Intermitent Motherboard fault - is it fried, and what would be a good replacement?

Shazmog

Honorable
Apr 16, 2013
4
0
10,510
Hi,
I'm new here but was recommended by a friend to come here and post about my PC problem.

The situation is that just over a week ago, my computer pretty much died on me and I believe the issue comes from the motherboard, as was verified by a technician.

After re-formating a partition on my hard drive (not my C: drive with Windows), my computer gave me a blue screen error when trying to load windows upon reboot, and from there on, upon start, told me the BIOS was corrupted and nothing else (would not load the ram/graphics/drives etc). Just the Motherboard's Logo, and then error message.

Now we have done tests such as taking the ram out and booting the computer - there are no beeps, which from my understanding is not good. Due to this the technician who had a look believes the motherboard needs changing.

As an FYI, my motherboard is a foxconn Quantum Force flammingblade GTI. Now the issue I seem to have is that I have an Intel Core i7 960 chip with (from my understanding) a 1366 socket, and from the research I have done, it seems that manufacture of motherboards that are compatible with that socket have now been discontinued.

The repair price I am being quote is quite high (at least higher than I expected) and I am wondering if it is because of the fact that these motherboards have been discontinued, or perhaps the technician has a bad supplier ?

My knowledge when it comes to hardware is limited, hence I am hoping to get a second opinion. The motherboard the technician recommended is an ASUS P8Z77, which he said should support my current RAM (DDR3). The technician did not mention anything about socket compatibility, this came out of my own research hence I would like a second opinion.

I am being quoted £650 to get a new motherboard and power supply (see below) which feels expensive when I can see much cheaper motherboards on the market.

As a side note, the technician recommended I got a new power supply (currently I have 650w, and he said that as I added a 4th hard drive it would be a good idea to get higher - 850w would suffice or 1000w to future-proof any more addons) - unsure if this is necessary ?

Any help or advice on this would be very welcome, and if you need to know any other specs from the PC if it helps do ask.

UPDATE: My PC Specs are as follows;
- Case: Antec 300 Gaming Case
- Power Supply: OCZ ZS 650 Bronze 80+ Rated PSU
- CPU: Intel Core i7 960 3.20GHz Bloomfield overclocked to 3.40GHz
- Motherboard: Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
- Cooler: OcUK H2 Flo Extreme Cooler
- RAM: 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 Triple Channel Kit
- Hard Drive: 1TB HDD + Crucial RealSSD M4 64Gb SSD
- Graphics Card: MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 2048MB GDDR5
- Sound: Onboard HD 7.1 Audio
- Optical Drive: Samsung DVD Optical Drive
- Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium

tldr: Motherboard is fried but being quoted what feels like a high price for repair - is this due to my i7 processor with 1366 sockets?

 

Shazmog

Honorable
Apr 16, 2013
4
0
10,510
Thanks for the first answers everyone. I've updated my first post with my PC specs and see below as well.

@ihog; i tried flashing the bios, got a usb and put it as bootable etc, but the problem is as the bios is corrupted it wouldn't let me - when I tried to change the USB as first bootable drive and restarted the PC I just got a black screen. Only way to get something back on it was to unplug everything, take the CMOS battery out and then all back in.

@mcnumpty; yeah pretty much hence why I thought it was mega expensive... See below the full specs of my pc, not sure what voltage my RAM is though and my PC is with this technician I mentioned at the moment.

I've found this package which seemed like a potential option, what do you guys think ? http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Intel-Core-i7-3820-360GHz-CPU-8GB-DDR3-1600MHZ-RAM-Gigabyte-X79-Motherboard-Bundle_43350.html

- Case: Antec 300 Gaming Case
- Power Supply: OCZ ZS 650 Bronze 80+ Rated PSU
- CPU: Intel Core i7 960 3.20GHz Bloomfield overclocked to 3.40GHz
- Motherboard: Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
- Cooler: OcUK H2 Flo Extreme Cooler
- RAM: 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 Triple Channel Kit
- Hard Drive: 1TB HDD + Crucial RealSSD M4 64Gb SSD
- Graphics Card: MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 2048MB GDDR5
- Sound: Onboard HD 7.1 Audio
- Optical Drive: Samsung DVD Optical Drive
- Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium
 

Shazmog

Honorable
Apr 16, 2013
4
0
10,510
Hi again, so it's looking more and more like I will have to replace the whole motherboard + processor + ram, feels like it will be the best course of action at this point.

Also after calling overclockers he said my PSU of 650w should be more than enough to power up any graphics cards out there even with 10 hard drives plugged in.

As mentioned above, I found this deal which looked good, although any other recommendations of bundles such as these would be great - http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Intel-Core-i7-3820-360GHz-CPU-8GB-DDR3-1600MHZ-RAM-Gigabyte-X79-Motherboard-Bundle_43350.html