Question Dead CPU or Motherboard

[Taranis00]

My friend's pc gave a bluescreen numerous times, about two weeks ago. Now the thing does not even post anymore. All fans are spinning, (GPU, CPU, and case). (edit) The USB ports do have power.

I have tried switching the ram sticks around, I have tried removing the GPU and other components not necessary to post, I have tried removing the CMOS battery and discharging the system, I have tried different GPU's, basically everything that I could find on the internet.

I am pretty sure that either the motherboard or the CPU must be broken in some way, but I have no idea which. The CPU is an old fx-6300 (that has had some overheating problems in the past), and I don't have any other AM3+ motherboards lying around to test the CPU itself.

My question is, which component is more likely to be the culprit? The MSI 970A G43 motherboard, or the fx-6300 CPU? I want to fix the pc, but obviously I don't want to rebuy a part that wasn't broken.

 

[jay32267]

"My question is, which component is more likely to be the culprit? "
Motherboard.
In general....MBs are more fragile than CPUs.

 

[madmatt30]

Psu should be first port of call, a bad 12v line can cause all these issues.

That said the g43 is absolutely one of the worst quality boards around.

 

[Turtle Rig]

Seems like the PSU gave out. Could be the RAM but I would say PSU first then RAM and I sorta doubt its the video card or CPU. When he powers on the machine he needs to look inside case for red lights. THere is one for CPU and one for RAM...... get back..

 

[Taranis00]

look inside case for red lights. THere is one for CPU and one for RAM...

There are no such lights on the motherboard, but I don't think this motherboard has them. It would be strange if both RAM sticks failed at the same time right?

 

[Taranis00]

Psu should be first port of call, a bad 12v line can cause all these issues.

That said the g43 is absolutely one of the worst quality boards around.

Yeah I know, the board is absolute trash. The PSU is a coolermaster 500W, I always found coolermaster PSU's to be reliable, but maybe you're right. Since this is not a modular PSU, I can maybe switch around some unused cables to try if I can replace the dead one by accident. I should expect the CPU power connector to be the one causing the issue right?

 

[madmatt30]

Yeah I know, the board is absolute trash. The PSU is a coolermaster 500W, I always found coolermaster PSU's to be reliable, but maybe you're right. Since this is not a modular PSU, I can maybe switch around some unused cables to try if I can replace the dead one by accident. I should expect the CPU power connector to be the one causing the issue right?

There is no decent coolermaster 500w model.

A 12v rail is a 12v rail, the problem wont be with a single 12v connector, it will be with the whole 12v output.

You need to try a completely different confirmed 100% working psu on that system to troubleshoot properly.

 

[Taranis00]

There is no decent coolermaster 500w model.

A 12v rail is a 12v rail, the problem wont be with a single 12v connector, it will be with the whole 12v output.

You need to try a completely different confirmed 100% working psu on that system to troubleshoot properly.

Right, thank you, I will look into it. Seems like I got to find myself a PSU

 

[Turtle Rig]

Seems like the ampage on the 12-volt rail is not enough you would want a 550 watt EVGA G5 550w and that would do the job and I doubt honestly that it's any other components I think it's coming from the CPU especially if the RAM let red light or the CPU red light doesn't come on that means the motherboard is fine the CPU is fine and the RAM is fine.

 

[madmatt30]

Seems like the ampage on the 12-volt rail is not enough you would want a 550 watt EVGA G5 550w and that would do the job and I doubt honestly that it's any other components I think it's coming from the CPU especially if the RAM let red light or the CPU red light doesn't come on that means the motherboard is fine the CPU is fine and the RAM is fine.

There are no error led's on the g43, its a very old and very basic board.

 

[Turtle Rig]

There are no error led's on the g43, its a very old and very basic board.

So once again if the computer turns on the fan spin and it turns off then definitely there's something going on I think that it's most probably the RAM because you don't have experience with this and usually when it turns on and it turns off you know the CPU is okay the graphics card is okay The power supplies enough to be able to power it on so the problem is the RAM so we need to troubleshoot that and fix that.

 

[Taranis00]

So once again if the computer turns on the fan spin and it turns off then definitely there's something going on I think that it's most probably the RAM because you don't have experience with this and usually when it turns on and it turns off you know the CPU is okay the graphics card is okay The power supplies enough to be able to power it on so the problem is the RAM so we need to troubleshoot that and fix that.

Yeah so the fans spin fine, and the pc lights do light up. (Again there's no actual indicator LED's on the case either, but it has some cosmetic lighting.) But it does not turn off out of itself. I have to manually hold the power button down to turn the pc off, it's not like it tries to boot and then decides to shutdown.

Also this pc has two sticks of DDR3, and I tried all possible combinations in different slots to no avail. In fact, if I try to boot without any ram installed, nothing changes. In all cases PC does not even post, and I don't think it even gets to the point where it detects what hardware is installed. It will just keep running all fans on max speed, and that's basically it.

 

[Taranis00]

There is no decent coolermaster 500w model.

A 12v rail is a 12v rail, the problem wont be with a single 12v connector, it will be with the whole 12v output.

You need to try a completely different confirmed 100% working psu on that system to troubleshoot properly.

Tomorrow I'll try to salvage an old PSU from an unused pc at work, and try it with that. The motherboard also does not have a speaker, so I hope to find one of those as well, hopefully that will help with debugging, assuming there will be beeps if a 12V rail is the problem.

 

[Turtle Rig]

It could be the PSU but I honestly think that you know the RAM could be bad or possibly the socket on the motherboard so it's between those two your CPU and GPU and all that that's fine so we'll see what happens.

 

[Taranis00]

There is no decent coolermaster 500w model.

A 12v rail is a 12v rail, the problem wont be with a single 12v connector, it will be with the whole 12v output.

You need to try a completely different confirmed 100% working psu on that system to troubleshoot properly.

Okay I tried to boot with the power supply of an ancient Dell pc I found. (Yes these PSU's are possibly the worst I've ever seen, but I knew it would work since that Dell pc worked fine.)

The exact same thing happened, I know the Wattage was definitely enough. To be entirely sure that it was not the PSU, I connected the PSU that we presumed was the problem to the Dell mobo and cpu, and it booted up perfectly fine.

So all I can conclude from this is that the PSU is working, and that it's either RAM, CPU, or motherboard.