Motherboard dead?

[lefenzy]

Hi. I would appreciate some confirmation of my troubleshooting.

I have a rather old desktop running Athlon 64 X2 on Socket 939 nForce 4 ultra (the motherboard is this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813186037).

One day, after shutting down the computer, I found that the computer wouldn't turn on: I press the power button, and there's no response. No fans, no sound. Nothing.

- I tested the power switch using a multimeter and found that it works properly
- I tried to short out the power switch jumper to turn on the computer manually, and nothing happened.
- I tried CMOS reset to no effect
- I unplugged the motherboard ATX connector and detected a 5V standby voltage
- I shorted out the proper pins on the ATX connector, and the computer fans, power supply fan, and hard drives started spinning
- Multimeter showed proper voltages 12V and 5V when a molex connector was tested.

Is my motherboard dead? This problem happened once or twice before: the computer didn't turn on, but after waiting a while, then computer could be turned on again.

The CPU, memory, and graphics card should be good. In fact, I had upgrade the CPU and memory just half a year ago. A wasted investment now?

Finding a socket 939 board is going to be a pain. Any suggestions if the motherboard is indeed the problem?

 

[Ketchup]

Nice testing work. I am not too familiar with testing the power switch, but it does sound like a motherboard problem to me.

I would try eBay. Something like this should work, and not require a Windows re-install.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asus-A8NE-F...171742163?pt=Motherboards&hash=item337edcf5d3

 

[MontyAC]

Looks like your motherboard died if you don't get power by shorting the board's power jumpers.

 

[Dragonslayer999]

1. Make sure 24pin connector to motherboard is plug in and it is not loose. Same thing for your 4 pin CPU
2. Put in another power supply (or borrow from another computer). By doing step 1 and 2, I think you can very much confirm whether MB is dead or your power supply is bad.
3. If your MB is bad, ebay selling around 40 to 60. Not sure if you want to spend that much on used MB on old platform. I think you should look at intel 1155 or AMD motherboard. Even intel celeron G530 $50 is comparable to intel 8400 3GHz. Another $70 for both MB and 4 gig memory.

 

[SaurusX]

This situation is eerily similar to my situation that came up today. I built a new main rig a week and a half ago, but decided to plug in my old machine today to pull across some files that I missed. Halfway through Windows XP's boot process it froze up, so I held down the power button to turn it off again. Now nothing will get it to turn on.

I tested the PSU with a tester and the it comes back all green. In fact, when the 12v and 5v are plugged into the tester the system fans spin up, but when plugged into the motherboard nothing happens. My final thought before giving up was that it was the motherboard, but there's still a green led on the board that lights up when the power is plugged in leaving that last remnant of doubt.

Like I said, eerily similar. I guess I upgraded at just the right time.

 

[mfenn]

It does sound like the motherboard is bad, though there is an outside chance that it is the power supply. Even if the power supply spins up and shows voltage, that doesn't meant that it can actually handle a real load. That's unlikely though, and it's most likely the motherboard.

I took a quick glance around Ebay for Nforce4 boards and man they are steep. I wouldn't pay $60 for one when $120 gets me an H61 board, G530, and 4GB of DDR3.

 

[Ketchup]

It does sound like the motherboard is bad, though there is an outside chance that it is the power supply. Even if the power supply spins up and shows voltage, that doesn't meant that it can actually handle a real load. That's unlikely though, and it's most likely the motherboard.

I took a quick glance around Ebay for Nforce4 boards and man they are steep. I wouldn't pay $60 for one when $120 gets me an H61 board, G530, and 4GB of DDR3.

The one I linked ended at $30. Wouldn't have been too bad. But I agree with you mfenn, a very good reason to do some upgrading, if money allows.

 

[bryanl]

- Multimeter showed proper voltages 12V and 5V when a molex connector was tested.

What about the 3.3V (orange wires)? The motherboard needs it.

 

[lefenzy]

I'll take a look at 3.3 V as well.

But I already ordered a motherboard through eBay $60 for A8N-E with nForce 4 ultra. I'm hoping it'll save me the trouble of reinstalling the operating system since the chipset is the same. I won't know until I try.

It's pretty remarkable a whole system can be had for $120 that'll perform much better and cooler than a Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (and I hadn't considered it), but 120$ is still twice 60$. I could certainly recoup that cost by selling the older components on eBay, but doing the photos, listing, and shipping does take an investment of time.

I'll be able to dust out the case reassembling everything.