I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard :( sort-of

[Dannyx]

Good day folks. I ended the night with a bang today I killed my motherboard, an Asus P5Q Premium...entirely my fault, yes, no question about it. I was being a total sh!thead and messing with loose wires from the PSU and the 12v wire touched the 3.3v one...little spark at those wires, PC turned off and now it doesn't POST anymore YEEY ...actually it sort-of POSTS, but always returns a "no video card" error (2 short beeps - 3 short beeps). The graphics card is a Radeon R9 390, which I think is still functional and here's why: during my numerous tries to get it going again, removing the CMOS battery, RAM modules, seating and reseating the GPU, trying different PCIe slots (it's got 4), the PC DID fire up one more time, so the video card appears to be functional as it outputs something. Sadly that was the last time I ever saw video out of it: after choosing the load the setup defaults and powering it off and trying a new startup, nothing: same 2-3 beep no video error and I couldn't replicate that result since....

I thought OK, it's all done and dusted - 12v sent into the 3v bus !...there's no way that thing is still firing up ever again, but it DID (once), that's what intrigues me, so I thought maybe, just maybe...it's a BIOS issue ? :| The reason this crossed my mind is because the BIOS chip is powered with 3v, which I BELIEVE comes straight (well, more or less) from the 24p connector where those 12v came in, so perhaps the chip got? Removing the IC from the socket entirely and starting the board without it amazingly DOES give me something: the board comes on, but it just stays like that - no codes whatsoever, so maybe, just maybe there's still hope ? :| I shall try flashing the chip anyway just to see what happens, because it's on a socket and really easy to remove and mess with. It's a DIP 8 package...what do you guys think ? I think we can assume to voltage rails on the MB are fine since we do get the error codes. Removing all RAM sticks also returns its specific error (1 long beep - 2 short, repeated), so there is some life left in there - not like totally and utterly dead....it's not TOO much of a big deal, I can grab another one from like auction site, but it would be nice if I could fix this one too for sentimental reasons VERY strange defect....that's what you get for being stupid and messing with loose wires...lesson learned ! Hey, people die sometimes....whatcha gonna do ? :|

[kodox]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

what codes generated when you turned on without graphic card? you should consider using debug card to get the error correctly identified

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Randomly working, suggests maybe a fractured solder joint from the incident, LOL

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

I shall return on Monday with some error codes - I don't have a debugger on hand right now, it's at the shop...

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

While hunting around for a new system, since it's an (unwanted) opportunity for me to upgrade my rig, I got my eyes on a Xeon E5-2695 v2. Trouble is I'm not sure what boards support it. The datasheet says "socket FCLGA2011", or 2011 for short, but what about the chipset ? Can I just plop this server-grade CPU on ANY 2011 motherboard and expect it to work ? What do you look out for ? Ideally there'd be a compatibility list on the vendor's website, but most don't even list Xeon processors, since they're for server use and not for "home" use, however there is a list HERE which supposedly lists exactly what I'm interested in....thoughts ? Yes, I want to go with a Xeon because it's (relatively) inexpensive for a high number of cores...

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Ok guys, rather than trying to explain what's going on, I figured it's much easier to make a video so you can see for yourself: system comes on, displays various codes before finally settling on "85" which corresponds to what would normally be "Press F1 to load setup defaults". I hit F1 and it ends with 00 which is the final state, so the system runs fine, but there's no video....definitely not something repairable I'd say, since I reflashed the BIOS chip manually with the programmer and the same thing happens...could be something as simple as a burnt resistor on a communication line, but good luck finding it....

EDIT: it looks to me like the PCIe 2.0 slots got busted, because if I insert the graphics card in the other non 2.0 slots, it works just fine. Not sure how it would impact performance and sh!t and whether I should carry on using it like this....

[dellxps15]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

check voltage pins if shorted or if volts are present when it power on.

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Where'd u get that snippet from ? Can you provide the whole schematic ? Thanks - it would be priceless

[dellxps15]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

i just googled pci-express 2.0 pinout

edit: dunno why putting image on the forum make quality bad.... however just google for it and ull find them

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Oh that's too bad, I was hoping by some freak miracle you actually found a schematic Thanks for your interest anyway. Even if I measure those ports, I'm not too sure where I'd go from there without a schematic...

[piernov]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

As usual no schematics but boardview for P5Q-E is available, it may help a bit. If you don't want to spend hours trying to figure out everything around the PCI express slot, your best bet is to compare voltage and diode mode measurements of every pins with a working slot… But that will be a pain. Start with the outermost pins (towards the back panel connectors), more chances that something is wrong there (power rail, control or reset signals rather than additional data lines).

EDIT: if it's the same architecture as the P5Q-E, the top PCIe x16 goes directly to the northbrige, the bottom one goes to the southbridge and the center ones are multiplexed along with the PCIe x1. So diode mode on the data lines won't help. But at least compare voltage of the power rail, control and reset signals between the non-working and a working slot. (with and without something plugged in if possible)
You could still take diode mode measurements of the data lines of the non-working slot to compare them (between themselves).

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Have you managed to find the boardview you speak of ? I'll take a crack at it.

[piernov]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Boardview attached.

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Cheers mate.

[dellxps15]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

as he shorted voltage, i would just check pci.-express pins voltages that are just the few first pins. dont think data pins are damaged.

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

dont think data pins are damaged.

I imagine something else would've stopped working if that was the case, so I too hope there's still.....hope

[piernov]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Everything is possible… I got a damaged southbridge on a laptop with one bad differential SATA pair for ODD, one bad differential SATA pair for HDD and everything else working perfectly fine (including the eSATA), as a result of something happening on the 3V rail (took out EC, BIOS, 3V buck controller, some caps, LCD panel's built-in voltage regulator as well).
Well, it's probably not the case here so I'd start with the power rails first as well.

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

I took some measurements of those PCI slots with the system running a VGA card on a good slot and everything was identical between the 4, except for one thing: pin 11 on side A "Power good" reads 3.3v on the functional slots, but 5v on the other two...could be related to the issue ?

Also: how do you open FZ files ? Openboardview throws an error...I've only been able to open a single Mac file with it so far TBH

[piernov]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

FZ files are encrypted and you need to manually enter the decryption key (legal issue about including it into the source code). You can find it on the IRC channel topic #openboardview@irc.freenode.net . (use the webapp if you don't have an IRC client)

[Dannyx]

Re: I killed my Asus P5Q motherboard sort-of

Thanks, I'll give it a go, mainly because I like openboardview's interface better and would like to use it whenever I work with boardviews.

I think we can call the Asus dead and buried, because all the power rails on those slots are there, so something on the logic side got damaged by that shock. The lack of an exact boardview also makes it quite tough to identify what's what. While I have been able to follow along up to a point and work by analogy with some of the larger components on the two boards, there's other components which are so small and so close together that it's pretty much impossible to ever identify those exactly. Could be one of those "muxers" or the northbridge itself, since I see some of the pins from those PCI slots go directly to it. Another thing I tried was following the 3v pins from the ATX connector which were subjected to 12v to see if I can identify any major component that would've been damaged but still fixable, but unfortunately some pins of the NB are also tied directly to the 3v bus, so that's no good...even Louis couldn't fix this one I think