Motherboard pretty much dead?

S

Shaman

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 17, 2006
Messages
501
At this point I'm pretty sure the motherboard is defective as I tried everything I could think of, but I would just like to get some confirmations before I go through the trouble of getting a replacement board off ebay.

This is an old socket A board with an athlon XP1800+ that was working fine until yesterday. The computer turns on, the fans spin etc, but there's no beeps or video signal either. I checked the diagnostic lights on the mobo, it indicates "The processor might be damage or not installed properly". I did the usual unplug everything, remove expansion cards, ram sticks, reset CMOS, try another video card etc but nothing helped. Then I tried another cpu, a 800mhz duron, the behaviour remained the same.

I also put a thermal probe on the bare cpu core (without heatsink) as a short test with my finger on the power button in case it shot past 50ºC quickly, but the temperature barely went above 23ºC (18ºC ambient temperature).

An interesting thing to note is that the hard drive will only power up when the ata cable is disconnected from the mobo.

I'm thinking the VRM's are defective and so the cpu isn't getting any juice and that I can just get a used board off ebay and make this system last a bit longer. Am I right on this assumption or would any of you have any reasons to suspect something else?

Thanks.
 
Look at the capacitors, make sure that they did not bleed, most common failure AFAIK

Unplugg ram, see if it powers up.

unplug CPU see if it powers up.

Check with another stick or RAM

check with another CPU.

or bring the mobo to your friends place and see if it powers up.
 
As you were able to read in my post, the computer does power up. I also removed the ram and tried another cpu, among many other things.

I don't see any capacitors bleeding, but there's two capacitors bellow the northbridge that look a little bit bloated on top, but I think they've been like that for a long time.
 
when i said see if it powers up, i meant the motherboard..
does the CPU fan work? (you mention a fan, not sure if this fan)
it is usually plugged into the motherboard.

some mobos come with a spare fan plug, plug the fan into that one also.

but yes, you need to be able to test each component separately to see if it will work.
not much of an advise, and it sounds like you did a number of things already.

sorry, not really easy to diagnose without replacement parts.

the one hint is the diagnostic display you mentioned.

call up the manufacturer or go on to their tech support site (forum) and ask them what exactly does it mean..
 
Yes the motherboard powers up, the fans that I mentioned are plugged in to the mobo fan headers. The power led also lights up. It's just that the cpu area seems to be 'dead' seeing as the cpu doesn't heat up. It's not a bad processor either because I tried another known working cpu.

Might as well try my luck with a used board, they're so cheap it's silly.
 
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