ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

[unmei220]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

^ MUCH, MUCH appreciated brethin ! Thanks for taking the time to see those components. Mine is a rev. 1.00 also. Will write again in a few days and post the results of what happened to the board.

@PCBONEZ: it's just for fun, so don't worry about it. In fact, among all the stuff that was on the box, this is the only thing that isn't working, that's why I thought: 'hey, maybe it's fixable after all!'. So maybe I end up beign really lucky and can make this one work again.

Thanks for all your help so far.

[brethin]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I have several of these out in offices they have been very stable for office/business use, most have 3.0 p4 some have 3.2 p4 and 2 have 3.4 p4.
I will say they are not a twickers board (overclocking etc) but for 24/7 stable use out of 45+ systems I have out I have yet to have one fail which explains why I still have the new board. I cleaned each unit 1 time a year and the cases had at least 2 fans (push/pull 1 in front 1 in back).
The wife even used one with a 3.4 P4 overclocked to 3.8 for 2 years before she decided she needed a new system because her girlfriend at work had something faster.
I take newegg feedback with a grain of salt most of the time its not helpfull unless there is a clear issue with a item, (everyone complains for some reason).
From my experence the SiS 655FX chipset has been more reliable than the Intel 965 chipset when it come to ASUS boards.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

twicker ??? hehehehehe

Add up the 4-eggs and 5-eggs percentages.
If there's over 100 feedback and that total is over 85% it -might- be an okay part.
If it's over 90% it's probably okay.
If it's under 80% it's probably crap.
-
Less than 100 feedbacks isn't enough for averages to outweigh the moron effect.
.

[lti]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

Add up the 4-eggs and 5-eggs percentages.
If there's over 100 feedback and that total is over 85% it -might- be an okay part.
If it's under 80% it's probably crap.
.

I have the opposite experience. If I buy something with all good reviews, it is a piece of crap. If everybody says it is a piece of crap, it works perfectly for me.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I can see that happening with brand new things [only been 'out' for less than a year or two] but looking back at things that have been out a while it's pretty consistent with what actually happens.

Reliable reviews don't come from the people that had it less than 6 months.
That's also part of why waiting for it to go over 100 total helps.
.

[brethin]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

The biggest reason this got bad reviews on Newegg is because people expected it to be a overclocking board like the P4P or P4C series boards and it isnt.
Because of this it is more reliable than those series boards because users can't cook the shit of it overclocking it.
Just my opinion from my experiance with ASUS boards and I am a ASUS fan if you havent guessed.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I think it has more to do with Asus + SIS + Cheap caps.

[brethin]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

The P4P and P4C series are intell chipsets and I see far more ASUS slamming on those than on the SIS chipset series. Some people just hate ASUS and will dog them reguardless, same goes for Antec or Nvidia chipsets etc. You can't please everyone all the time esp when they just hate on something to jump on the hate bandwagon hoping it will get them in on the in crowd.

[Uranium-235]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I've had VERY few non-OEM (non HP/DELL/EMACHINES) ASUS boards die on me. I have a P6T Deluxe V2 with an I7 920 oc'd to 4ghz rock solid stable

I have tons of ASUS AM2/AM2+/AM3 boards for customers that are running great to this day. Of course I always check before I buy them for KGZ caps and other weak components

[c_hegge]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I only ever use Gigabyte or DFI. I hate ASUS, since it's been a long time since I've seen one with good caps.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

The P4P and P4C series are intell chipsets and I see far more ASUS slamming on those than on the SIS chipset series.

The MAIN reason for that is SIS chipset boards are RARE in comparison to boards with Intel chipsets.
If they make 2 million boards with Intel sets and 100k with SIS you'll see more mention of Intel sets even if SIS is 15x more likely to be a problem.
SIS is rare FOR GOOD REASON.
They consistently sucked for -SO LONG- that most experienced people don't trust them and stay clear of them.
[Same reason most experienced people don't buy Capxon or Teapo to recap their motherboard or PSU.]

Asus has far more 'Intel problems' that other mainstream brands.
- That's because Asus cheaps-down on EMI and other protection circuitry advised by Intel's Platform Design Guides and the other brands can follow instructions.
Intel's Platform Design Guides are so damned detailed they are almost BLUEPRINTS to building motherboards for a given chipset.
- That's what certain Intel chipsets + Asus = Dead USB.
- That's what some Asus boards are so picky about RAM.
- And that's the cause of ASDS [Asus Sudden Death Syndrome].

Asus cheaps it down in critical design areas then passes it off as high end.
- That is THE SAME behavior as Antec using Fuhjyyu caps in PSUs and then over pricing them.

Some people just hate ASUS and will dog them reguardless, same goes for Antec or Nvidia chipsets etc. You can't please everyone all the time esp when they just hate on something to jump on the hate bandwagon hoping it will get them in on the in crowd.

This is the only forum I know that has a large population of people that know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to component level repair of mobos -and- it's the only forum I know that has a large population that is down on Asus.
Interesting how those two things fit together.

.

[shadow]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I never really got Asus because:
1) They cost more (for no apparent reason).
2) They use cheap caps.
3) Known for ASDS.

I have a few friends who are Asus bandwagon fans. Guess they are lucky they only got their decent models and not their shittier ones.

I got a system one time for (practically) nothing. And it had a cheap Asus Micro-ATX motherboard with SIS chipset. Since I got it for free and it was working. I just used it...lasted about 1.5 weeks before ASDS struck. No amount of debugging and testing could lead me to an actual cause of the failure. Searching on the Internet found countless number of people with the same issue on the same motherboard. Of course no cause nor any solutions ever surfaced. Sigh.

On the plus side, my Asus Micro-ATX Super Socket 7 motherboard is running like a champ! Too bad I don't use this old DOS box much any more.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I only ever use Gigabyte or DFI. I hate ASUS, since it's been a long time since I've seen one with good caps.

This changes now and then as the manufacturers do..

~Currently~

Supermicro and Abit are my first choices.
Abit is gone but I'm not having any trouble getting my hands on them yet.
Gigabyte appears to have 'cleaned up' in the last few years and [at least the 'durable' versions] are looking good as the Abit replacements.
- I've been stock-piling a few of certain Abit boards I like so by the time availability forces a switch Gigabyte may not be the best choice. Things like that have a way of changing. Abit is a great example. 1999-2004[-ish] they were using mostly crap caps. Then they pulled their head out and when to all Jap caps. They then got screwed by the HM/HN issue and had to regroup yet again. At least they -tried- to do right. They would even send you caps if you had problems and choose that route over an RMA.
[Meanwhile Asus was busy telling customers there wasn't an issue with bad caps at all on any of their boards. OST happy Asus STILL says that.]


My second choices are:
Itox, Intel, Tyan, Gigabyte, DFI, maybe Foxconn [if it's an Intel clone], the poorly thought of AOpen and some Industrial brands that are so expensive few people have even heard of them. [Once in a while I find those cheap specifically because no one has heard of them.]
- Some models of those need cap upgrades [most often over KZG/KZJ] which is why they are #2 but [lately/anymore] they don't skimp on the other details of their designs and are pretty solid/stable with good caps.
I'm not opposed to an occasional preemptive recap in order to get the exact feature set I want.
-
AOpen was a shock. I got into them for their low power MODT offerings.
Apparently they cleaned up their act sometime back and I missed it.
Yeah, they still have some crap caps but it's obvious they are careful about where they are on the board. The craps are only in non-critical areas and there are good Jap caps [often Rubycon] or polys in the cap positions that 'work hard'. They are also not skimping on the other design details as far as circuitry. Admittedly some of their custom cooler ideas are pretty weak/lame but I don't usually use the stock coolers anyway and that's not as bad as Asus skimping on SMD EMI parts.
I would absolutely take an AOpen over an Asus - and I have - repeatedly.


Asus, Foxconn [non Intel clones], MSI and maybe eVGA - come in as a weak 3rd place.
- Just slightly above "No Freakin' Way".

That's my opinion anyway.

...
BTW: Years ago I was an 'Asus guy'. - I didn't switch for no reason.
.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

On the plus side, my Asus Micro-ATX Super Socket 7 motherboard is running like a champ! Too bad I don't use this old DOS box much any more.

In the '90's Asus was good.
My first Pentium board was an Asus TX97 which I used for several years without issue.
IIRC I eventually upgraded to a K6/2-500 from a starter of a P1/166MMX through a few intermediate CPUs.
I was at P1/233MMX for quite a while with that board as, when I was in the States during that time, I was selling the 233MMX on-line/retail.
When you are getting Intel CPU's wholesale that's the way to go.. LOL

Asus started to lose it somewhere in the P-III era.
-
By then I had an arrangement with some local PC shops and was getting 20 or so PcChips [and clone] boards a week FOR FREE so it made more sense to pick through those and find the stable ones.
It cost them less [shipping and shop time] to give away the returns than to process RMAs or troubleshoot. About 80% of the returns had nothing wrong with them other than bad jumper settings [because people don't read the manuals] and I'd kick back 'a cut' to the stores when I sold the good ones.
About 10% just had a crappy BIOS.
The BIOS's were usually not by PcChips but by the OEM that bought the board plain-box from PcChips.
I fixed a lot of those simply by flashing with a BIOS from a different OEM.
- I had a BLAST during that time. More FREE boards to play with than I could even keep up with given I hadn't retired from the 'real' job yet.
.

.

[brethin]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

twicker ??? hehehehehe

Add up the 4-eggs and 5-eggs percentages.
If there's over 100 feedback and that total is over 85% it -might- be an okay part.
If it's over 90% it's probably okay.
If it's under 80% it's probably crap.
-
Less than 100 feedbacks isn't enough for averages to outweigh the moron effect.
.

Sorry I ment tweaker, I am not a good speller esp when drinking.

I have read alot of those reviews and most seem to be complaints about lack of overclocking hence why tried to use the word tweaker while slaughtering the spelling of it.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

That's okay, I am not a good speller when not drinking.
I use the spell checker and still have to edit 4-5 times.
.

[unmei220]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I finally had time and went and bought the 2SC5706 transistors. I soldered both on the board, no problem with that. Now the 3 main problems the mobo exhibited are solved.
1. The board now correctly powers up from the power up pins.
2. Now voltage at the DDR slots is 2.65v.
3. Now the board boots up!

But... the problem now is that it hangs at the first POST screen, the initial one. It correctly tests memory, and when it's about to change to the second part of the POST (when it's going to boot from someplace), it just hangs there. I also can't enter BIOS setup, it also just hangs there with the message "Entering SETUP...". Both memory and CPU voltages remains stable all the time.

What I noticed instantly after adding the missing transistors is that now the southbridge heats up a lot more than before, I can't leave my finger over it for more than 2 seconds.
If I attach an IDE hard drive to the board, the board doesn't seem to try to detect it at boot up, just hangs at the same place.

I DIDN'T REPLACE THE CAPACITORS, since I don't have substitutes right now. Remember that this board had the KZE at VRM in, OST RLZ ones at the VRM out, and some more OST RLS scattered through the board. I'm going to make a really ignorant question here: can bad caps be the cause of this specific pattern (board hangs at POST) or is it caused by something more serious (maybe southbridge is broken, explaining the high temperature) ?

Thanks for any tip/suggestion.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

I'm going to make a really ignorant question here: can bad caps be the cause of this specific pattern (board hangs at POST)

It can, yes.

or is it caused by something more serious (maybe southbridge is broken, explaining the high temperature) ?

It can, yes.

The chipset controls communication between the CPU and RAM [and most everything else] even during POST so if the chipset is mucked up or there is bad noisy power to it [as bad caps can do] the board may not get through POST.
.

[momaka]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

It may also be possible that a piece of loose solder is shorting something. Probably a long shot, but if nothing seems to work, give the motherboard a good wash+scrub.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ASUS P4S800D-X - Won't POST, gives beep codes - Help needed

Nuther long shot.
If a scratch is deep enough it can open a trace or traces.
.