Attention fellow PC geeks. I'm stumped.

[Mozgus]

Bought a different stick of DDR. Nothing changed. So it's not the ram. It has to be the bored. I really doubt it's the PSU.

[lordofduct]

do you have onboard video?

If so, have you pulled out the video card and tried booting up.

I had an issue similar to this and it had to do with IRQ request conflicts caused between my video card, sound card and another card on my PCI bus (it happend to be a capture card in my case). If I ran one at a time everything booted up fine... 2, I'd randomly get issues... all 3, nothing at all. Only maybe a quick glimpse of the mobo splash screen and then nothing. (basically everything dropped when the video card was loaded).



Oh and the mobo I had was similar to yours. ASUS with the nForce4 chipset and the sort. Only difference I had DDR2 support and it was for an intel.

oh and checking the specs on your board... I just noticed you don't have onboard video... damn.

[Mozgus]

do you have onboard video?

If so, have you pulled out the video card and tried booting up.

I had an issue similar to this and it had to do with IRQ request conflicts caused between my video card, sound card and another card on my PCI bus (it happend to be a capture card in my case). If I ran one at a time everything booted up fine... 2, I'd randomly get issues... all 3, nothing at all. Only maybe a quick glimpse of the mobo splash screen and then nothing. (basically everything dropped when the video card was loaded).



Oh and the mobo I had was similar to yours. ASUS with the nForce4 chipset and the sort. Only difference I had DDR2 support and it was for an intel.

oh and checking the specs on your board... I just noticed you don't have onboard video... damn.

I tried another PCI-E card and a regular PCI card. All give no display. I'm shipping it to ASUS tomorrow. It'll be a 2 week turnaround. I hope they dont reject it because of the 2 ram clips. Thats an extremely minor thing and ram stays in just fine without them. If they reject it, I guess they lose a customer.

[racketboy]

I never encountered a dead mobo before... that can't be very common...

[Mozgus]

I never encountered a dead mobo before... that can't be very common...

Oh it is dude. In fact, this happens to me all the time. I cant imagine that I'm so clumsy about static. I touch the shell every time I take a step and come back to continue. Maybe I really do need one of those wrist straps. Wearing one of those is like wearing arm floaties at the pool but oh well.

I had a very frustrating experience with Gigabyte, and I don't buy from them anymore. It was such a huge hassle just to get an RMA, then they kept it for a month, then they sent me the exact same board back untouched with no explanation. Then I wrote them a nice little suggestion email about fornicating themselves. If I remember right, the issue was the northbridge chip fried, and within 5 seconds it would get hot enough to burn your finger. It was manufactured bare. I didn't neglect to put a heatsink on it or anything.

I just ordered this so that this 7 year old HP machine will gain SATA support. My SATA drives just sitting there not being used makes me nervous. What a perfect time for my system to fry. I have two 250 GB drives coming tomorrow. :-\

[Droid party]

I had a very frustrating experience with Gigabyte, and I don't buy from them anymore. It was such a huge hassle just to get an RMA, then they kept it for a month, then they sent me the exact same board back untouched with no explanation. Then I wrote them a nice little suggestion email about fornicating themselves. If I remember right, the issue was the northbridge chip fried, and within 5 seconds it would get hot enough to burn your finger. It was manufactured bare. I didn't neglect to put a heatsink on it or anything.

The only board manufacturer that I refuse to touch anymore is Gigabyte for disturbingly similar reasons . It's the only board that I have ever had die on me, and the after sale service was almost non existent. I wound up just buying a new one out of my own pocket and vowed to never use any Gigabyte ever again. Looks like they suck all over the world.

[ducktapevoodoo]

did you use thermal paste when you did the processor?

[lordofduct]

I never encountered a dead mobo before... that can't be very common...

Oh it is dude. In fact, this happens to me all the time. I cant imagine that I'm so clumsy about static. I touch the shell every time I take a step and come back to continue. Maybe I really do need one of those wrist straps. Wearing one of those is like wearing arm floaties at the pool but oh well.

I had a very frustrating experience with Gigabyte, and I don't buy from them anymore. It was such a huge hassle just to get an RMA, then they kept it for a month, then they sent me the exact same board back untouched with no explanation. Then I wrote them a nice little suggestion email about fornicating themselves. If I remember right, the issue was the northbridge chip fried, and within 5 seconds it would get hot enough to burn your finger. It was manufactured bare. I didn't neglect to put a heatsink on it or anything.

I just ordered this so that this 7 year old HP machine will gain SATA support. My SATA drives just sitting there not being used makes me nervous. What a perfect time for my system to fry. I have two 250 GB drives coming tomorrow. :-\

I've had several die on me as well... I'm actually repairing my friends computer today who had BOTH a blown PSU and fried mobo.

Personally I've had quite a few mobo's of my own die. I'd say roughly around 5 or 6 in my entire life. It's usually due to the massive work load I put on them, or back when I would OC my boards a lot (fry out the northbridge CONSTANTLY that way).

intel boards tend to fry on me more often then Via boards. That is why I usually stick to MSI boards (they tend to use VIA and nForce chipsets). This is my first Asus I'm running right now, and so far it's been ok... accept the little issue I had similar to Mozgus.

STRANGELY do you know what fixed my issue? Changing OS's... I upgraded to Windows Vista and the IRQ conflicts stopped. Weirdness! (Couldn't do Linux, the kernel didn't have support for ICH9 IDE controller chips yet)


Oh and the best mobo I've ever had... hands down. And I still use it today. A Soyo P2/P3 board with mod board to accept both old school P2's (the riser card) or on chip P2's. I've toasted, smashed and hit it with lightning bolts. This thing has OC'd 533mhz P3's to well over a gigahertz with out a hitch. Amazing little beast and it only cost me 10 bucks off a friend back in high school. Funniest bit, Soyo supplied BIOS updates well into the 21st century (I think the last one was in like 04' or something)

I mainly keep it around for the PCI and Legacy ISA slots... allows me to use some of my old cards that aren't made anymore.

[marurun]

It does really sound like a mobo problem. It it was a video problem you'd get some kind of beep code at boot. Come to think of it, do you get any beep codes at boot? Sometimes you can look those up in the back of the manual to get ideas. But yeah, sounds like a mobo problem. Might be time to just buy something cheap from a reputable mfg. There are some nice boards out there for good prices, particularly if you buy something nice and polished from the end of the last generation before the most recent.

I should add that when stuff like that happens I do check my memory and all the connections, but really, the mobo is usually suspect. I've seen far too many go. Give your mobo a careful examination and see if any of the capacitors are leaking or swollen. That's a really common problem. Also, if you've had a PSU die on you recently, that can damage the mobo also. We had a PC at work where the PSU blew out in a storm and, while the board still works, the USB ports kill any device plugged into them.

[Mozgus]

did you use thermal paste when you did the processor?

Har har.

It does really sound like a mobo problem. It it was a video problem you'd get some kind of beep code at boot. Come to think of it, do you get any beep codes at boot? Sometimes you can look those up in the back of the manual to get ideas. But yeah, sounds like a mobo problem. Might be time to just buy something cheap from a reputable mfg. There are some nice boards out there for good prices, particularly if you buy something nice and polished from the end of the last generation before the most recent.

I should add that when stuff like that happens I do check my memory and all the connections, but really, the mobo is usually suspect. I've seen far too many go. Give your mobo a careful examination and see if any of the capacitors are leaking or swollen. That's a really common problem. Also, if you've had a PSU die on you recently, that can damage the mobo also. We had a PC at work where the PSU blew out in a storm and, while the board still works, the USB ports kill any device plugged into them.

Yes I said the mobo gives the beeps indicating bad video. I've tried alternate video, cpu, and ram. The board is at fault.