How do I know?

[stevo1210]

As some of you may know.... a few months ago I posted a thread about an Asus K8N with an AMD Athlon 64 3400+ that didn't boot whatsoever and the PSU was a Raidmax with badcaps on the +5V SB circuit.... well I've taken it back off the shelf to have a look at and did exactly what I did last time and plugged in a PSU to boot it and to be greeted with no beeps or nothing.

Yesterday I went to my local computer store and found out they were closing down.

So they are having a sale there at the moment and there are a few S754 motherboards on sale there, one of which is a Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP. Now I want to know how I can be complete sure that the motherboard is fried and not the CPU because I don't want to be buying a new motherboard only to find out that my CPU is dead as well.

As I mentioned before, my K8N doesn't POST and the chipset is very hot to touch.... seriously I burnt my finger today by touching the darn chipset.
Everything else that I salvaged off that PC was OK. In other words the 1GB of RAM, graphics card and optical drives are working well.

So anyway, how can I be sure that my CPU is still alive?

EDIT: A few months ago I did some voltage measurements of the caps and MOSFETs around the VRM and they were about 1.5V? I can't remember because it was too long ago, but I know it was less than 2V.

I also took notice that the CPU is cold after leaving the board on for a few minutes. Is that supposed to be good or bad?

Thanks.

[Wizard]

Re: How do I know?

Often you don't know till too late!

I wasn't aware of my PSU developing bad caps till I caught on fact the fan is seized and opening up to find bad caps in there. :o That how reliable it was and that is A7N8X board. :o

Cheers, Wizard

[Scenic]

Re: How do I know?

theres no real solution for that...

had an Athlon 64 3400+ CPU (s939) here that i thought was fried because it didnt get warm at all (after recapping the board i got it with).. but it worked with a new board... something else was damaged on the first (recapped) board..

on the other hand i've got a P4 640 (3.2GHz Prescott, LGA775) that still heats up like hell but doesnt do anything on 4 known good boards.. no POST, no beep.. nothing

guess i could sell it on ebay as a thermal sample or something lol

[stevo1210]

Re: How do I know?

I ordered the K8NNXP board this afternoon and it will arrive by tomorrow. Hopefully my CPU isn't dead and that the board works. I looked back inside the PSU that fried the motherboard and there was only 1 bad cap on the +5V SB line, all other caps are fine.... let's just hope the CPU isn't dead....

By the way, this is going to be a birthday gift for my father to replace the old AMD Athlon 2000+ media center he is using.

Thanks.

[zandrax]

Re: How do I know?

I looked back inside the PSU that fried the motherboard and there was only 1 bad cap on the +5V SB line, all other caps are fine.... let's just hope the CPU isn't dead....

Let's hope only the motherboard got damaged but, as Scenic wrote, you can't be sure unless you try the cpu: sometimes they get shorted without burn their pcb, so they are apparently good.

Zandrax

[stevo1210]

Re: How do I know?

I have good news. I tested the K8NNXP today wioth the 3400+ CPU and it POSTed so I know the CPU is still OK.

Thanks.

[zandrax]

Re: How do I know?

Good: now you've to find another motherboard.

Zandrax

[stevo1210]

Re: How do I know?

Good: now you've to find another motherboard.

No need to because the K8NNXP is my personal motherboard which I bought yesterday.
Anyway, I put the system together only to find out that Windows Vista doesn't like some driver, so now I am back to XP.

Thanks.

[zandrax]

Re: How do I know?

No need to because the K8NNXP is my personal motherboard which I bought yesterday.

Nice board.

Anyway, I put the system together only to find out that Windows Vista doesn't like some driver, so now I am back to XP.

No, you upgraded Vista to XP
Trying a linux distro shouldn't hurt either.

Zandrax

[stevo1210]

Re: How do I know?

No, you upgraded Vista to XP
Trying a linux distro shouldn't hurt either.

I am back to Vista today. I eventually figured out the issue and it turned out to be the Audio driver. Once that was upgraded, I had no more BSODs.

Thanks.

[stevo1210]

Re: How do I know?

By the way, this is going to be a birthday gift for my father to replace the old AMD Athlon 2000+ media center he is using.

That idea went completely out the Window when I saw the beauty of this motherboard. This now becomes the on-the-cheap gaming rig. I built for my father a P4 3.0Ghz PC yesterday using some top of the line parts I recently bought and never used. Well he's happy with the new media center so far.

Thanks.

[chipper]

Re: How do I know?

As some of you may know.... a few months ago I posted a thread about an Asus K8N with an AMD Athlon 64 3400+ that didn't boot whatsoever and the PSU was a Raidmax with badcaps on the +5V SB circuit.... well I've taken it back off the shelf to have a look at and did exactly what I did last time and plugged in a PSU to boot it and to be greeted with no beeps or nothing.

Yesterday I went to my local computer store and found out they were closing down.

So they are having a sale there at the moment and there are a few S754 motherboards on sale there, one of which is a Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP. Now I want to know how I can be complete sure that the motherboard is fried and not the CPU because I don't want to be buying a new motherboard only to find out that my CPU is dead as well.

As I mentioned before, my K8N doesn't POST and the chipset is very hot to touch.... seriously I burnt my finger today by touching the darn chipset.
Everything else that I salvaged off that PC was OK. In other words the 1GB of RAM, graphics card and optical drives are working well.

So anyway, how can I be sure that my CPU is still alive?

EDIT: A few months ago I did some voltage measurements of the caps and MOSFETs around the VRM and they were about 1.5V? I can't remember because it was too long ago, but I know it was less than 2V.

I also took notice that the CPU is cold after leaving the board on for a few minutes. Is that supposed to be good or bad?

Thanks.

Before reading any more of these threads , right off - I would say your power supply is not adequate to handle all those drives as 700 watts or more is probably going to show you much less heat being created overall. Since short circuits or (internal power interuptions) can cause drivers to be removed from operation by WinXP , because of overcurrent taxing , known as "dumping" , just like video games that won't start , that would be my first expectation . I would expect to see that Windows needed to free up some power from the PSU , so it dumped some of your drivers to cut the overload off. That would mean the power supply is working properly as well.

The first time this happened to me , it was because of bad caps and I couldn't believe that video card drivers were virtually falling out of the programming. I re-installed them 3 times and kept having them being taken out until I noticed the dump files building up. This is also why computers will run video for a hour or so and the system crashes. If the system is stable , something has to be shut down , and out go the drivers.

[chipper]

Re: How do I know?

theres no real solution for that...

had an Athlon 64 3400+ CPU (s939) here that i thought was fried because it didnt get warm at all (after recapping the board i got it with).. but it worked with a new board... something else was damaged on the first (recapped) board..

on the other hand i've got a P4 640 (3.2GHz Prescott, LGA775) that still heats up like hell but doesnt do anything on 4 known good boards.. no POST, no beep.. nothing

guess i could sell it on ebay as a thermal sample or something lol

I can't attest to LGA 775 P4 640's overheating , but when I looked into the Intel Processors and was also trying to match a mobo to a processor , I noticed how confusing it was to have to follow "all" of the informations from lots of different sources , all at the same time. Once I decided on a mobo it was easier since I could look at the "confirmed - tested" list for the mobo to select which processor to work with it. Meanwhile there were unlisted 641's and alike , not listed for my board. (ECS RS-400-A V-1) Being that the list was substancial this 64 (1) type senario caused me quite a bit of searching , which lead to more searching , and informations. Listed also are the notations that some processors "do not" work with certain boards and will not work without certain options included on each mobo.

This is all more difficult than looking at a short list of processors provided by AMD acceptable mobo's. There are usually only about 5 or 6 that can be installed on AMD mobo's , while Intel mobo's have about 30 or more , each having their own quirks. Then there are the wattage problems from the PSU , which the mobo requires (350watts) minimum , taking into consideration only minimul or average peripherals like video cards and alike. So if you are running an SLI board or SLI video card with 3 DVD/CD ROM/etc. combinations , with extended ram as well , you should consider a much better power supply , especially seeing as the LGA 775 board requires the seperate 4-pin / 12volt supply line to work at all. Mine would not produce any video at all , until I plugged in the 4-pin connector beside the processor.
Without any PCIe plug being used for the 6-pin video card power supply as well.

A PSU power consumption meter would be a good option to add to any board to allow you to see what is happening in terms of usage.

The Socket 939 was probably worse for power than the 775 pin processor.
Check out my thread on "NO POST".

[stevo1210]

Re: How do I know?

Before reading any more of these threads , right off - I would say your power supply is not adequate to handle all those drives as 700 watts or more is probably going to show you much less heat being created overall. Since short circuits or (internal power interuptions) can cause drivers to be removed from operation by WinXP , because of overcurrent taxing , known as "dumping" , just like video games that won't start , that would be my first expectation . I would expect to see that Windows needed to free up some power from the PSU , so it dumped some of your drivers to cut the overload off. That would mean the power supply is working properly as well.

The first time this happened to me , it was because of bad caps and I couldn't believe that video card drivers were virtually falling out of the programming. I re-installed them 3 times and kept having them being taken out until I noticed the dump files building up. This is also why computers will run video for a hour or so and the system crashes. If the system is stable , something has to be shut down , and out go the drivers.

Sorry, but I have trouble trying to understand what exactly you are talking about.

First off, why would I need a 700W power supply for a system that draws less than 300W?

Secondly, I only have one hard drive and one CD drive so I do not think power issues would be much of a problem.

Thirdly, my PSU is a high quality 380W Cooler Master/ Hipro made unit and barely warms up while the computer is in operation.

Can you also rephrase what you said about Windows dumping drivers due to system overload? never have I seen anything like what you said. Once the drivers are there, they are there. If a system is too overloaded, it will get BSODs or restart etc. Never have I heard of drivers dissapearing unless you are installing the driver and the PC reboots.

I'd just like to add that my my computer is now running properly so this thread can be closed off.

Thanks.

[gonzo0815]

Re: How do I know?

The Socket 939 was probably worse for power than the 775 pin processor.
Check out my thread on "NO POST".

It is never the socket nor the board what determines power requirement. It is the CPU and the rest of the system. So your statement is simply wrong and proof of missing knowledge. Most SKT 939 based system are way less power hungry then any SKT 775 system with a Pentium D. Apart from that, a fast CPU does in most cases require more power, regardless which socket or which brand.

If you are using a real PSU, in most cases there is no necessity for anything beyond 350w.
And i think that Stevo is long enough around here, to choose the adequate PSU.

Chipper, just read a little around here and may be you learn a lot.