Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

[SchoolDaGeek]

Wondering if anyone has ever had any experience with this board?

I've been reading that not a few of you avoid Gigabyte boards, but this one lasted for a while as it is now in their legacy collection...

The board just suddenly died, and after a thorough cleaning of all the dust and cat hair out of the two fans I put the board under the light and found no caps either swollen or leaking, etc. (Tested the power supply, found good)

I have included a diagram of the board, it ONLY uses Rubycon and Nichicon caps everywhere, not a single 'off' brand, so I am a bit perplexed....

Anyway, the only 'sign' the board will give is a few seconds AFTER you turn OFF the hard switch on the power supply is that the cpu fan will give a little 'kick' as if it wanted to start, but almost as if a cap was discharging enough to make it do that. Other than that, no fans, no board leds, no POST, no beep....tried several different video cards, AGP and PCI to see if that was an issue.

Soooo....According to the diagram I have provided, should I start with the 16v right next to the 12v 'P4' connector and work my way from the larger to the smaller caps? I am very surprised if I would have to replace the Rubycon MBZ caps, but maybe I'll get lucky and the board will fire up after replacing the single 16v, or after the 8x 3300ufs.

Anyway, just wanted to know if the 'kick' the fan was giving after power being shut off was a good sign that this board can be resurrected.

THANKS EVERYONE!

[Toasty]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

>>(Tested the power supply, found good)<<
How tested?

Try a new or different PSU first and see. The PSU may seem okay under no-load.

Toast

Edit: Does board have power LED indicator? Is it on?

[SchoolDaGeek]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

Hi Toasty,

Yes, I apologize, I tried a brand new 500watt power supply on the board and it gave the same results with nothing plugged in, just the ATX and 4pin connectors. Both power supplies will power up other boards, just not this one.

I am surprised at the Nichicons if they are at fault, but I cannot see why the Rubycons would be giving a problem. Gigabyte advertises as "all solid capacitors" on their website and even though this board is a legacy now, they certainly were practicing good manufacturing methods with these caps at the time the board was made, although as I said I see other Gigabyte boards have given problems, so I am not excluding this one. I am buying the caps today so I am going to go ahead with the work, but I just wanted to ask the forum if anyone thought it might be a bad northbridge/southbridge that fried under all the dust and cat hair in the fans. The processor looks fine, never even looks like it needed much of the heatsink judging by the OEM thermal compound, and there is no discoloration anywhere on the board front or back.

Edit: No lights on board, it has one for "good RAM" and one for "incompatible video" but neither are lit up, nor do the fans spin.

[Toasty]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

The PSU runs though, correct?

If yes, then the caps might be the way to go. If no, then perhaps something other than the caps has failed.

What caps are you starting with and what brand/series are you going to use as replacements? Understanding that you have Ruby/Nich there now, but you haven't mentioned which series they are.

Toast

[lucky13]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

Wondering if anyone has ever had any experience with this board?

I've been reading that not a few of you avoid Gigabyte boards, but this one lasted for a while as it is now in their legacy collection...

The board just suddenly died, and after a thorough cleaning of all the dust and cat hair out of the two fans I put the board under the light and found no caps either swollen or leaking, etc. (Tested the power supply, found good)

I have included a diagram of the board, it ONLY uses Rubycon and Nichicon caps everywhere, not a single 'off' brand, so I am a bit perplexed....

Anyway, the only 'sign' the board will give is a few seconds AFTER you turn OFF the hard switch on the power supply is that the cpu fan will give a little 'kick' as if it wanted to start, but almost as if a cap was discharging enough to make it do that. Other than that, no fans, no board leds, no POST, no beep....tried several different video cards, AGP and PCI to see if that was an issue.

Soooo....According to the diagram I have provided, should I start with the 16v right next to the 12v 'P4' connector and work my way from the larger to the smaller caps? I am very surprised if I would have to replace the Rubycon MBZ caps, but maybe I'll get lucky and the board will fire up after replacing the single 16v, or after the 8x 3300ufs.

Anyway, just wanted to know if the 'kick' the fan was giving after power being shut off was a good sign that this board can be resurrected.

THANKS EVERYONE!

Well, I have a GA-7VM400Am (see other thread) that doesn't seem to POST.

The CPU fan will run when power on and off if I hold down the power button to force off. The memory LED lights up when the board is on. CPU will get hot so I have to install heatsink and connect the fan. If I only have heatsink sitting on the CPU but not lock down, after 15 sec the mobo will power itself off. Other than that nada...

I counted on your diagram you have 13 major caps that is for the VRM so replacing them will be quite a task (and $$ too). If you already have the caps, by all means, use your strategy and keep your fingers crossed.

I only have 5-3300/6.3V and 2-1200/6.3V on my board that I am considering to replace as a last ditch effort to bring it back to life.

[SchoolDaGeek]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

The PSU runs though, correct?

If yes, then the caps might be the way to go. If no, then perhaps something other than the caps has failed.

What caps are you starting with and what brand/series are you going to use as replacements? Understanding that you have Ruby/Nich there now, but you haven't mentioned which series they are.

Toast

Hey Toast,

NO, the PSU does not turn on at all, the fan does not spin. It was the same problem with the original power supply that was purchased 6 months ago. BOTH these power supplies will run other boards fine, and both turn on by jumping the green standby pin no problem. Just neither will turn on at all with this board, even through jumping the green pin from above (to definitively test the button on the case, as well as the circuit from the MB PWR pins to the ATX connector.)

So are you saying there is something else wrong with the board? I was going to order the caps today....so...

BTW the Series are:

5 of Nichicon 6.3v3300uf HM(M) H0422
4 of Nichicon 1500uf16v HM(M) H0421
4 of Rubycon 6.3v1500uf MBZ T0338

[SchoolDaGeek]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

And after checking, I only have 'in stock'

Rubycon 1500uf MBZ T0342 and T0340

which is what I was going to start the experiment with, is only replace the 4x 16v caps and see what that does. Then I will have to wait to go further to the 330uf caps, and haven't decided yet if I would go ahead and replace the Rubycons that are already on the board because I trust them like I trust my mother (LOL)

[Toasty]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

The supply not starting may be indicating that something such as a MOSFET in the VRM has failed. The PSU may be detecting a short or other failure and is keeping itself shut down so as to not cause damage to the mobo.

You say "replace the 4x 16v caps" yet you only show 1 on your diagram. But you state 4 in your list 2 posts above. Toast is confused....?

According to your present diagram, I would start the replacement process closest to the CPU and work out from there. Only if I got a power up response would I continue with any others without more investigation.

Replace:
- 4 (red) 1500uF @ 6.3v
- 8 (green) 3300uF @ 6.3v
- 1 (green) 1500uF @ 16v

Toast

[SchoolDaGeek]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

Hey Toast, sorry to confuse you. This is my first time posting all this so I guess I've gotten some things confused as well. Here is the new diagram that properly represents the caps on the board. The change is that the caps out near the LPT port are the extra 16v I was talking about, I've marked them all with an X, not just the first one as before.

So you are saying that it may be the rubycons that are preventing the board to boot? wow. I am going to see if I can also find someone who has an extra Athlon 64 just to also eliminate the processor itself before I go soldering...

Here's the diagram.

[SchoolDaGeek]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

What about this device?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ASUS-Gigabyte-MSI-Socket-754-Motherboard-Testing-Tool_W0QQitemZ230319932996QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item35a0234644&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1205|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

[Toasty]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

Revised replacements:

Replace:
- 4 (red) 1500uF @ 6.3v
- 5 (green) 3300uF @ 6.3v
- 4 (green-X) 1500uF @ 16v

re: CPU Tester - I don't think it's going to work unless the mobo is repaired first.
If the CPU is bad, then you may need to consider other options.

How old is this mobo? Considered RMA to Gigabyte?

Toast

[SchoolDaGeek]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

After I find an alternate CPU to test, I will inquire with Gigabyte, but finding the receipt will be a challenge. Do you know if it is a standard 'one year' warranty?

[Toasty]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

Check their website or call/email customer service.

Toast

[SchoolDaGeek]

Re: Gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO cpu fan 'kicks' with power 'off'.

I was happy to find this website:

http://angelfall.s39.xrea.com/area2ch/turion-e.html

And tried a Turion in the board but it did not boot either, so I have eliminated the possibility of the processor being the problem.

I am really thinking at this point the Northbridge? is fried since it was so jammed up with dust and cat hair the fan was not spinning. Still working on it though, just have to get the 3300uf caps.