Motherboard Replacement Advice

Infikiran

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Oct 11, 2008
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I have an interesting yet annoying problem. I have reason to believe that my USB controller on my motherboard may be going bad. I get random blue screens (I failed to copy the error code but if it happens again I will update), that originally led me to believe that I may have a RAM or Hard Drive issue.
I ran both memtest and VIVARD (tool for testing hard drives), but came up with nothing. I also stress tested both my CPU and Graphics card and came up with no errors. I then figured it might be malware and ran test for that and still came up with nothing.
I did notice, however, that my USB 2.0 ports randomly quit working. For instance, I may have to plug my printer into a different port for my PC to recognize it, or my flash drive may quit working etc. However, when I cold boot my PC everything is back to normal.

I tried reinstalling my chipset drivers thinking that they may have become corrupted, but when I try to reinstall them my PC blue screens and restarts. Leading me to believe that there is a problem with the controller itself.

I do have 3.0 ports that don't seem to be effected by this problem so I keep my keyboard and mouse plugged into those (which is annoying because I like to reserve those for my external drives.)

I have come to the conclusion that a motherboard replacement may be my only option, but I was wondering if there is something that I may have overlooked.

System Specs are as follows:

Motherboard: Gigabyte ga970a-UD3 Version 1.0
CPU: AMD FX 8350
RAM: 16GB Gskill Sniper Series 1866MHz (Clocked at 1600MHz due to chipset limitations.)
Hard Drive: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black
Secondary Drive: 3TB Hitachi Deskstar
Graphics Card: 6GB Saphire Vapor X 7970 GHZ Edition
Optical Drive: 12X Pioneer Blu-ray burner
Power Supply: Coolmax 850 watts
Operating System: Windows 8.1 64bit

Bios Version: Award F6 Version Date 5/30/2012
 
Solution
Little overboard but nice!
According to Newegg your board has 3 years of warranty http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128519 so find out if it is the board since it is probably the best 970 chipset board available and should sell easy on the used market after RMA.
If you go into device manager and uninstall all hardware drivers before shutting down you may get away with it, then again many people do repair on first start up.

f-14

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unplug everything.

Check for bad capacitors on the board (bulges rounded tops liquid of something oozing or pussing out at the top or base, odd burning chemical kind of smells are major indicators popping noises no matter how quiet or surging noises brown outs zzzzzzz noises or sizzling or a constant-at any point any time or high frequency/pitch whine) as well as whatever you can see inside the power supply. if the warranty is up on the power supply take the cover off and inspect the internals for the same. (if you see any white goo or yellow goo looking spots make sure the power is turned off and use a PLASTIC knife or fork to test if the goo is hard in which case it is just excess glue, DO NOT stick anything metal in there as the capacitors still hold some current and will shock you if you touch the wrong spot)

if you smell/hear/see something funny it's a guarantee something is burning out.
from my personal experience if the 5volt rail on the psu or the 5volt regulators on the m/b is burning out it will take out the usb (which would explain why your 2.0 is gone but your 3.0 is still working because the 3.0 uses a bit more power) and i believe that is the same rail/regulator handling the 3.3V memory power as well at some point where the power is divirged/splitoff. so if your getting power surges or power browning from say the electrical companies offpeak power saving boxes (those cause alot of light bulbs to burn out from all the dimming when the off peak kicks in which combined with issues of Vdroop around .5v {one report of .75V vdroop was in a review for this m/b} for your board would possibly cause surges to burn out the regulator when the offpeak boxes shut off)
if you have a newer power supply tester get the psu checked out asap

there's enough bad reviews on newegg on the 850w coolmax power supply in 2010 if that's about when you bought this one that i'd be real leary about trusting it and has made me highly suspect this psu is the cause of your problem as there were similar reviews on bad psu's i have bought or customers pc's i fixed:

turks
10/24/2010
Pros: If you are on budget and slowly acquiring parts to make a PC, please test this device within 30 days of purchase from Newegg. Power supply failed due to low output voltage. Unable to completely power motherboard and other devices.

Cons: Since these is 3 years warranty manufacturer is the only option for replacement. Hope Coolmax expedite replacement.

K
6/26/2010
Other Thoughts: when I bought this there were many poor reviews. I took a chance on a daily deal and have been happy since.
AMD X4 955 Black OC to 3.8GHZ, Kingston Ram, (2) ATI 4850's in Crossfire mode, (2) Seagate 500GB drives in Raid 0.

N/A
3/25/2010
Pros: Essentially none.

Cons: Worked for about 5 hours, then began cutting out. In those 5 hours it also performed worse than the 500 watt I was replacing it with. Just avoid this altogether, buy something better.

essentially your psu should be giving you more than enough power, but if they used shoddy parts anywhere in it it doesn't matter. 66amps is pretty good with all you are running it's more than plenty also.
 

Infikiran

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Oct 11, 2008
107
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18,715
Sorry for the late reply guys, been on a tight work schedule the past couple of days.

The motherboard is 2 years old and out of warranty so Gigabyte wouldn't do anything anyway.

I just needed to be sure it was hardware before I bit the bullet :/.

Thank you f-14 for all your advise. I went ahead and ordered a new PSU and motherboard. I ordered these below:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139022

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131876

I might have gone a little bit overboard but I'm tired of running into problems because I wanted to save money. This has been a lesson learned.

Now in the past I have always ran a fresh OS install when replacing the motherboard, but I would like to avoid it if at all possible. Reason being I got my Windows 8 OS from Microsoft Accreditation while working at Office Depot and I can't for the life of me remember what I did with my product key.

Any advise on this?
 
Little overboard but nice!
According to Newegg your board has 3 years of warranty http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128519 so find out if it is the board since it is probably the best 970 chipset board available and should sell easy on the used market after RMA.
If you go into device manager and uninstall all hardware drivers before shutting down you may get away with it, then again many people do repair on first start up.
 
Solution