Death of a Motherboard (Broken CPU thread)

[Fergasun]

Last week I was chilling at home, sitting on the couch; I think my son was watching cartoons. Out of nowhere our computer dies. I shouldn't really say out of nowhere, it was an old Socket 939, 3500+ Athlon running on a nForce4 motherboard (from Biostar). Anyways, I spent the weekend pretty much diagnosing it to see if I could revive it, I thought it was the heat sink fan that died.

Turns out; after stripping away all the components and taking the motherboard out of the case, here are the symptoms. Turns out I had a spare PSU and a spare CPU; which made diagnosing a motherboard issue somewhat more simpler.

Here are the symptoms:
1) Motherboard with no CPU, power's on and runs forever (okay the northbridge fan is loud)
2) Motherboard with a CPU, power's on and turns off after 5-30 seconds.

Also, I wasn't getting any POST beeps either.

It almost seems like the motherboard is sensing CPU overheat; however it can't clear it (even though the board supposedly has a CMOS jumper that will clear it).

Oh well; this champ was on for practically 5 straight years. It would be nice to fix it as I'm pragmatic and such. Wondering if anyone has seen this type of situation and has any advice?

[DCSaints_fan]

The BIOS should show the CPU temp somewhere ... check to see that its not running wild (like over 80 degrees C)

I had that problem and it turns out the CPU heatsink/fan was not seated properly. The contact needs to be almost perfect. If this is the problem tou'll probably need some new CPU glue. (No, you can't use Elmers :-)

[Fergasun]

Trust me, I did that. I used 2 different processors with 3 different HSF's and none of the combinations worked.
Just wondering if anyone else has seen similar problems with the "CPU Overheat" protection on these motherboards is the main thing; also trying to eulogize my computer. This thing was a champ, in fact I still don't want to believe my motherboard is dead.

I'd like to get into the BIOS, but I couldn't even get into the BIOS. Like I said the computer wouldn't even give a beep-error... it didn't give a beep error when it died.

[.Guy.]

Check the board for bulging capacitors. Sounds like one of them finally bit the dust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

[PokerPacker]

good ol' capacitor plague. Got me a free 19" TV due to capacitor plague.

[ixcuincle]

RIP Motherboard

[Baculus]

Last week I was chilling at home, sitting on the couch; I think my son was watching cartoons. Out of nowhere our computer dies. I shouldn't really say out of nowhere, it was an old Socket 939, 3500+ Athlon running on a nForce4 motherboard (from Biostar). Anyways, I spent the weekend pretty much diagnosing it to see if I could revive it, I thought it was the heat sink fan that died.

Turns out; after stripping away all the components and taking the motherboard out of the case, here are the symptoms. Turns out I had a spare PSU and a spare CPU; which made diagnosing a motherboard issue somewhat more simpler.

Here are the symptoms:
1) Motherboard with no CPU, power's on and runs forever (okay the northbridge fan is loud)
2) Motherboard with a CPU, power's on and turns off after 5-30 seconds.

Also, I wasn't getting any POST beeps either.

It almost seems like the motherboard is sensing CPU overheat; however it can't clear it (even though the board supposedly has a CMOS jumper that will clear it).

Oh well; this champ was on for practically 5 straight years. It would be nice to fix it as I'm pragmatic and such. Wondering if anyone has seen this type of situation and has any advice?

Did you try a new CMOS battery?

[Fergasun]

I did not try a new CMOS battery. My backup motherboard (cheap S939 I got on a combo) is in the case, but I hadn't done anything with it. Maybe the CMOS battery is it.

I did already pick out parts for a new emergency upgrade.
Phenom II X3
880G Motherboard
4 GB RAM
320 GB HD

Debating on whether or not I want to splurge on a new case. My current case has standoffs built into it and it's not really a mATX case (the last 1/3rd of the board wouldn't be supported). Plus I want to fix up my other parts and resurrect this computer either with the spare mobo or something else.

Ideally I would like to fix the one that I think is now "dead". I'm so convinced it's not dead! I didn't see any bad capacitors on it, in fact I already identified two dead caps on my spare motherboard.

[Stillers6SB]

I did not try a new CMOS battery. My backup motherboard (cheap S939 I got on a combo) is in the case, but I hadn't done anything with it. Maybe the CMOS battery is it.

I did already pick out parts for a new emergency upgrade.
Phenom II X3
880G Motherboard
4 GB RAM
320 GB HD

Debating on whether or not I want to splurge on a new case. My current case has standoffs built into it and it's not really a mATX case (the last 1/3rd of the board wouldn't be supported). Plus I want to fix up my other parts and resurrect this computer either with the spare mobo or something else.

Ideally I would like to fix the one that I think is now "dead". I'm so convinced it's not dead! I didn't see any bad capacitors on it, in fact I already identified two dead caps on my spare motherboard.

Did you try the motherboard outside of the case, with no ram and the cpu in? If you don't get a beep code, assume the board is bad.

PM me if you just want a basic case. I have tons of spare parts. No charge.

[Fergasun]

I've got plenty of parts around, thanks for the offer.

Here's the foolish thing I did. First, being a man with wife and kids under 6, I had to do this all over the weekend, on Friday and Saturday. Since I assumed it was a HSF issue I bought one. I started out on Friday night, thinking "easy fix; 1 hour to replace the HSF". Got the case opened, verified the it wasn't working. So here I am with the case open and trying to replace the HSF. I didn't have the manual; and had my wife's smart-phone trying to figure out how to get the stock HSF off. For some reason the freaking spring clips weren't coming off so I ended up breaking the tab on the retention plate. The aftermarket HSF I had mounted onto the other tabs (good news); and I do have a spare retention plate in my parts box. When I realized it wasn't the HSF, I figured I would replace the CPU.

The dumb thing I did, was that I had assembled my spare CPU and motherboard in a case. When I took those out; I didn't bother testing them to make sure they were working (last I checked, 3 years ago, they were). So now I've got the spare motherboard in the case; but the spare motherboard doesn't appear to be working, plus I didn't have the manual. Did I mention I'm away from home this week as well (which is why it was "urgent" I fix things).

At this point it's not even worth my time to spend effort on trying to get an outdated rig up and running.

I just changed parts and figure I can get cpu/mobo/ram/hd for ~ $200 and install them. For my needs the X3 and 880g are overkill anyway; I'm going to go with an older motherboard architecture (7025) and AMD Regor dual core (3.0 GHZ). I still figure this will be more than enough CPU for my needs. The most intensive thing I do is create audio files with Audacity.

---------- Post added July-27th-2011 at 07:58 AM ----------

... I also will admit I had no illusions that my diagnosis of a new HSF would work... that's what I wanted the problem to be. Once I put my new rig together I'll look at resurrecting the old one somehow.

[Fergasun]

Updated (nearly 1 month):
So I ordered new parts and got pretty much a budget but decent new CPU (AMD X2 250, 4 GB Ram, Asus mATX motherboard (has Radeon integrated graphics). This thing has been running like a champ; went with Ubuntu 11.04 rather than Windows 7 (I also got a new hard-drive). This thing has been running like a champ.

The sad thing is that my son wants to play the latest Lego Star Wars game so I'm in a bit of a dilemma. My preference is not to be dual-booting off of 2 hard-drives, although it seems feasible and the easiest solution. Right now my plan was to have 2 computers and we'll take out the 2nd when he wants to play games... which my wife thought was ridiculous. I bought a new case (Cooler Master 343) for the old build (my spare motherboard is a mATX and I discovered it was functioning a couple weeks ago). Tonight when I went to install it my wife informed me that what I want to do was ridiculous (and its true; it is); and I should dual boot... which I'm still trying to avoid.

Right now my options are:
1) Dual boot (I don't want to install a 2nd hard-drive in this case).
2) Two computers, bring one out when my son wants to play.
3) WINE, which would require me to purchase a newer nVidia video card (and have to find one for an mATX case, etc).

I suppose I do have some space under my desk to dump the older computer, and it would allow us to control my son's Lego Star Wars fix...

[Slacky McSlackAss]

Updated (nearly 1 month):
So I ordered new parts and got pretty much a budget but decent new CPU (AMD X2 250, 4 GB Ram, Asus mATX motherboard (has Radeon integrated graphics). This thing has been running like a champ; went with Ubuntu 11.04 rather than Windows 7 (I also got a new hard-drive). This thing has been running like a champ.

The sad thing is that my son wants to play the latest Lego Star Wars game so I'm in a bit of a dilemma. My preference is not to be dual-booting off of 2 hard-drives, although it seems feasible and the easiest solution. Right now my plan was to have 2 computers and we'll take out the 2nd when he wants to play games... which my wife thought was ridiculous. I bought a new case (Cooler Master 343) for the old build (my spare motherboard is a mATX and I discovered it was functioning a couple weeks ago). Tonight when I went to install it my wife informed me that what I want to do was ridiculous (and its true; it is); and I should dual boot... which I'm still trying to avoid.

Right now my options are:
1) Dual boot (I don't want to install a 2nd hard-drive in this case).
2) Two computers, bring one out when my son wants to play.
3) WINE, which would require me to purchase a newer nVidia video card (and have to find one for an mATX case, etc).

I suppose I do have some space under my desk to dump the older computer, and it would allow us to control my son's Lego Star Wars fix...

Why not just partition the HDD off for Windows?

[Fergasun]

Hadn't thought of that. I've only got a 300W power supply, but it appears that is sufficient enough to power my system. I am a little worried about cooling in this case (Cooler Master Elite 343, micro ATX); it's under the desk... however just switching this into the mATX case from the ATX tower I had looks like it has dropped temperatures a bit (partially because it's in a little cubby in my desk).

I think I'lll just put the 2nd hard drive in and dual-boot them through grub... it's a win-win situtation... provided I'll be able to re-activate my Windows XP copy (which I think I can).