Damaged Motherboard

[diellur]

First, I hope this is in the correct section...apologies if not.

My gaming PC has died, and I'm trying to diagnose the problem to ID which component has failed. I'm fairly competent with PCs, and have done the below. There is a twist in all this, so read on and help if you can...thanks! My specs are in my sig, so I'll refer to the parts I used as I go along without posting my full system build. There's a fair bit to this post due to steps I've already taken, so I appreciate the time people take to read this.

I set about overclocking my gaming PC (spec below), which I had done in the past but then abandoned due to being more interested in gaming at the time. I had achieved a stable OC at 4.2GHz, without having tweaked many settings...VCore was less than 1.3V, heat was tolerable etc. I mention this as I'm not sure if it is the culprit or not...not sure if it is, as I've OC'd in the past (had it running for weeks at 4.4GHz with no issues a few months ago). Anyway...the PC was running fine for the next few hours under 4.2GHz, then during the install for some software it asked me to restart the system. I did, and it wouldn't restart at all or respond to the power switch.

I've done the following:

1) Disconnected / reconnected the PSU from the wall, then hit the power switch...the fans will twitch but that's it. No power to system.

2) Tested another PSU on gaming PC: No change, PC still dead as described above.

3) Tested gaming PC PSU on HTPC (build as below): Booted into Windows.

4) Tested 560Ti on HTPC (with gaming PC PSU): Booted into Windows.

5) Tested i5-2500K and gaming PC RAM on HTPC (with gaming PC PSU and HTPC GPU): Booted but then shutdown.

From this point, regardless of what is in the HTPC (i5-2500K, GPUs or orginal HTPC spec below), it will boot-loop ONCE (fans are on, no output on display, no POST). After first boot-loop, it'll then happily sit there with power on the board, fans etc and the CPU gets warm but no POST. I have a speaker which will give the error code for no RAM installed, but give nothing if the RAM is installed (both gaming PC and HTPC RAM). This is the case for either the HTPC or gaming PC PSU.

What's confusing me is why the testing went pear-shaped when the i5-2500K was installed. As far as I know, the CPU doesn't remember setting from an overclock, it'll respond to whatever motherboard it is installed in. The only thing I can conclude is that the gaming PSU is faulty and has cooked my gaming PC motherboard, and has damaged my HTPC motherboard also but not to the point of it not powering up. The G620 is underclocked so won't draw much power but the i5-2500K will draw a relatively large amount in comparison, which perhaps caused the HTPC board to suffer a similar fate to the gaming PC...again, I think this points to the gaming PC PSU.

I've tried resetting the BIOS on both systems, both by moving the correct jumper and by removing the CMOS battery. No effect on the issue.

My intention is to get a new motherboard and try to get it to boot with first my G620 and then i5-2500K (and NOT my gaming PC PSU!). I'm hoping to get the HTPC back on its feet and then tackle the gaming PC.

So, fine people, what do you think?

- Would you agree that the gaming PSU is the original culprit?
- The fact that the HTPC motherboard booted initially with the gaming PC PSU and i5-2500K (hopefully!) indicated that the i5-2500K is OK...at least, was then?
- If a CPU is faulty, will that kill a new motherboard?

Thanks for the time and any help given!

 

[smorizio]

if you know of a friend or a tech store that has a post it card put the 620 in the hptc and have the post with the card in and see where it stops. it could be ps fried the chipset of the mb or the memory controller inside the cpu. have you also checked the pci and ram slot and under the cpu and the cpu for bent pins. i would also use the green wire trick on your gaming power supply and look at the output voltage and see if there withing atx spec. i would go on that you have a bad power supply and it killed the cpu and your mb. hopfully your hard drives are fine.

 

[diellur]

I managed to get the same motherboard that's in my HTPC today at a shop on the high street. I am bemused...not only did it work fine with the i5-2500K, but so did the HTPC motherboard I thought was dead. I'm away with work this week, but I've managed to put my i5-2500K into the HTPC for my wife (who's on leave right now), so it both gives her access to the movies and lets the CPU get some exercise to make sure it's OK.

Unfortunately, the G620 is dead. However, I'd rather that than the i5-2500K. So it looks like it was a bad PSU, which also took out a CPU as well. Given my specs below, I think I got off lightly. Time to hunt down a new motherboard...

Thanks for the help.