[SOLVED] Fast clicking coming from board. Help

[Moribund]

I changed all peripherals except the board and CPU. Changed 3 PSUs. 5 video cards. 2 SSD. 4 RAM sticks. 3 network cards. Disconnected all fans. Changed cpu fan. So I know this rattle like snake is coming from board. Stethoscope localises it to near CPU, variable voltage modules and RAM. When it happens OS fails to boot. If I unplug and wait 20 minutes then power on it boots OS no problem. But when the rattler sound starts : no boot. Black screen with flashing hyphen. Please, tell me what can possibly make that sound on the board itself (no, not speaker either). Is the board dying? Grateful for advice.

 

[Moribund]

I changed all peripherals except the board. And CPU. Changed 3 PSUs. 5 video cards. 2 SSD. 4 RAM sticks. 3 network cards. Disconnected all fans. Changed cpu fan. So I know this rattle like snake is coming from board. Stethoscope localises it to near CPU, VRM and RAM area. When it happens OS fails to boot. If I unplug and wait 20 minutes then power on it boots OS no problem. But when the rattler sound starts : no boot. Black screen with flashing hyphen. Please, tell me what can possibly make that sound on the board itself (no, not speaker either). Is the board dying? Grateful for advice.

 

[Lutfij]

You're going to have to list your specs so we can understand what you're dealing with. Please include/list your specs like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
GPU:
PSU:
OS:

Given how you've also swapped out parts, list them as well, indicating how you moved from one to the next. Ideally X>Y>Z.

You might also want to include the age of the PSU and if the platform is/was under any overclock or stress(like mining). Also, check and see which BIOS version you're on for the motherboard.

 

[dorsai]

I changed all peripherals except the board and CPU. Changed 3 PSUs. 5 video cards. 2 SSD. 4 RAM sticks. 3 network cards. Disconnected all fans. Changed cpu fan. So I know this rattle like snake is coming from board. Stethoscope localises it to near CPU, variable voltage modules and RAM. When it happens OS fails to boot. If I unplug and wait 20 minutes then power on it boots OS no problem. But when the rattler sound starts : no boot. Black screen with flashing hyphen. Please, tell me what can possibly make that sound on the board itself (no, not speaker either). Is the board dying? Grateful for advice.

It sounds like you've eliminated everything but the cpu and motherboard...it's unlikely the cpu could make any noise other than a short whine and pop with accompanying smell as it burns out...so the motherboard being defective is the most likely issue.

 

[Moribund]

It sounds like you've eliminated everything but the cpu and motherboard...it's unlikely the cpu could make any noise other than a short whine and pop with accompanying smell as it burns out...so the motherboard being defective is the most likely issue.

The board posts though. Even when it makes that sound. And intermittently boots the system. I'll make a video maybe someone will recognise the sound?

It sounds like you've eliminated everything but the cpu and motherboard...it's unlikely the cpu could make any noise other than a short whine and pop with accompanying smell as it burns out...so the motherboard being defective is the most likely issue.

Ok. this is hilarious. I could have sworn my board has no speaker. Apparently it was UNDER the board between the board and the case, - wires connecting to the top. I removed the entire thing. I thought I was losing my mind!! The noises were indeed coming from the speaker. It makes clicking sounds intermittently and whenever it does - I get the "error reading the drive" message. Now. I know it cannot be the Samsung EVO SSD since I swapped it with other drives only to get the same message. And I swapped every other peripheral including RAM. I already cleared CMOS (goodbye overclocking setup) and I still get the same thing. BIOS is doing fine - board boots into BIOS each time - there is a post. It's the OS (Windows 7 64-bit it intermittently fails to load citing "drive error" regardless of which drive I put in it (I already cloned the drive and even tried re-installing only to get the same issue on installation reboot.

Now I really appreciate the help guys, but I honestly think listing every peripheral I swapped in exact order is tedious and frankly, unnecessary to get to the bottom. Not to mention I don't remember the order of swapping correctly to begin with, human memory is nearly half - a confabulation, as I know from my Loftus Studies (I have a Cognitive/Behavioural science educational background).

This is a very old board (GA-890XA-UD3 with AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE CPU. SSD 840 EVO (Samsung). 16 GB Corsair Vengeance (Swapped with Patriot 8 GB, and others at 1600 and 1800 MhZ) and a Corsair 650 Watt modular PSU - way more power than I need. Video card is Radeon 6900 series (then of course I swapped it with two others....

OK. So basically I tried pretty much everything. I read it in another thread on Tom's Hardware that one person found the similar problem occurred because his CPU wasn't seated properly. So... What do you think? The only thing left to try? Makes sense? If it's not that - then what? The board is fried? What's your opinion?

 

[Moribund]

You're going to have to list your specs so we can understand what you're dealing with. Please include/list your specs like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
GPU:
PSU:
OS:

Given how you've also swapped out parts, list them as well, indicating how you moved from one to the next. Ideally X>Y>Z.

You might also want to include the age of the PSU and if the platform is/was under any overclock or stress(like mining). Also, check and see which BIOS version you're on for the motherboard.

I posted my specs as well as update. What's your opinion on this Reseat CPU? If not- the board is fried?

Gosh... I hate intermittent problems. I prefer the problems to occur every time, so it's easier to pinpoint. Right now I'm using the very OS on that same board to type this up, and everything works just fine (until the next time I need to reboot that is, then it will give me error 19 times out of 20). (Disconnecting speaker doesn't help BTW). Age of the PSU doesn't matter either. I just connected brand new Corsair 750 Watt PSU this morning without any luck.

Another observation that may or may not be helpful: What seems to work is turning off the PSU for about 5 minutes and pressing power switch to drain excess static (de-gaussing the board basically). After this - it usually boots the system OK despite the clicking. Which only gives me more conviction that the board is fried. I'd throw it out and buy a new PC with i5/i7 CPU except I'm not exactly very wealthy at the moment.

 

[Moribund]

Well... since no follow up and no advice, - I re-seated the CPU and wasteв more liquid metal cooling paste on it which didn't even bring the temps down significantly. Looks like the paste under the heat shield has dried and the CPU needs to be scalped in order to cool down below 50 C at idle. (Which I'm not doing because the CPU is pretty much obsolete). Did re-seating the CPU fix the problem? Yes, if you consider the board now intermittently failing to power up and only powering up once every 50 tries - significant progress. That and sometimes the board not seeing drives when you connect them via SATA and hit refresh in the Device Manager. Basically - when I do that - the whole screen goes black then white, then crtrl+alt+ delete results in an error and the whole system just hangs. So I turn it off via holding power button only to get the same thing (board only turning on on the 40th or 50th try, after you unplug and plug back power cord after waiting a minute, after which it loads OS no problem. Needless to say at this point I'm just mad and exhausted and feel silly for even bothering to make a thread or ask for advice. Think at this point I should be giving advice to others. Like "just toss the board into the dumpster and go and get a new one" every time you get this sort of intermittent problem that takes two nights to solve ))))

 

[Deleted member 14196]

You should seriously consider ditching that whole system and getting a new one. My sons friend just built a PC for under $400 and it’s a nice little gaming box he plays Battlefield on

 

[Moribund]

You should seriously consider ditching that whole system and getting a new one. My sons friend just built a PC for under $400 and it’s a nice little gaming box he plays Battlefield on

I am. I will post my shopping cart at Newegg for advice. Making sure I didn't overlook anything