I'm wondering if my motherboard has died

[csiebester]

Hey Guys
My custom build is on the frits and I'm not sure why or what to do next. I'm thinking that my motherboard may be dying but I'm not certain.

I normally leave my computer on continuously and it was running great Friday. I came home from a weekend trip Sunday night and my computer has been on the fritz ever since. When I arrived home my computer had restarted and had installed a windows update. It was running so slowly that each frame of the animation that occurs when a window opens or closed was clearly discernible.

I rebooted hoping that the problem would go away but my computer wouldn’t start after it shutdown. I first tried completely cutting power to wipe the ram and that didn’t help. It wouldn’t even reboot from a windows cd or a linux live cd without manual input even though CD is set as the highest boot priority. I had to go into the Bios and tell it to boot the CD and also found that the bios was laggy as hell. After trying and failing a boot repair and system restore, I tried to reinstall windows on my SSD and found out that my computer doesn’t recognize that the SSD is connected if it is plugged into either of the main SATA6 ports from which bootable drives are supposed to connect. I have since discovered that the drive is not recognized at all when running a linux live cd (Ubuntu 10). However the computer (running linux live) does recognize my data drive connected to either of those same SATA6 pots and also it does recognizes the SSD when it is connected via one of the SATA3 ports. However the computer does not recognize the SSD drive as being bootable when connected to any of the ports even the SATA3 from whence it can be read. Without a bootable CD the MB boot light comes on

I'm not sure what’s wrong or what do to do now and I would greatly appreciate suggestions.


CPU___________Intel Core i5 3570K Boxed 3.4GHz Unlocked 3rd Generation Processor
Motherboard____Asus P8Z77-V Intel Z77 LGA1155
Video Cards_____ SAPPHIRE 100352-2L Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-Bit
RAM___________G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24
Optical Drive____Asus 12x OEM Blu-Ray Writer
PSU___________Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750M High Performance 750W Power Supply
Boot HD_______120GB MonsterDigital SSD, 550 read speed, 515 write speed
File HD_________Seagate Barracuda STBD2000101 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
OS____________Windows 7 pro 64

 

[junkeymonkey]

seeing you left it on and and were gone for the weekend you'll never know lighting, power surge, if the internet seemingly left on cause it downloaded so a hack attack. malware download dude that was silly to do.

 

[Tradesman1]

Try booting into Safe Mode and see how it runs...if OK then it might be Malware or a Driver problem, check date and time - if way off reset date time and may want to grab a new CMOS battery - was it OCed? Is it now? Check that DRAM is set correctly

 

[csiebester]

seeing you left it on and and were gone for the weekend you'll never know lighting, power surge, if the internet seemingly left on cause it downloaded so a hack attack. malware download dude that was silly to do.

There was no power surge. At least not enough to turn off any of the electrical appliances or be noticed by my roommates, the computer and everything connected to it are plugged in through a surge protector, and I live somewhere with almost no lightning storms (I know there weren't any over the weekend from the roommates). Also I had a CS teacher who intentionally left on all the computers in lab to avoid the power spike that occurs when you turn the computer on and my university IT guy leaves all the lab computers on as well so I don't worry about it.
As for malware, I suppose it's possible my computer was attacked over the weekend but that could happen any time though I am running a Windows firewall, Avast, and Adware so I don't think I could have protected myself any better.

If you have something constructive to add as to how I should determine what's wrong please share. If you just want to tell me I'm an idiot for leaving my computer on then please don't.

 

[junkeymonkey]

I guess the school teacher don't pay the power bill.. but I turn mine off and on a lot for years ,but..... look at what tradesman said and also whatever installed wile you were gone remove it [windows updates included] and see some windows updates can cause these things that's why I disable it and not let it check or download them automatically. bill don't like me to do that but ,too bad

 

[Tradesman1]

I guess the school teacher don't pay the power bill.. but I turn mine off and on a lot for years ,but..... look at what tradesman said and also whatever installed wile you were gone remove it [windows updates included] and see some windows updates can cause these things that's why I disable it and not let it check or download them automatically. bill don't like me to do that but ,too bad

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Betting these teachers have tenure and 'learned' computers back in the 80s-90s - the power on thing went by the wayside about 15-20 years ago Can't even remember last time I heard that come up

 

[junkeymonkey]

it helps keep the high cost of collage high

 

[Tradesman1]

Yep, my son got one of his degrees in CS and think he spent time every semester with some of the Professors explaining to them how computers work today, I got involved with about 3 of them and 2 still call me with questions even today (4 years later)

 

[csiebester]

Ok so I cleared the CMOS Memory, and I fresh installed windows from CD on the SSD by deleting the old partition and creating a new one. I think the CMOS battery is ok because the computer still knows the date and time. The computer is now running but it's still acting strangely.

When I plug the SSD into the SATA3 port it boots up in 32 seconds.
When I plug the SSD into the SATA6 port it boots up in 82 seconds
When I first built it, it started in 8 seconds with the SSD plugged into the SATA6 port.

Once booted the computer seems to be snappy but that's with nothing happening. I have yet to update the drivers.

 

[Tradesman1]

Generally you want the SSD (OS disk) in the 1st or primary SATA port

 

[csiebester]

Generally you want the SSD (OS disk) in the 1st or primary SATA port

The motherboard has 4 SATA6 and 4 SATA3 ports and I tried both the first and second SATA6 ports but they were both very slow compared to the SATA3 port where it is currently plugged in.

 

[Tradesman1]

Do you have the latest mobo drivers and BIOS

 

[junkeymonkey]

well weather old or new bios or drivers if its a fresh install like its back to were it was when it was first built you would think that things would show more toward ''normal'' you cleared cmso-- set bios to opt. default and set up a clean drive [ in the primary sata controller port 0 or 1 depending on your board ]and then a fresh install of windows. with that you still got an issue? I know tradesman spoke of using the ssd. for the os but you may try a std. plate type hdd to see if the ssd is not faulty to. oh and unhook the internet wile this is going on .

 

[westom]

The motherboard has 4 SATA6 and 4 SATA3 ports and I tried both the first and second SATA6 ports but they were both very slow compared to the SATA3 port where it is currently plugged in.

Most failures are manufacturing defects. Normal is for a defective part to work even for years - and then cause a failure. Also normal is for a surge to be incoming to all appliances. But due to an adjacent protector, find a best and destructive path through that computer. Examples of why your suspicions do not include all possibliities and only assume others cannot happen.

Your problem is exactly why some better manufacturers provide comprehensive hardware diagnostics. Executing diagnostics (without Windows) means looking at one half of a system without the other part. Good diagnostic procedure does this - draw a line between two parts. Then test only one half. For example, test hardware without the Operating system.

Apparently your machine does not provide such useful support. Good diagnostic procedure also says to collect all facts before making any changes. For exampe, what did the system 'event' logs reports. An OS will see a defect, work around it, and record that problem in logs. So that you can discover and fix them maybe a month later. What are the values of critical voltages? Not good or bad. What exactly are the values?

Your syptoms are classic of a peripheral with a stuck interrpt pin. Constant interrupts means hardware does not have enough time to process other tasks. This is one possible reason. I can name at least 50 more because provided symptoms are only subjective.

Other simple tests (to attempt to do what comprehensive diagnostics would have done beter) include trying to boot hardware only with DOS. Or download and execute diagnostics for each peripheral. For example, every disk drive manufacturer has hardware diagnostics for free. Available from their web site or from other third parties. A test only talking to the disk drive reports what facts? Those third party sources often have other diagnostics useful for other peripherals.

Long before trying to fix a problem; first identify that problem. if you do not know how to do that, then ask. Trying to fix a problem only on speculation tends to complicate the problems while also confusing you. Collect facts before accusing a suspect.

BTW, software (ie drivers, BIOS) did not suddenly go bad. Blaming a failure on older software that was working just fine is nonsense. Don't let that erroneous speculation confuse you.