NB chip overheating, wont boot

[jgorm]

I've had the computer for years, Asus something or other MB, core2 quad. Its worked fine but then it blue screened out and on reboot it freezes up on the screen to select safe boot. The keyboard wont work to select anything. If I put a large house fan blowing on the MB with the case open it will cool to ambient temp in less than a minute. When I turn on the computer the NB chip gets really hot, maybe 120F+ in about 20 seconds. I can use the keyboard for about 5 seconds if I let the MB cool to ambient before it freezes. If I try to reboot without turning it off and letting it cool (all with a big fan blowing tons of air on it) the keyboard or mouse never work. The cpu heat sink never even gets a little warm. I'm going to try another power supply. Has anybody seen anything like this? My power in my house was dipping a bit that day.
Thanks,
Joe

 

[alvine]

sounds like a bad motherboard
contact asus and try to get a replacement

 

[vnayak15]

what do u mean by NB chip? tried replacing memory chip? i would first clean memory slot with suitable cleaner, clean memory contacts with an eraser, reinstall and then wap memory with known good one(only one module for testing).

 

[jgorm]

north bridge. at least I think that is. It has the biggest heat sink on the MB and there are copper heat pipes that go to 2 other chips on the MB that dont get nearly as hot.

 

[vnayak15]

uh uh! usually an NB going south results in no display.whatever, here is a simple solution to rule out hardware issue with the motherboard.remove ur hard disk/s, remove all rams installed, remove p.s and all other add on cards.with just the motherboard, now install KNOWN good one memory module, (clean the slot first), connect known good P.S, and boot with bartpe cd or ultimate boot cd.if boots o.k and u can use the gui with keyboard strokes or mouse then ur M.B seems to be o.k.make sure ur cd/dvd drive can boot /operate normal. else ur stuck with M.B hardware.

 

[jgorm]

I found out it was my hard drive. It was a weird failure. It would make it to the safe boot screen and freeze there every time. When I unplugged all the drives it wouldn't make it to the boot screen and just had a blinking cursor with no words. I never got the typical missing ntldr file, insert boot media so i didn't think it was the drives. I removed the offending drive and loaded the OS on a different drive and it worked fine. I've had multiple drives fail in the past, but never like this. Thanks for all your help!

 

[jgorm]

Best answer selected by jgorm.