MB heats up even when its not on and won't post?

B

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Limp Gawd
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Jun 4, 2004
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I have a friend whos Gigabyte nforce3 skt939 board will not post. We are trying to figure out if its the MB, PS, or CPU causing the problems. The system is stripped down to these three things for testing.
Im guessing its the MB since it starts heating up before he even turns it on. Just by flipping the switch on the PS, the MB gets too hot to hold a finger on.
I just hope somone can tell me this is normal or bad so he dosen't buy a new board for nothing. The PS has been swaped with a new one already.
system:
939 3500+
gigabyte MB
enermax 350 (atx 1.0) and enermax 485 (atx 2.0)
 
Thanks for reply. When he had some memory installed it did the same thing. I will swap some of my memory in there to see if that helps.
I thought I should be able to get some sighns of life even without ram plugged in. Well it still does absolutly nothing but get hot.
 
The only way it could be getting hot without turning on is if the 5VSB rail is some how shorted to ground. It's the only active rail when the AC is turned on. I'd throw a multi-meter on that rail and check it. It's also possible that the board is hot starting: starting with out hitting the power-on button. If so, it could be something else is shorted and heating up the board. If you have a multimeter you can check the PS_ON# signal on the PSU connector. If it's low (less than 0.800V) the board is trying to turn on, and the PSU is driving all rails.

BTW, testing without memory is a great way to check for BIOS code execution. If you get beeps, you know the BIOS is working most of the way. Put the memory in and the next set of beeps would be for a missing video card. Another good execution point to check for.

In any case, it's not good. I'd return the board, or get a new one.
 
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