Technology?

Many motherboards come with the debug LED? It will display an error code which can be used to trouble shoot the problem. My x38 board has one.

There are also add in cards that plug into a PCI slot that will do the same thing.

A clamp-on ammeter does not diagnose problems. All it does is make current measurements easier to take. The person measuring still needs his troubleshooting skills to know what to do with the measurements.


Let's see. The machine has to account for the different CPU's. It needs to account for the different socket layouts, expansion slot layouts, and header pin layouts.

Motherboard manufacturers have their own automated machinery at the factory. After that, no one is going to spend millions of dollars - or dollar equivalents - to develop a machine to test a $100 - $200 (retail) motherboard (half that wholesale).

Then you have the parts problem. Are the parts you need available? Do you stock parts? If so, you have an expensive initial outlay. If you order what you need as you need it, your parts cost will be higher because you are ordering single or low quantities.

Then you have the labor problem. People who can solder high density SMT devices will not work cheaply.

Then you have the problem of what to charge. The upper limit is probably mo more than half the retail cost of a new motherboard. My Gigabyte G41 boards were about $50 each.

So if your LED's tell you that you have a problem with the memory controller, are you going to remove the old one and solder in a new X38 chip?

No, but I would replace the board. He asked about something that would tell where the problem is, not how to fix it.