Help with Asus P4C800-E

[TBoneit]

Hello All

If anyone can help with the P4C800-E motherboard

It Throws GPFs when trying to install windows, sometimes it reports the bios is corrupt

After pulling it out and looking at it carefully I have spotted where the problem is. There is a burned spot next to the Firewire port.
Does anyone know what was there and suggestions on how to fix it? It has P4 3.4Ghz CPU so it is decent for many things and it would be nice to get it working again. I do not mind killing that Firewire port so if I can fix it by unsoldering something there that would be OK too.

It comes in a nice aluminum case with 400Gb and DVDRW so getting it working would be nice. If I can get it working, adding a $100 approx cost BluRay burner and I could use it to backup data files off of other computer drives over the network. Gigabit of course, I can't believe I am using eight ports out of nine in a simple home network, Oh well.

Thanks for any suggestions
RT

FWIW those were the best pictures my old Sony 2Megapixel camera produced.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

that does look bad but i'm not sure thats the reason why. do you know if your ram is good. usually bad bios checksums can be due to a bad stick

that looks like a diode directly in line with your firewire. don't use it

[seanc]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Looks like a fuse which has obliterated itself.
Can't tell whether L3 next door is dead or just covered in soot.

[TBoneit]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

I tried different memory, different power supply, different Video card, The bad Bios checksum is sometimes. I dipped a toothbrush in alcohol and scrubbed it. maybe the attached will help?

Since I do not care about the Firewire and if that is where the problem lies I wonder what I can unsolder as a fix.

I see four KZE 1299uf @16v and the rest seem to be Rubycon and they all look visually OK. So I'm thinking it has to be at the burned spot

L3, I'm not seeing it?

Thanks
RT

[seanc]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Do you have any KZG?

Technically, the firewire socket is now out of circuit, so it *shouldn't* be causing an issue. It just depends on what the item next to the fuse was. Have you turned off Firewire in the BIOS? That should cure your problem if it is the issue.

I may have one of these in an old server, will check tomorrow.

[Toasty]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Fuse is the large metal-plate thing.
L78 is whats blown and the item next door is a diode - possibly also blown if somehow power was applied to the connection in reverse.

[TBoneit]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Do you have any KZG?

Technically, the firewire socket is now out of circuit, so it *shouldn't* be causing an issue. It just depends on what the item next to the fuse was. Have you turned off Firewire in the BIOS? That should cure your problem if it is the issue.

I may have one of these in an old server, will check tomorrow.

I probably do have KZG, that rings a bell. I'll have to go look in my little workshop where I keep my soldering stuff. I'll try and turn off the firewire and see if it helps. The KZG don't look obviously bad should I just change them anyway to be safe?

Fuse is the large metal-plate thing.
L78 is whats blown and the item next door is a diode - possibly also blown if somehow power was applied to the connection in reverse.

I may be dating myself when I say this?

I seem to remember from my school days in electronics course that parts labeled L78 would be a inductor, D5005 a diode, and parts labels C78 for example would be capacitors. Of course those days we Used VTVMs and Tube type Oscilloscopes. I had to dig back in memory to recall that since it has been many years ago.

The Diode tests shorted one way and open the other so I'm calling it OK. The Fuse has continuity so it is OK too.

I'd sort of like to get it working reliable to use on my home network for backing up files to a BluRay burner, 3.4Ghz should be fine for that.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

KZG & KZJ are famous for failing with with no visual indication.
So are OST [any series].
Asus naturally likes both KZG and OST caps.
That way most people will need to buy a new mobo in fewer years from new.
.
L D and C still mean the same things. [Except maybe for Asus..?]
.
You could back-up files with 300MHz P3 just fine.
Just copying/moving files isn't that much work.
.

[TBoneit]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

So KZE is good and KZG & KZJ bad, Got it. Most on this particular board are Rubycon

Well I figured I needed better since I want to destination to a BluRay burner. They've come down in price. I believe the last Verbatim blanks, the better ones not the LTH, I bought were around $3 each in the ten pack, currently $3.60 off sale.

Right now since I used a toothbrush to clean the burned area that I discovered yesterday I have been able to install XP onto a small (20GB) drive that I keep around for testing.

Since that did work I'm installing to a 200Gb SATA from scratch as a test. It was either the cleaning or turning off the firewire that seems to have worked.

Thanks
RT

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

You aren't processing any video doing backups, just moving files.
Personally I'd use a regular DVD burner for backups and save the wear/tear on the Blueray.
Optical drives don't last that long these days because laser diodes got cheap [as in low quality].
.

[TBoneit]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Unfortunately many of the files are Video captures @ 9 -12Gb & up each. Figure dv through Firewire.

I could use something like HJSplit or WinRar to split to DVD single layer size but then if I want to use them I have to reassemble them.

It just seems easier to use BluRay blanks from the start. Especially since this is just a backup of the files from my NAS drives.

I work with a little bit with Video at home to relax on my day off.

[Scenic]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

external HDD..?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Unfortunately many of the files are Video captures @ 9 -12Gb & up each. Figure dv through Firewire.

I could use something like HJSplit or WinRar to split to DVD single layer size but then if I want to use them I have to reassemble them.

It just seems easier to use BluRay blanks from the start. Especially since this is just a backup of the files from my NAS drives.

I work with a little bit with Video at home to relax on my day off.

My point was you don't need squat for a -processor- to just move files regardless of what you are moving them too.
You aren't decoding or encoding the files, you are just moving them from one place to another.
.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

external HDD..?

I agree.
Or better yet a NAS for backups.
A P3 1Ghz with a raid card would do fine.

Or if you wanna get 'exotic' and use a server case..
-
This: http://cgi.ebay.com/370474470286
plus this [only need one]: http://cgi.ebay.com/330489389006
plus this: http://cgi.ebay.com/390302571962
Plus this: http://cgi.ebay.com/230591825785
... add some drives and you have a real server for your NAS.

Didn't know you could build a dual core Xeon file server [less case and drives] for under $100,, did ya?

Best part is that CPU has a TDP of 31 watts.
.
.

[brethin]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Don't even need a raid card unless you have multiple people accessing the files at once. I still use a Optiplex 110 SFF 1 GHz P3 with 512M ram (uses very little power for being on 24/7) for the same thing and it also runs a printer for the network and a magic jack for a phone line. I stream HD video from it all the time to my TV via my HTPC with no issues.

I have and have owned alot of Asus boards esp that one have never seen one do that on its own, my guess is somehow it got shorted (woops I dropped the screwdriver since there is a mounting hole right next to it) while the power was on to cause that damage.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Don't even need a raid card unless you have multiple people accessing the files at once.

Granted I didn't specify but I meant RAID 1 which doesn't do anything for speed.
It mirrors and that's it.
Doesn't make any sense to strip for back-ups.
.

[brethin]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Agree Raid 1 on the backup would give you a double redundancy on your backup but that is over kill really. He has a better chance being struck by lightning than having his main HD crash and his backup crash at the same time. The data would have to be pretty damn important to warrant a Raid1 for Backup, I don't consider movies important enough to not just dump them on a DVD or BE disk.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

I don't consider them important enough to take the TIME to PUT them on DVDs which I then have to catalog somehow and have a storage place for.

Also don't think the cost of RAID 1 is significant compared to the lost time involved in rebuilding the file collection from scratch.

In AZ we have what amounts to a "Lightning Season" which is 3-4 months long so the odds here are much different than the odds in KY.
Only been here 5-6 years and already had an AC unit taken out and a strike in the neighbors front yard which took out a tree. [Different strikes. Few years apart.]
That's two more 'close calls' than I've had in 45 years of living other places.
.

[TBoneit]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

Well family videos are important to some in the family, I Am using externals, However Any drive can die. Most things I have are not that important. I do backup my software that I've purchased along with the product keys to enable it again. Since I redo my OS every year or two I find that handy.

It is time once again to back the Documents folder where photos, spreadsheets, Saved emails, screen grabs of my online bill paying are stored. I really should get myself a inexpensive laser for that. OTOH paper can get flooded/burned and a disc is easier to store in a fireproof location then tons of paper.

My thinking and maybe I'm slightly paranoid this way since I use a cheap laptop for financial things only, no email, no browsing etc. And use a good Desktop for everything else. My thinking is that any attached drive can be corrupted by viruses or unstable power or hardware failure.

I do use WD NAS's, the single drive models as what I keep there could be redone.

I may have less trust in a hard drive living a real long time since I've seen many things happen to them starting with my first one a Seagate ST225 20 Megabyte MFM drive.

The main thing IMO with Mirrored drives is that each drive should be at least from a different lot or brand in case of some manufacturing defect that takes time to appear. Such as the Seagate drives that had bad firmware that could suddenly make the drive unusable.

I helped someone that used a NAS enclosure with mirroring. When it gave a warning of a bad drive it couldn't rebuild the mirror, both drives had gone bad, low probability but a possibility since I saw it happen.

Cheers
RT

[seanc]

Re: Help with Asus P4C800-E

The only part of your paranoia that makes sense is using two different drives in a mirror.