Question Is my motherboard the problem?

[Howard Benson]

My computer has been acting very strange for the past few days and I would like to know what's actually going on.

Specs:
mobo: Gigabyte 970A-DS3P FX
CPU: AMD FX 8350
GPU: GTX 1050ti and a GT 710 for second monitor
PSU: Corsair VS 600
16GB DDR3 ram
WD Blue 1TB hard drive

I've had this setup for almost exactly 2 years now, and the only problem I've had was when I first built it it wouldn't post for an hour, and then it did and never gave me problems.

What's been happening started three days ago, when I was playing For Honor, my computer suddenly turned off and restarted (no warning.) For the rest of the day, it would restart from 5-60 minutes after I turned it on. I figured I should reset windows, so I did a hard reset, in which the computer shut off mid wipe of the hard drive and, while it and all its components would turn on, it would not post. I posted a question to the Windows 10 board, where it was recommended I take out my wifi adapter card, and I did, and the problems was solved. I finished the wipe and redownloaded all my stuff through Ethernet, and the next day downloaded some games with no problems. Today I was playing Stalker shadow of Chernobyl, a significantly older game that was a breeze for my PC, and it suddenly crashed and restarted with no warning again. It only did this again once after rebooting it and now it's back to not posting at all. I have tried several things to see what was causing the issue:

Took out each gpu and tested them individually
Took out both gpus (in hindsight this was kind of a dumb test but I'm rather computer illiterate)
Put the wifi adapter card back in (when it didn't work, I took it out again)
Changed ram slots and tested each ram
Changed the power slots (on the mobo) my system fans were in
Checked my cpu for damage and applied new thermal paste

None of these solved the issue, so I'm thinking it's possibly the motherboard, but I'm broke and can't afford a new one so I'd rather be sure than spend the money now. I'm confused because the issue seemed to solve itself two days ago but now it's broken again. Help would be appreciated.

 

[jojesa]

It could be a motherboard issue but it could be the PSU.
If you can get another PSU to rule out your PSU.

 

[Howard Benson]

It could be a motherboard issue but it could be the PSU.
If you can get another PSU to rule out your PSU.

The PSU is actually not even a year old at this point I forgot to mention that so it seems unlikely. For some reason changing the motherboard to hard drive connector got it to post but it has since done the restart thing but was able to post again. I noticed that the connector didn't click into the hard drive like it did the the motherboard so maybe it's the connector getting loose or something? That would honestly be a lot better than the motherboard because I have an SSD arriving in the mail tomorrow.

 

[60frames]

The PSU is actually not even a year old at this point I forgot to mention that so it seems unlikely. For some reason changing the motherboard to hard drive connector got it to post but it has since done the restart thing but was able to post again. I noticed that the connector didn't click into the hard drive like it did the the motherboard so maybe it's the connector getting loose or something? That would honestly be a lot better than the motherboard because I have an SSD arriving in the mail tomorrow.

You are not the only one with that kind of problem. I too have a AB350M GAMING 3 board which often behaves in exactly the same way and I solved it by changing ports as you did. I updated my BIOS and set it to load optimized defaults and now my board seems to be running correctly. Maybe you can also try this. At this point I think that one should never ever go with Gigabyte unless they are willing to pay for the aorus series of board. I mean that Gigabyte budget end boards are ALL trash. Also if this does not solve your problem then reset the CMOS.
I recommend you look for another board of same series from some other company.

 

[Howard Benson]

You are not the only one with that kind of problem. I too have a AB350M GAMING 3 board which often behaves in exactly the same way and I solved it by changing ports as you did. I updated my BIOS and set it to load optimized defaults and now my board seems to be running correctly. Maybe you can also try this. At this point I think that one should never ever go with Gigabyte unless they are willing to pay for the aorus series of board. I mean that Gigabyte budget end boards are ALL trash. Also if this does not solve your problem then reset the CMOS.
I recommend you look for another board of same series from some other company.

How do I reset the CMOS? Sorry I'm not a computer person so I don't even know what that is.

 

[DSzymborski]

Page 13 of your manual goes into how to reset the CMOS.

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-970a-ds3p_e.pdf

There are a number of things that could be the problem here. Temperatures are one thing; reading an FX CPU is a bit dicey, so using AMD OverDrive and checking the Thermal Margin is recommended (you want the number to be well above 0).

It could also be your motherboard starting to die. Budget AM3+ motherboards tend to be a very poor choice with one of the 125W CPUs, even though technically supported. They generally have anemic VRM configurations and will frequently simply work themselves to death over time. This is very old equipment at this point.

And yes, it wouldn't be shocking at all if it were your PSU. Assuming this is a newer Corsair VS (which it would be if the 600W is accurate), it's no longer a terrible PSU, but it's still not great quality and any PSU can fail at any time.

 

[Howard Benson]

Page 13 of your manual goes into how to reset the CMOS.

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-970a-ds3p_e.pdf

There are a number of things that could be the problem here. Temperatures are one thing; reading an FX CPU is a bit dicey, so using AMD OverDrive and checking the Thermal Margin is recommended (you want the number to be well above 0).

It could also be your motherboard starting to die. Budget AM3+ motherboards tend to be a very poor choice with one of the 125W CPUs, even though technically supported. They generally have anemic VRM configurations and will frequently simply work themselves to death over time. This is very old equipment at this point.

And yes, it wouldn't be shocking at all if it were your PSU. Assuming this is a newer Corsair VS (which it would be if the 600W is accurate), it's no longer a terrible PSU, but it's still not great quality and any PSU can fail at any time.

Yeah I reset the CMOS and the computer restarted when I clicked out of a discord window (all I had done at that point was set some keybinds and set up icue) so at this point I'm probably just going to have to buy a new motherboard. At this point I'm just glad to know what's wrong.

 

[Howard Benson]

Yeah I reset the CMOS and the computer restarted when I clicked out of a discord window (all I had done at that point was set some keybinds and set up icue) so at this point I'm probably just going to have to buy a new motherboard. At this point I'm just glad to know what's wrong.

One thing I've noticed is that this almost always happens when I click my mouse. Odd.