Motherboard troubleshooting help

[SXRguyinMA]

I posted this here for the exposure

The G1.Guerrilla board I've got has been acting flaky as of late. Once in a while when I'd try to turn the computer on it'd turn on for 2 seconds, then turn off for about 3 or 4, then just keep repeating over and over. I used the clear CMOS jumper and it's been fine since. Well I went to turn it on last night and had the same issue. Only this time nothing would fix it.

Thing I've tried:

• re-seating RAM
• re-seating CPU
• booting with only 1 stick of RAM (tried each one individually as well)
• swapping RAM positions
• swapping PSU's
• removing EVERYTHING except the 8-pin and 24-pin connectors, CPU and CPU heatsink

The only time I could get it to stay on was if I removed the 8-pin CPU power connector. The board wouldn't power back down, but obviously wouldn't POST either.

I've got a support ticket into Gigabyte as well, just haven't heard anything yet.

Any ideas as to whether it's the CPU or MB?

[crenn]

My money (if I had any) would be on the motherboard.

[SXRguyinMA]

That's what I was thinking. I did some Google searching on the problem and others with the same issue have RMA'd their boards and been fine afterwards. I'd rather PS a board back to Gigabyte than spend $30 in gas to drive ~1Hr each way to Microcenter to swap out processors

[TheMainMan]

Seeing as you've ruled out heatsink seating, I'd say it's the mobo too. I had a similar set of symptoms with one of my boards after jarring the cpu cooler off slightly while moving it. When the cpu hit its thermal cutoff it restarted. It seems to me that cpu failures outside of overclocking are quite rare compared to mobo failures.

[mDust]

7-8 years ago I bought a Dell XPS for school (digital animation major, a high end machine was necessary), a year later it started doing what you're describing. Then one day it wouldn't power on at all. It turned out to be bad capacitors.

Just look over the tops of all the capacitors. They should all be perfectly flat. If any are bulging...even a tiny bit...it's a sign that they are internally damaged and may not be functioning properly, if at all. If it's still under warranty then send it back. If not, replace the bulging caps with slightly higher voltage, but identical capacitance pieces.

[SXRguyinMA]

Thanks for the tip mDust, I was thinking maybe a bad cap as well, and with the setup on my HSPC tech station it'll be easy enough to look over, I'll have a look tonight.

[Twigsoffury]

Have you tried hitting it?

[SXRguyinMA]

lol no not yet. I checked the caps, they're all the solid style except for the ones for the audio which are supposedly super high quality audio caps, and they look fine anyways. Still haven't heard back from Gigabyte though....

[Twigsoffury]

lol no not yet. I checked the caps, they're all the solid style except for the ones for the audio which are supposedly super high quality audio caps, and they look fine anyways. Still haven't heard back from Gigabyte though....

I'd suggest removing the motherboard and pimping it with your strong hand.

experience says it'll work after that.

[Konrad]

Have you tried replacing the CMOS battery? Probably a $0.50 3.0V CR2032 coin cell.