Strange coincidence or .. not ?

[pitsi]

Here is my little story I'd like to hear your opinions about this because I found it very strange and I am still trying to understand!

A friend bought Asus A7N8X Deluxe, Barton 2500+ (with a swiftech cooler & arctic silver 3), Radeon 9700 Pro. He built his system and while trying to reach 3000+ speeds, he pushed the vcore to 1.75v. CPU cooling and case cooling was sufficient (but no cooling on northbridge or anything). System was stable, running Prime95 and C&C: Generals for hours with no problems. Anyway, one day he decided to install one Athlon XP 1900+ on his board to test it, after that the mobo never posted again! Not even with the old hardware (Barton etc). After giving the mobo to me I tested it with 100% working components and I found out that it's officialy dead!!!! (reseting the BIOS did not help either)

Because he didn't want to wait until RMAing this mobo, he bought a new Epox 8RDA+. We installed everything together this time but we couldn't get the memory to work in dual channel mode, the system would simply not boot. Reseting/updating the BIOS did not help, i tried different memory modules but nothing worked (it was 100% mobo's problem). He also decided to pump up the vcore to 1.925v to reach 3200+ and everything was running smoothly, in single channel mode of course. Yesterday I go over at his house together with my Corsair PC3200 XMS memory. I try them on .. no post. After that, the system did not post even in single channel mode like it did just a few minutes ago! I tested the mobo thoroughly and ... it's also dead!

What the ****? Could both these cases be a simple coincidence? Can you think of anything? Power supply is not a problem either.

I don't know what to think here! Maybe when using the Epox @ 1.925v fried the northbridge or something? Is this a possibility? Maybe there is something wrong with the power in his house? I don't even know if this makes sense!

What do you think? Please note that I am not a newbie when it comes to building computer systems so any questions like "did you reset the bios?" etc won't be of any use.

Thanks.

 

[david__t]

Although It is not normally a problem, it is possible that you have killed the board with static shock whilst changing components. Also, when messing around with the voltages (especially up to 1.9) you risking lots of things not working - memory, CPU, mobo. In fact I wouldn't mention your exploits to the company that you got the hardware from because they would not replace them knowing that they had been used outside their normal remit.

Out side of a board being fried we all know that the Nforce2 boards are all very picky about memory modules - especially in dual channel mode. My mate recently bought some branded memory off an official AMD reseller together with an Nforce2 board and even he couldn't supply my mate with memory that worked properly in dual channel mode.

If one of the components are faulty then your motherboard should produce beep codes which relate to which bit is broken. Boards will not post without a CPU or memory or graphics cards installed and usually there are beep codes related to each of these. You should be able to get away with no keyboard / mouse hard disks / floppy drive and all PCI cards. In fact when trouble shooting it is best to remove all non-essentials in order to find what the problem is.

As fas as overclocking goes, most companies produce a batch of chips which are tested for speed. The best chips are rated at the highest levels (3000+ for example) and others that don't make the grade under normal conditions are rated lower (2500+) Therefore there is a great range of overclockability even within the same processor rating - you could be lucky and get a chip that goes very high indeed or you could get one that is unstable even at very moderate overcloked speeds. But overclocking a CPU from 2500+ to 3200+ is asking for trouble unless you have very top notch components and extensive cooling throughout. And as I have said already over 1.9v is really pushing things when stock levels are 1.65v. I would always recommend changing multiplier and FSB settings first especially if this is your first time because you can't really damage anything by doing this - if you use improper settings then most boards will fail POST and then they go back to default settings (true for Asus boards anyway). Or if not you can clear the CMOS to reset to defaults.

At the end of the day the components are very sensitive to lots of external factors and on a mobo there are many things that could be causing you a problem. If you have checked all the relevent settings and your power supply then there is little that we will be able to help you with here. Maybe another RMA is in order

4.77MHz to 4.0GHz in 10 years. Imagine the space year 2020

 

[pitsi]

The fact that another RMA is in order is the only thing I know for sure Thanks for your reply.

I know that static shock can be a problem but I deal with computer hardware all the time and I never had any problems with that before so I doubt that this was the problem. Now about the memory. I had tried 3 different pairs of modules that were tested before on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe board with no problems. On Epox they wouldn't boot. <b>So correct me if I am wrong but doesn't this show that there was smt wrong with this board?</b> The beeps I was getting were related to memory (and that's only when booting in dual channel). After I tried testing Corsair on that board, even the beeps were gone It's like the board was waiting to die on me!

It boots and doesn't beep or anything like there is nothing wrong but the monitor does not turn on. It even does not beep even if I have no memory installed so that's why I thought that this mobo was probably destroyed. So, I take off from 8RDA+ his video card, CPU, power supply and memory and go over at my place. I remove everything I have installed in my machine and put in his video card, CPU, power supply and memory (only these components .. so the only thing changed was 8RDA+ -> A7N8X D). And guess what? It boots ok!

I don't know if I am just lucky but I have NEVER had any problems when setting up MY systems! The last time I built a new PC was 2 months ago .. no problems! Even while everyone was complaining in this forum about A7N8X etc. But on the other hand, there seems to be no way to get my friend's system working

Anyway, I know there is not really anything left to be said here. It's clear that two boards were destroyed, now about the reasons .. we'll probably never know! I simply hope that a third board will solve all his problems.

 

[Penfold]

heavy!

P

 

[mito]

heavy metal!

/\/\ito

 

[phsstpok]

The first problem sounds like the nForce2 BIOS corruption issue. Fixed by booting with a 100 Mhz processor installed. Got a spare Duron?

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

 

[pitsi]

Thanks for the reply, although I've already sent the mobo back for a replacement. I wasn't aware of this problem you mentioned but anyway, I don't think that I would be able to find a 100MHz processor.

 

[phsstpok]

I wasn't sure I was right anyway.

The descriptions on the BIOS corruption issue that I have heard are sketchy. The way I understand it, it affects all mobos with nForce2 rev 1.x northbridge. Something about overclocking too far. The settings get stored in non-volatile memory in an area that isn't reset when CMOS gets cleared. CPU will no longer POST because it is overclocked too high.

Well, that's what I heard. The workaround is to install a 100 Mhz processor, the act of doing this somehow resets the overclock settings while clearing CMOS doesn't.

One or two nForce2 mobos had a hardwired jumper for 133/100 FSB speed. This made it easier to fix the problem if it occurs. Don't recall which mobos.

Boards with a newer rev, 2.0, of the northbridge supposedly don't have the problem.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>