Motherboards frying

[Hando567]

ok so ive now gone through 2 maybe 3 motherboards. all 3 are dying the same death. It will be working fine one day then im getting ready for bed so i go through the shutdown procedure, come back the next day and it is in a continual reboot cycle (starts for 6-7 secs then shuts down, comes back on after about 2 secs). the first mobo was a gigabyte 965P DQ6, had it for about 10 months when it went, the second was a gigabyte p35c DS3R it died after about a week and a half, the third is another p35c DS3R and i just put it in and it didnt even boot, though the last one isnt in the reboot cycle. of the 2 p35c's the first one started out before it went by beeping at me twice, with two beeps of the same time length, i dont knwo if they are short or long, then the powe LED blinks at me and it eventually shuts down and does it again. after shutting down the second time the first one went into reboot cycle. the second one is in the beep phase and i do not want to let it get to the reboot cycle because it may still be salvageable if i figure out what is wrong. i think something may be frying my bios and the reboot is my mobo's dual bios booting the other chip. I have replaced bith my PSU and my UPS after the second one. I have tried resetting the bios. the rest of my specs are as follows.

MSI 7900GT
Intel core 2 duo E6600
2GB Patriot ectreme performance DDR2 800
Seagate 7200.10 320GB HD
Lite on sata DVD-RW
ATI TV wonder elite pci-e X1 tv tuner
creative X-fi fatality sound
OCZ mod x stream 780W PSU
APC UPS

any help would be great, sorry if you cannot under stand the above paragraph but i am in a rush off to work and wanted to post before i left. my next bet is the processor may have gone and is causing the issue. im just not sure and i am tired of replacing mobo's, the one thats in my PC now is brand new, just came from newegg today and the first time i try to boot it iot gives me the two beeps and nothing comes on the monitor so i am just really frustrated. thanks alot for any help.

 

[mike99]

Try booting from Knoppix or similar CD, that will test hardware independant of HD OS.

Mike

 

[wallis]

there is a well known problem with some gigabyte boards and memory. the bios sets the memory too low for the ram and it goes into a reboot cycle like what you have. up the ram voltage from the default 1.8v to what ever your ram is specced to have. this can even occur after the mobo has been working ok on 1.8v for a few months. take a stick of ram out and try to get into the bios....hit CTRL+F1 and adjust your ram voltage to the manufacturers spec. theres a bit more info on the problem in this thread

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17636047

of course theres a chance something else may be causing it but the symptoms you describe are exactly the same for the ram problem. some peoplehave had to buy a cheap stick of ram to get into the bios but once they up the voltage to the ram to what the manufacturer recommends then all is OK.

i had to up my voltage from 1.8v what the bios detects (JDEC STANDARD) to 2.1v to what Giel my ram maker says it should be at.

good luck

 

[Hando567]

ok i guess i didnt describe it well enough, nothing at all appears on the monitor, it dosent even give me a chance to get into the bios. It gives me the two psot beeps and that is all. my previous two boards were running OCed a little bit to 2.7ghz and ram was at ram at 2.125v. my third board didnt boot correctly at all and gives me the post beeps, and the power LED blinks. If i leave it on it will most likely go into reboot cycle where i do not even get post beeps (my second board did the two beeps then i left it on for a bit it rebooted itself and went into the reboot cycle with NO POST)

thanks again for the help. oh yeah ive tried booting with all of the components out besides the CPU same thing (dosent even give me a code about my RAM missing when i started it without that).

 

[Hawkeye22]

Last time I had a blinking power LED, I'd have to turn the psu off then on again for it to work... for a while. Turns out the psu was going bad. Do you have a spare psu that you can try?

 

[Hando567]

its a brand new PSU i got a new one as that was my prime suspect after it fried the second time, but i did try my old one also just incase, same problem. i also have a new update, upon my tinkering with unplugging things and such i found that if i unplug my 12v ATX cable (that 4 pin one) it no longer gives me the post codes, but nothing is displayed on the monitor still. I am leaning more and more towards the CPU now as that is the only common device that i have not tried booting without. oh yeah ive also tried booting with a single stick of ram (tried both sticks in each slot) to no avail.

 

[freelance]

Sorry, wasn't careful, was asking about 1 stick of RAM when finally saw you did that. Well, two beeps = RAM. Try somebody elses RAM from another manuf?

 

[Hando567]

ok ill give it a shot if i can find some (my computer is the only newer one in the house with DDR 2 lol), however in my manual it tells me continuous short beeps is ram, dosent list what 2 long beeps is (i suspect 2 long because they are longer than the startup beep which is 1 short) and 2 short beeps is BIOS error (which to me almost makes sense because when the bios dosent load right on the mobo it shuts itself down and loads the other bios and trys that because it has the dual bios. This could mean that the reboot cycle is that both bioses dont load correctly, however i have already tried clearing the CMOS to no avail)

PS Hawkeye22 where do you get your SN from?

 

[maximiza]

check the electrical socket in wall, maybe somehting funky with house current. after 3 burns somethings up.

 

[PCKid777]

You know, the more I read these threads, the more I hate Gigabyte. My ASUS boards worked fine on this wall socket and my current Biostar Tforce board works great on the same socket too. I had a Gigabyte board once, and it died on me; sent it back for repair and died a day later. Sent it back again, and it died a month later. It was repaired 4 times (one time before from the previous owner) in all and I even have a Back UPS system. Gigabyte getting sloppy in their work???

 

[meljor]

try without your ups! if you use an extension cord or splitter: try an other one. also check your ground because gigabyte could make some faulty boards but this much failure is not normal.

good luck and please post your findings.

 

[PCKid777]

Hey, its doubtful but could your case be causing a short with your MB?

 

[Hando567]

hey, yeah ive tried without the UPS (was the first thing i did ) and i have also tried other outlets. Using a voltmeter ive found my wall sockets to put out 124V dont know at what frequency (i hope its 60 Hz lol) but i dont think it is the power in the house outlets as the other house computer (the one im on now) has been fine for years. I think im gonna try out of case next as thats a concern i myself have, doubt it especially because the first one lasted almost a year then the othet two failed rapidly (one failed to work period) and the case hasnt been physically damaged at all (as in a dent that could cause the metal to hit the board) but ill try anyway. ill definately keep you guys updated. Im gonna call gigabyte today, dont think theyll help at all but its worth a shot. my next step after that is out of case, if that fails a new CPU it is.

 

[Petrucci914]

If you have multiple sticks of memory try each individual stick separately and in different slots. If it's still doing stuff I'd recommend unmounting your motherboard and doing a bench test on it. Basically, have the computer running without it being in a case. You'll want to do this on a anti-static mat or a collection of anti-static bags (you must have a collection of them somewhere, if not, start one!). I would hope to god you used standoffs because if not that would lead to multiple motherboard failures. But since you've built other computers before and they're fine I'm doubting that you missed that.