otherwise abnormal
capacitors, or other signs of scorching or damage. While no
one is looking, give it a sniff to see if you can smell
anything burnt. Do not lick the motherboard.

Get a known good power supply if you can, make sure the CPU is
properly set with the appropriate amount of fresh thermal
paste.

Put known good memory into the machine. If you don't have any
of that, just put one of your modules in at a time. It seems
unlikely that *all* of your memory has gone bad at the same
instant.

Insert a known good video card. The only other device that
should be connected to the motherboard is a power supply.
Also, plug the power supply into a hard drive, but don't cable
the drive to the motherboard.

Fire the board up by momentarily shorting the power pins on
your board. It's in the F_PANEL block near the SATA and IDE
ports. The block is detailed below, where the numbers
represent pins. Pins 06 and 08 are the power switch:

POWER
SWITCH
REAR PANEL [ 02 04 06 08 -- -- 14 16 18 20 ]
<= PORTS ARE [ ]
THIS WAY [ 01 03 05 07 09 -- -- -- -- -- ]


At this point, if you cannot get your system to POST, it's a
fair conclusion that your motherboard or your CPU is toast, and
it's probably the motherboard.

If you can hook up a speaker to the motherboard, you can try
starting your system with *no* memory. If you get some warning
beeps, you can presume that your CPU is working, and it's the
motherboard. If you still don't get anything, you're entitled
to a hearty WTF.

Thanks for the suggestions. So here's what I did: Unfortunately
I don't have another power supply and graphics card to test it
but I do have some older slower ram that used to be in the system
so I tried it with one of those sticks. No post.

Removed everything and inspected the motherboard for visible
damage. Didn't see anything.

Reinstalled CPU and heatsink and connected a speaker from an old
case. Powered on. No beeps. Installed ram. No beeps. Removed
ram and installed graphics card. No beeps. Installed ram and
graphics card. No beeps. Reconnected drives and sound card. No
beeps, and still no post.

After reading Paul's post and checking the feedback at newegg I
think it's probably the motherboard. I've been thinking about
replacing the motherboard some time in the future so I can have
more ram so perhaps I'll just have to do it a little sooner than
planned.

-smithdoerr

 

[smithdoerr]

smithdoerr wrote:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128048

Check the customer reviews under the "Feedback" tab.

"2/17/2008 9:56:02 PM "Rebooting Cycle (3 sec.) after 6
months"

After 6 months it started the rebooting cycle mentioned so
often here.
3 seconds on/off. This was after unplugging it over night. I
was able
to get it to boot by removing one stick of memory (Corsair
Dominator
2X1024 DDR2 1066 PC2 8500). After it "recovers" I can soft
power it
on/off with no problem and unplug it for a short period of
time to
replace the memory. I increased the memory voltage to +0.3
to see
if that helps.

DDR2 and 1066 is a bad combination."

Give that a try. Try just one stick of RAM and see if POST
starts.

Tried an old stick of DDR2 800 that used to be in the system.
Still no post (or warning beeps). Judging by some of the
feedback I guess I'm lucky it lasted for 3 years of daily use.

-smithdoerr

 

[Brian Cryer]

Had a blue screen crash last night while browsing. At the top it said
something along the lines of "system shutting down to avoid hardware
damage..." before shutting off. Unfortunately I was unable to read more
since it was only displayed for a few seconds.

Now, on powering up the machine will not go into post. All the fans turn
on, the power light turns on, the sound card + LAN lights turn on, the
hard drives are spinning, so everything seems to be getting power. But
there is no signal to the monitor and there is no hard drive activity.
When I press the power button, everything powers up for a few seconds,
powers off for about a second, then powers on again and then does nothing.
The lights are on but nobody is home.

I've checked over the connections and tried resetting the bios by
unplugging and pulling the battery for about 10 minutes. No good.

The system is home built and about 3 years old so the motherboard and cpu
are out of warranty. The last hardware upgrade I made was the video card
6+ months ago and there haven't been any major software changes since then
other than a few games installed. So there haven't been any changes to
the system lately.

I'm guessing I'll need to replace the motherboard or CPU. Any way I can
determine which? I don't have another CPU to drop in so I can't check
that way.

Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R revision 1.1.
CPU is Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600.

Thanks for your time.

I have virtually the same situation - GA-P35-S3G, same CPU. I've ordered a
replacement (similar) motherboard (as I can't get the same one).

Out of curiosity, was your BIOS battery flat? Mine was (although replacing
it doesn't seem to have helped). I can get into my BIOS if I have all but
one memory module removed, is that the same with yours? Although I must
admit that if it doesn't beep at you with all memory out (which I think
you've said in one of your replies) then I think you are looking at
replacing the motherboard.

 

[smithdoerr]

I have virtually the same situation - GA-P35-S3G, same CPU.
I've ordered a replacement (similar) motherboard (as I can't
get the same one).

Out of curiosity, was your BIOS battery flat? Mine was
(although replacing it doesn't seem to have helped). I can get
into my BIOS if I have all but one memory module removed, is
that the same with yours? Although I must admit that if it
doesn't beep at you with all memory out (which I think you've
said in one of your replies) then I think you are looking at
replacing the motherboard.

Yeah, I tried it with just one old memory stick that used to be
in the machine before I upgraded the ram (so I know it works) but
still no post or beeps. I tried it with pretty much every
hardware combo and no beeps so I'll be shopping on newegg later
today.

Out of curriosity, does anyone know if you have a functional
motherboard *without* the CPU installed will you get warning
beeps?

 

[smithdoerr]

Had a blue screen crash last night while browsing.

[snip]

Just an update for anyone who's interested, it was indeed the motherboard
that was dead (thanks to all who helped me diagnose the problem!). I needed
a motherboard that was socket 775 and DDR3 with built in raid controller so
my choices on a new board were limited but I found one I'm happy with.
Everything is working again with no lost data.