A completely dead A7V8X

  • Thread starter Thread starter Weeble
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Weeble

I built an A7V8X system about a year ago, and it's just died
stone-cold dead. It was happily playing Rome: Total War when it froze
up, shut down and could not be roused to life. The green LED on the
motherboard is lit, but it shows next to no activity when the power
button is pressed - the fans, power supply and hard drives remain
inert. There are no POST beeps. The graphics card has LEDs on it - on
one attempt to power it up these blinked momentarily, but that's the
most I've gotten out of it. I pulled all the hard-drives, nothing, the
memory, nothing and even the CPU and still got nothing. So I'm pretty
sure it's dead.

The question is, should I just replace the motherboard? The components
(CPU, RAM, ABIT Siluro FX5800, hard-drives) except for the motherboard
were originally in an ABIT AT7-MAX2 which blew a capacitor within a
day of being built. We got a replacement AT7-MAX2, which shortly went
the same way. Fearing a bad power supply, we got a bigger, more
expensive power supply and the aforementioned ASUS A7V8X. It ran great
for about a year and just died suddenly. There's no obvious signs of
blown capacitors. Is there sufficient evidence to suspect some common
cause, or were we just unlucky? What precautions should I take to
avoid a repeat? Will I need to replace the case, power supply or (god
forbid - it cost a fortune) the graphics card?

Thanks for any advice. I'm quite distraught - I've built several
computers before and never had problems like this. This box seems to
be jinxed. Maybe I should call in an exorcist?

Weeble.

Weeble.
 
I built an A7V8X system about a year ago, and it's just died
stone-cold dead. It was happily playing Rome: Total War when it froze
up, shut down and could not be roused to life. The green LED on the
motherboard is lit, but it shows next to no activity when the power
button is pressed - the fans, power supply and hard drives remain
inert. There are no POST beeps. The graphics card has LEDs on it - on
one attempt to power it up these blinked momentarily, but that's the
most I've gotten out of it. I pulled all the hard-drives, nothing, the
memory, nothing and even the CPU and still got nothing. So I'm pretty
sure it's dead.

The question is, should I just replace the motherboard? The components
(CPU, RAM, ABIT Siluro FX5800, hard-drives) except for the motherboard
were originally in an ABIT AT7-MAX2 which blew a capacitor within a
day of being built. We got a replacement AT7-MAX2, which shortly went
the same way. Fearing a bad power supply, we got a bigger, more
expensive power supply and the aforementioned ASUS A7V8X. It ran great
for about a year and just died suddenly. There's no obvious signs of
blown capacitors. Is there sufficient evidence to suspect some common
cause, or were we just unlucky? What precautions should I take to
avoid a repeat? Will I need to replace the case, power supply or (god
forbid - it cost a fortune) the graphics card?

Thanks for any advice. I'm quite distraught - I've built several
computers before and never had problems like this. This box seems to
be jinxed. Maybe I should call in an exorcist?

Weeble.
Click to expand...

Check that "more powerful" power supply. It could have been
the culprit this time. Power supplies you can count on are
hard to find.

Paul
 
cmos corrupt by a power glitch?

try removing the battery for a while....worth a try

try another psu?
 
What is your case made of ? I once had to return the cpu, then the
motherboard itself when in fact none of them were damaged. The only culprit
was the case, electric isolation was not correct. Try to switch your system
on out of the case.
 
Lazarus said:
cmos corrupt by a power glitch?

try removing the battery for a while....worth a try
Click to expand...

I forgot to mention, but we tried that. Thanks anyway.
try another psu?
Click to expand...

We tried another PSU to ascertain that the mainboard was dead, but I
might get a new one along with a new motherboard to be on the
safe-side.

Weeble.
 
To check if the board is dead. Pull the board from the case. Pull the
cpu, memory and all other boards. Place the motherboard on a insultated
surface (wood,cardboard). Attach the 20 pin connector from the p.s. to the
board.

Use a volt meter to check for 5vdc at the control-panel connector. This is
where you connect the case plug labeled "ATX Power Switch". Check with you
manual, but I think it is the 5th pin from the right on the outboard side of
the connector. You can use the metal around one of the board mounting
holes as ground.

If the 5v is not present, check for it at the 20 pin p.s. connector. If
it's at the connector your board is bad.

If the 5v is present, short out the 2 pins where the ATX Power Switch from
the case is connected. The P.S. fan should come on. If the fan doesn't
come on, your board is bad. This is based on you having tried 2 p.s. but
you may want to make the checks with both p.s.

If the p.s. fan does come on, then your board is likely good. Check the
case atx power switch, or something in the case shorting out the board when
it's installed.

You can also try installing the cpu with fan, and memory while it's still
out of the case.
 
Let me clarify myself. At the 20 pin power supply connector you want to
check for 5vdc at the pins marked 5vsb and PS_ON#. Check you manual for
location on the connector.

At the "ATX Power Switch" pin, you should read about 3.3vdc not 5vdc. I
have an A7V333 that won't power up when I short out the switch pins, and it
only reads 2.3vdc at the switch pin.
 
TommyD said:
Let me clarify myself. At the 20 pin power supply connector you want to
check for 5vdc at the pins marked 5vsb and PS_ON#. Check you manual for
location on the connector.

At the "ATX Power Switch" pin, you should read about 3.3vdc not 5vdc. I
have an A7V333 that won't power up when I short out the switch pins, and it
only reads 2.3vdc at the switch pin.
Click to expand...

Thanks to everybody for the help. It turned out that *both* the power
supplies were bad. :( I was misled by the double failure and the fact
that there was still standby power to light the green LED. Still, now
that I have a working power supply, it seems that the other components
are okay. Unfortunately Windows now sporadically complains of corrupt
hive files on startup, so I think the initial failure probably messed
up the hard-drive. I find it strange that it boots up and works
perfectly about 50% of the time, and fails to start up otherwise. Go
figure. I'm going to make new backups of anything there that we don't
already have backups of and restore the backup hive files from when
the system was installed.

Regards,
Weeble.
 
Update: Memory tests show bad RAM too. Argh. This machine just swallows
time and money. "Feed me, Seymour."
 
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