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Fixing a Motherboard or Buying a New One


Keroro1454

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Hello Everyone.

I think I may be in the market for a new motherboard :(

I went to power off my PC by turning off the power strip its connected to (don't ask why, extensive circumstances required it), and accidentally bumped into the case. The computer now won't power on, although it powers peripherals for 4 seconds before turning them off, repeat. I think the 20-pin connector may be loose, but despite my best efforts, it doesn't seem to tighten/change the issue. So my question is dual fold: What can I do to secure it more effectively and tighter? If nothing, what cheap 32GB RAM, 4+ slots for RAM, ATX motherboard can you recommend?

 

Thanks a ton!

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Buy a new one. It's not worth the highly potential risk of frying all of your components over one thing.

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Well first things first...turning your computer off from the plug strip or bumping into the case shouldn't damage your motherboard. I'd check for a lose cable somewhere. 

 

Secondly, assuming your board is bad....one, can you RMA it? Two, what cpu do you have?

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Did you connect the power cables correctly? the same happened to me but it turned out that i did my Power reset and HDD LED pins backwards

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Firstly, I applaud all the extremely funny people that wanted him to replace the motherboard for such a trivial problem.

 

While your computer is completely powered off and disconnected from the socket, open the computer case (I will assume you know how to do this).
Take out RAM modules, and clean it with an anti-static cloth. Replace any ONE of the RAM slots (enough to power on; approx 1GB). They look like this:

 

ram-motherboard1.jpg


Check the ATX power cables are completely plugged in, and if not, firmly push in. They look like this:

atxatxext.jpg

 

After reconnecting your computer's plug into the power socket, try booting your computer up again.

 

If it boots up once successfully, well done. The final step is to turn off the computer, unplug from the wall, and reinsert all of the RAM modules in again (hopefully in the right direction).

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Thank you Bee for not just telling me to buy a new one. So just to clarify, power is getting to the system. I checked this by confirming the power supply works (You all know that test I'm sure) and it does. I'll follow out Bee's advice and check back.

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Thank you Bee for not just telling me to buy a new one. So just to clarify, power is getting to the system. I checked this by confirming the power supply works (You all know that test I'm sure) and it does. I'll follow out Bee's advice and check back.

Did you ground yourself before putting it together? if you didnt its highly possible that you brutally murdered your motherboard

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Whooooops. Forgot to tell you, please ground yourself by touching the bare metal inside the case, or you'll fry the components when you touch them.

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Whooooops. Forgot to tell you, please ground yourself by touching the bare metal inside the case, or you'll fry the components when you touch them.

Yeah, I know that. Thanks though.

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Whooooops. Forgot to tell you, please ground yourself by touching the bare metal inside the case, or you'll fry the components when you touch them.

It's actually not that easy to damage components with an ESD anymore -- it's still possible -- but it's much harder than it used to be.
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From personal experience here, just buy a new one, though my experience is with a laptop hard drive and not a motherboard, I think you'd be better off replacing it than screwing with it and ending up destroying more than was salvageable.

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From personal experience here, just buy a new one, though my experience is with a laptop hard drive and not a motherboard, I think you'd be better off replacing it than screwing with it and ending up destroying more than was salvageable.

Theres nothing he can do (unless he does something plain stupid) that would cause any further damage.

 

His best bet would be to try and get his current board working.

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Further troubleshooting if the previous steps above do not work. The above troubleshooting only applies if you have tested your RAM modules already.

 

  • Listen for any beep codes when your computer powers on. These are usually repetitive.
  • Check that your fans are spinning when you power on the computer.
  • Gently push down on the BIOS chip if you can see it on the motherboard.
  • Reseating the CPU + CPU fan
  • Checking that none of your PCI(e) cards are faulty.
  • Gently pushing in the front panel connectors (there may be one loose connector that LOOKS as if it's misplaced, please do not plug that in, that may be the CMOS reset)

 

User-suggested fixes on the internet (Use at your own risk):

  • Replace the CMOS battery
  • Reapplying thermal paste to the CPU
  • Powercycling the computer (bad temporary solution, would avoid)
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  • Reapplying thermal paste to the CPU
  • Powercycling the computer (bad temporary solution, would avoid)
Theres nothing bad about powercycling a computer, and old thermal paste wouldn't cause the issues he's having.
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Apparently the thermal paste one has worked for another user with a POST problem.

 

Also, powercycling is a pretty poor solution, as it's unlikely to offer a permanent fix.

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Apparently the thermal paste one has worked for another user with a POST problem.

 

Also, powercycling is a pretty poor solution, as it's unlikely to offer a permanent fix.

You replace thermal paste when the old stuff has gone bad (which takes a long time). And what, exactly does that mean, you ask? It means that it does a poor job of transfering heat, thereby causing higher temperatures. Old thermal paste won't cause the cpu to instantly hit tjmax and shut down.

 

As for powercycling, if he can manage to get the system booted up -- even if it's only once, thats a step in the right direction towards verifying the integrity of the board, and/or assuring that everything is connected properly.

 

 

What @@Keroro1454 should do is:

Firstly, double, triple, and quadruple check that everything is connected correctly -- and assuming the problem still persists....

Remove everything from the system so that there is ONLY a motherboard, cpu, heatsink, one stick of ram, a mouse, and a keyboard. He should then try to power on and try to get into the bios (assuming he has an iGPU, if he doesn't have an iGPU, then just see if the system will stay powered on). If the system still doesn't post, then he should try his current stick of ram in a different slot, if it still doesn't post, then he should try a different stick of ram.

If that fails, then it's time to either try a different psu in his computer, or test his psu in another computer. If the issue still persists then he'll know that it's either the motherboard or cpu thats causing the issue -- and he can either test out the cpu/motherboard if he has a spare compatible cpu/motherboard, or just assume it's the motherboard as that is more likely (assuming he wasn't overclocking the cpu stupidly). 

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Well, I'm not exactly recommending reapplying thermal paste. Just said another user (on the internet, no less) has reported that it had worked.

 

The main reason I don't encourage powercycling is because of thermal stress on the components. As with new cases, you should have a reset button anyway.

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Well, I'm not exactly recommending reapplying thermal paste. Just said another user (on the internet, no less) has reported that it had worked.

 

The main reason I don't encourage powercycling is because of thermal stress on the components. As with new cases, you should have a reset button anyway.

Thermal stress....

 

u wot m8 

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Thermal stress....

 

u wot m8 

 

If you turn something on repeatedly, it will heat up quickly.

If it is not allowed to cool down before the computer turns back on again, it has a small chance of damaging the component.

 

Here, I am assuming that you don't simply powercycle the computer once and don't wait for a period of time before attempting to boot the computer.

 

Edit: better safe than sorry

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If you turn something on repeatedly, it will heat up quickly.

If it is not allowed to cool down before the computer turns back on again, it has a small chance of damaging the component.

 

Here, I am assuming that you don't simply powercycle the computer once and don't wait for a period of time before attempting to boot the computer.

 

Edit: better safe than sorry

No component in a computer produces so much heat so quickly that its heatsink can't dissipate it. Hell, you can run your cpu (not at load) on a stock heatsink with the fan off for quite some time before you'll reach tjmax (assuming the case has poor to no airflow, if airflow is decent then you'll never reach tjmax). 

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Okay, so tried the RAM idea, no luck. I think my 20-pin is in fully, it looks so. But I'm not sure, I've had an issue with it being loose in the past. How can I best check if it is loose. If this is chronic, what's the best way to secure it? Thermal tape? I'm at a loss. Last time this happen I just applied some force to it and it fixed the issue.
(Please no one say crazy glue or something like that)

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Okay, so tried the RAM idea, no luck. I think my 20-pin is in fully, it looks so. But I'm not sure, I've had an issue with it being loose in the past. How can I best check if it is loose. If this is chronic, what's the best way to secure it? Thermal tape? I'm at a loss. Last time this happen I just applied some force to it and it fixed the issue.

(Please no one say crazy glue or something like that)

hold it in while you turn on the computer and see if that works.

 

or try a different psu.

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