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HELP!!!!! Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 caught on FIRE!!!

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I feel bad for your loss
I checked a few of your posts were your core temperatures are way over 90c just 2 days ago.
Many mb companies do not allow enough temperature lee-way on there mosfets design on there lower price products.
The bad area on your mb is were I always add a extra 70x15 fan just to help reduce my temps.
 
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Voltage settings were 1.42 vcore, system agent was at 1.05, QTT was 1.25 PLL was 1.900, had my memory set to 1.65 since it defaults it at 1.5.

Temperatures were only hitting 90 C in prime95, in games the max temps were ~75 C max.

Build:
Raidmax 630-Z
Intel i5 2500k
Patriot Sector 5 Viper 2 8GB 1600
Geforce GTX 560 TI
Seagate 1 TB HD

That's all that was in there, no CD/DVD-ROM drives or anything extra.

I was told to relax and stop torturing the CPU and I did. I was playing Call of Pripyat and the system shit off. I reached down and turned it back on and fire shit up.
 
90c is pretty high.

dont know much about raidmax but I would say maybe get a better psu before hooking the new board up.
 
Good advice, this Raidmax was kind of a Fry's Electronics "store brand" PSU.

Any advice on a good PSU for this setup (nothing like 10000W because I don't need that apparently).
 
The mosfets on my cheap asrock are less then half the size my of x58 or c2d mb.
No way would my mb last long at 1.45 at x50 at +80c.
If wanted to run at 5000hmz I would buy a good gigabyte or asus m4.which have better VRM power controls.
Not to long ago some of GeForce GTXs were blowing the low grade mosfets used on them.
Mosfets are rated somehow fow a certain temperature and power level.
Thats why you need to start with the best air cooling and a good ps.
 
Now that we now know the rest of the story and components involved, I wouldn't blame the motherboard too much for its fiery death.

First, too much vcore, too much memory voltage, POS power supply. Second, a piece of junk power supply I wouldn't let my worst enemy use.

You've been feeding the mb high voltages from a power supply that was giving power that was very dirty....the mb was trying to correct, or smooth out, the crap it was getting from your Raidmax, a power supply brand I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

While that Volcano was "rated" for 630W output, it was rated at max. output, not continuous, which a much more relevant spec. Max. output is misleading at best and a lie at worst, which is what Raidmax is using.....a lie.

That thing would have been lucky to get 350W out of it at full tilt, and its output would have been poorly controlled (the +12V output wouldn't have been anywhere near +12V and may have been what killed your motherboard), lots of ripple and noise (the electrical "distortion" created by the power supply's internal components as it makes power).

Intel has put out ATX specs for power supplies for years and they require a 5% voltage regulation on the +12V rail, the most impt. of the three voltage rails. Ripple and noise generation is spec'd to a max of 120mv.

That Raidmax would first have difficulty holding the voltage regulation at 1/4 of its rated output, never mind when it's approaching its max. output. Ripple/noise is also a huge challenge for them. I've seen testing at HardwareSecrets, among other sites, of Raidmax ps's that exceed ATX spec on both counts at less than half rated output.

And testing also shows the real max. output of Raidmax power supplies, like almost all other cheap power supplies, is more like half of what's printed on the label. So, your 630W power supply was more like a 350W, and at that point, it was at or exceeding ATX spec for voltage regulation and ripple/noise generation.

So, the motherboard's VRMs were trying to work with that and correct for it.....and lost.

You spent a good amount of money on your other components, why cheap on the power supply? It's one of the more critical components in the entire system. Go get a decent Antec or XFX or Corsair or Seasonic.
 
Oooh, okay. So after the cut-down (I mean run down) the Raidmax power supply was probably the problem? Or did I do something wrong?

I've had this power supply since my last build (Asus P5KC) and since it was "630" and I'm only using a GTX 460, I figured it would be good enough for this board. I had no idea the power supply was a piece of crap.

How was the memory voltage too high? It says in the damn manual that the voltage is 1.65 and the board defaults it at 1.5.

If I would have known that it wasn't a good power supply, I wouldn't have ever purchased it.

P.S. Please look at my other thread, I took the board back to Microcenter and they replaced it. Now when I power it up, it turns on and all the four lights turn on and nothing ever happens after that. That's where I'm standing right now.
 
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get a corsair 650w tx or a antec neo eco 620w

then try it agian if nothing then pull out a ram modual and try agian if that fails then cpu or ram or something else might have gotten damaged.
you also might be able to take it into microcenter and have them look at it if they offer that service.
 
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So just get a new power supply, put it in the new board and see if it powers up?

I'm trying to figure out if the new board is faulty or if my CPU died when the last one caught on fire.
 
its possible,although i ran a board once with no cpu and it displayed no cpu detected but im not sure if the new boards still do that. could check and see if the cpu is seated correctly but im sure thats probably not the issue.

might be good to have it checked out.
 
I think I already did that and nothing happened, it just stayed on.

I dunno what to do and now I'm being cut down because of a power supply that was no good. If I had a genie or a spiritual guider I would've bought a better power supply. Like a stone tablet that tells you "DONT GET THIS ONE".
 
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well try pulling a stick of ram out then turn it on and see if that does it its worked for me a few times.

btw what lights are on cpu,ram,gpu?
 
Yeah I've already tried the one stick RAM thing, its still doing the same thing.

The lights that are on are the four lights next to the RAM. There's four of them, green, greenish-yellow, light yellow, and dark yellow. They come on and just stay on, nothing else ever happens.

I think the motherboard guide says it's something about the cores. Usually they light up and it goes on through, now it's just sitting there with the lights on.
 
yeah take it in and have it looked at.

I had a similar prob with an asus p67 after turning on the epu and had to rma it and the second board worked fine so maybe the board is bad or somthing else.
 
you could also flash the cmos by moving the jumper on the bottom of the board and see if that fixes it.



Sorry this had to happen I know how bad it sucks i had to deal with it for a week
 
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Yeah I've pulled the battery out a couple of times.

What do you mean by have it checked out? Take it where? Just like, to some random computer repair guy? Or is there some secret place where I can have this stuff looked at?
 
a computer repair place, microcenter if they offer that service could call them and ask.

also could call gigabyte but im sure they will just tell you to send it in but they might try to trouble shoot it.

not secret place that im aware of.
 
Yeah I was just trying to figure the quickest way to have this checked out, and not necessarily have to pay MORE money on that since I'm already going to have to buy a new power supply before I do anything since I didn't have my genie lamp and my genie to tell me which power supply to buy.
 
btw do you have any other psus even a small one from another comp? you could pull the video card out and use the little psu to just power they system using the cpu/igp to see if it will boot.
 
I think I have a few 350W or something around there, but they don't have those extra four pins on the ATX connector. Or the 4/8 pin situation.

I've even powered this up with no RAM in it whatsoever and it still just sits there with the lights, by the way.

I don't think my CHEAP AS HELL Raidmax power supply went out, so it shouldn't have a problem powering this up.

I think this is purely either another faulty motherboard or my CPU fried.
 
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Oh right I forgot 1155 uses 8pin.

yeah just check with microcenter and see if they can check for damage or faulty board.
 
I think they're already suspicious of the last board I returned and got replaced with this one, it smelled like an electrical fire/rotten eggs/1986 when Chernobyl melted down. From the outside of the box. Like you could smell it thirty feet away.
 
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Yeah I'd be suspicious of you to bringing that in my store lol.

Just make sure the guy you returned it to isn't working when you go in then you should be fine.
 
At first I called them and told them about the fire, I asked if I could returned it and I was seriously told 'hell no, are you crazy?"

I cleaned that motherboard off, I took the black heatsink off and wiped all the scorch marks away as good as I could. Tried to clean the mosfet melted shit but it just felt apart, smelt worst, and I just don't wanna think about it.

I cleaned the board up and took it up to Microcenter, I told them the onboard audio stopped working. With this motherboard smelling like nuclear warfare. I even took the UPC off to get a rebate.

I get handed a brand new board. Now I'm left here with this shit that just turns on and doesn't do anything.
 
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