Motherboard troubles

[d3jake]

Well, yesterday I got a computer from a friend of mine. He said that it was prolly going to work, beyond that I dont' know much except that he had gotten pissed at it and had forcefully taken off the heat sink\\fan in a bad way (the little nub (not NuB Red_barchetta....) on one side of the CPU socket was all but worn off. So I cleaned up the parts a bit (evil dust!!) but, when I finally got a CPU HS+fan that would mount correctly, I plugged in a kb and attached a moniter, but no dice, it wouldn't even POST. THough I can tell you that the fans that are connected to teh board (PSU and CPU) were throttling up and down. The CPU I was trying to use is (according to the writing on it

Code: Select all

AMD Athlon^tm
AX1900dMT3C
AG0GA 0203CPDW
Y7592530209
(m) (c) 1999 AMD

(I would've looked up what it was but I\"m planning on heading to bed as soon as this gets posted.....)
And the MB is a Gigabyte GA-7DX+ Rev 1.0

I was told that it may be the CPU that was bad, so I swapped it out for a AMD 1800 MHz of some sort, I'm not sure what it is.... But still no dice.

Any ideas\\more info you guys need to help me maybe ressurect this mb?

[CDN_Merlin]

Any beep codes?
Can you get into the BIOS?
Have you tried a new power supply?
Make sure you have everything seated properly.
Try re-seating everything.
Did you apply thermal paster the the CPU? (not needed to test to see if it works but helps in long run.)

What do you mean the \"scoket was almost worn off\"?

[Krom]

Did you try the clear CMOS jumper and or removing the battery for 30 minutes? Is the bus speed jumper set properly?

[d3jake]

Any beep codes?

no, unless the systme speaker isn't connected properly which I doubt.

Can you get into the BIOS?

It doesn't boot that far, if I dont' have the power plugged into one of th vid cards I"m using (ATI Radeon 9600 Pro) it doesn't even complain that its not plugged in like its supposed to.

Have you tried a new power supply?

No, but I will I think there's an extra working one aorund here somewhere...

Make sure you have everything seated properly.
Try re-seating everything.
Did you apply thermal paster the the CPU? (not needed to test to see if it works but helps in long run.)

I always apply termal paste, because I"m terrified of burning out my CPU (and I know not to use to much)

What do you mean the "scoket was almost worn off"?

The little nub on one side of the cpu is all but worn off/

Did you try the clear CMOS jumper and or removing the battery for 30 minutes?

30 mins? I thought that you could just pop it out and that would clear it there, I didn't' leave it out for that long, but I will this time, and it doesn't' have a jumper that you can use to clear the BIOS, it has the spots on the mobo for it, but nothing was soldered there.

Is the bus speed jumper set properly?

Since the guy who I got this from doesn't like to overclock his comp, I"m assuming that he didn't mess with any of that.

EDIT: This board has some hookey "dual BIOS" setup according to the case that its in (and the sticker one one of the ic ships). But it seems that neither may be working...

[CDN_Merlin]

Does the MB have a single LED on it that is lit when the power cable is connected to it? If it doesn't light up then it's a MB issue. If it does but doesn't boot, could still be a MB but most liekly a CPU issue.

Check to make sure none of the power connectors are burnt.

[d3jake]

Power connectors aren't burnt, and the little light does come on, but only when trying to boot, The light is labeled \"DIMM LED\" Which leads me to believe that it means that the mem is okay.
I'm thinking that the issues was because my friend frefully took the CPU HS+fan off the socket, possibly damaging it, which would explain why neither CPU that I tried would work...

[CDN_Merlin]

That would be my guess also. he might of damaged the socket.

[Krom]

Most likely the board is shot and will have to be replaced. Once you try re-seating everything and clearing the cmos/removing the battery, different CPUs and PSUs and it still doesn't work it is a pretty safe bet the board itself is broken and can not be fixed outside of a factory.

I have an Epox nforce 2 board here that wouldn't POST no matter what you tried, and then I pushed and pulled around the AGP slot a bunch of times flexing the board, then it POSTed just fine for a while. I decided if that wasn't proof the board was defective I don't know what would be. I vowed to never buy another Epox board and bought an Abit NF7-S off ebay, that computer has been running perfectly smooth ever since.

[d3jake]

After leaving the battery out for what was probably a half hour, I fired it up, and the moniter came on like it was going to do something, but it (after a few seconds) shut off again.

[Krom]

IIRC the Dual BIOS thing is a Gigabyte feature, and the board might have a switch you press to reset BIOS instead of a jumper. Otherwise, take the battery out, and leave it out for a couple hours or even overnight and try again. But don't hold your breath, it probably won't do anything.

[MD-2389]

You can also just take the battery out and just short the terminal with a flat-head screwdriver. Does the same thing electrically as shorting the jumper.