Please help with motherboard issue

[spikesnet]

For the last few months my PC has been freezing up when left idle. It was happening once a day and then worked its way to every 10 mins, idle or not yesterday. I took it outside and used a can of air to clean out all of the dust and I replaced a dead case fan.

I then hooked it all back up and now when I boot the computer it freezes at the first screen just after displaying bios version, cpu and memory. I noticed the CPU was reporting as 1.8 rather then 2.4 so I tried going into the bios to correct it on the times when it would allow me to get that far. Once in the bios the whole thing freezes and requires and powercycle.

I believe this means my motherboard is bad. I have an ABIT BD7II-RAID motherboard. I'm using the onboard IDE raid as well.

The thing is Abit doesn't sell the BD7II-RAID anymore and I'd really hate to replace my 2.4 Pen4 and 1g of PC2100 DDR memory I have just because I can't get that motherboard anymore

Does anyone know of a motherboard still being sold that could replace my BD7II-RAID? If I can't find one with the same IDE raid chip will I be able to boot my drives or is my data lost?

Is there anything I can try to get my BD7II-RAID working again?

Thank you all for your help.

 

[spikesnet]

also I read the faq thing at the top and it didn't cover this.

 

[spikesnet]

anyone?

 

[Crashman]

If you think it's a bad board, the Abit IS7 (standard) is an excellent choice.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[endyen]

Look at the cylindrical parts around the back of the chip. They are called capacitors. If any of them seem to be leaking, or the tops are not flat, that is your problem.
It is possible to replace them, if you have a good hand with a soldering wand. If not, any local electronics repair shop will do it for a small fee. If you live close to Crashman, pay him to do it.
If the caps all look good, see if you can borrow a power supply.

 

[spikesnet]

Those capacitors look ok. In the box I have a 350w ATX PSU. In another computer I have a 400w ATX but I think I was using the 350w cause it has more power leads.

I took the 400w out of the other computer and only hooked up the motherboard connection, the smaller one near the CPU and the fan on the vid card.

Now when I turn on the computer it does one of two things:
1. fans spin for 1 second and then the computer powers itself off
2. fans spin for 10-15 seconds then the computer powers itself off

At no time during this does it display anything to the monitor.

 

[spikesnet]

ok, I got the other powersupply to work by connecting the power leads to the harddrives and CDROMs. I guess if it doesn't see a power draw there it doesn't powerup?

At anyrate, it's booting up again with the other PSU but still same problem. I went into the BIOS memu to set the CPU correctly (I cleared the CMOS via the jumper) and it froze up. This time, about 10-15 seconds after it froze up it powered itself off.

 

[spikesnet]

So does this mean it's my motherboard after all? If so, will this work as a replacement?

http://abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=79

I have a pen4 2.4 cpu thats socket 478, 1g of PC2100 DDR memory and raided IDE drives.

Looks like the CPU will work but the memory says it supports PC3300, is that backwards compatiable?

Will my IDE drives work on that SATA raid and if so, will i be able to boot them without wiping them and rebuilding the raid?

 

[endyen]

That is a fine mobo, certainly my first choice for s478.
Unfortunatly, you will not be able to access the old info on your hdd (if you were using raid0)
I'm not convinced the problem is your board. Before I gave up on it, I would dismantle the system entirely, and give each part a good clean. Then I would put it together, outside the case. I have a piece of wood that I use, but a phone book works quite well. Start with just the mobo, 1 stick of ram, the chip with hsf, and the psu, and power switch. If the system starts up, and runs for 5 minutes, your board is probably OK, so see what happens with the graphics card. If it runs fine with the graphics card, add one item @ a time till you have a problem.

 

[spikesnet]

ok, I tried once more to see if I could pinpoint the issue. For test I have 2 PSUs, 2 memory dimms and 2 AGP vid cards (I dont think I have any PCI vid cards).

Test 1:
PSU #1
MEM dimm #1

Results:
Of coruse, without a vid card I can't see if it booted or not. All I can tell you from this test is there were no beeps and the system did not power itself off (at least not after the 2 or 3 minutes I allowed it to be powered up)

Test 2:
PSU #1
Mem Dimm #1
Vid Card #1

Results:
System powered off as soon as the fans started to spin.

Test 3:
PSU #1
Mem Dimm #1
Vid Card #2
System frozen at first screen that discribes the CPU speed and amount of memory. Attempted a second powercycle with these parts and this time it got past that and reported "CMOS checksum error - Defaults loaded". It said press F1 to continue, DEL to enter setup. Neither of these work, the system is again frozen. One more attempt.....this time I got the CMOS error again but DEL worked and got me into the BIOS utility. I was able to change some setting in the CMOS without the system freezing up. I saved my settings and as it was restarting the whole thing powered off. Turning it back on froze it at the first CPU/mem screen and about 2 seconds later it powered itself off.

Test 4:
PSU #2
Mem Dimm #1
Vid card #2

results:
System frozen at first screen that shows cpu/mem. powered off/on again and I got a loud beeping with the error:
BIOS ROM checksum error
Detecting floppy drive A media ...
Drive A error. System Halt.

Powered it on/off again this time it gave me the CMOS error (hit F1 or DEL) from test3 and allowed me to hit DEL to enter the BIOS. However, a couple of seconds after I got into the BIOS the whole thing is frozen again.

Test 5:
PSU #2
Vid card #2
mem dimm #2

results:
System frozen at first screen (CPU/mem info).


For gods sake, wtf is wrong with my computer????

 

[endyen]

There is probably a hairline crack in some thing. Since the mob is the only common item, it's a good bet.

 

[chubbza5]

nice job on the testing, i coudlnt have done better myself. I had that issue with that board. I just bought a new one, that board isnt the best out there and I couldnt pinpoint the issue. You probably unsoldered something when you used the canned air. Check your dimms and cpu socket and PSU connection to make sure theres no dust. If that doesnt work id reccomend buying a new board.

 

[spikesnet]

Thanks for all the help guys. I'm replacing the mobo this week. One last question, will I be able to reuse my old ram? I have PC2100 and the new board support PC3200

 

[spikesnet]

I replaced the mobo with the Abit IS7 and everything is working correctly now. Thanks for all the help guys.