Bad motherboard?

[navychop]

I have an XP Pro machine, taken from service some years ago, fully functional at the time. I recently turned it back on, to convert it to Linux Mint, and got - nada.

Opened it up. Green light on motherboard lights up. Front panel power button has no effect. Thinking the switch was bad, I jumpered the spot on the mobo where the sw plugs in. Nada. No reaction, no sounds, no fans, no HDD spinups.

The motherboard is an old ASUS. Oddly, I can find no model number, not even after removing cards, but I believe it's older than the A7N8X. PS is a PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 510.

Any ideas before I pull the CPU & RAM and go looking for a compatible mobo? Any idea on what to try to bring this back from the dead?



Yes, I need to clear out the dust bunnies.

 

[jevans64]

If it is any consolation, I had an Asus P5B-VM that just bit the dust. I'll take a look at your pictures and see if I can see the model number. Asus usually puts the model number between RAM and CPU socket.

EDIT. Right there in the picture... A8N-SLI.

It is going to be hard to find a decent NEW replacement since the CPU and RAM is old-school. Since it is an nForce4 board, I'd probably start by pulling out everything but one stick of RAM, the main hard drive, and any video card and extra cards in the slots. Leave the video card in IF your motherboard doesn't have the 6200 on-board graphics. I believe the one with on-board was called nForce4 IGP. See if it will boot with minimal hardware in it. In cases like this, a lot of times I will head to eBay and look for a cheap exact replacement. Not many things you can do if you can't get through POST.

Have you tried any diagnostics using Hiren's Boot CD or Ultimate Boot CD? If you have another machine that will take vanilla DDR, you can move that to another machine for testing using Memtest86+ from one of those discs. Same with the hard disks but you can use HDAT2 from one of those discs.

When my P5B-VM died, I just decided to build this little guy. A water-cooled 4th Gen Core i7-4770k with nVidia 760 ITX, 16GB DDR3, 2x 750GB HD, 6x BDXL writer in a case 7" x 9" x 11".

 

[navychop]

AMD Athlon 64

View attachment 95864



Looks like socket 939 to me. No such mobos at Newegg, Microcenter, Tiger Direct. Still looking.

 

[navychop]

"EDIT. Right there in the picture... A8N-SLI. "

I hate you with a passion!

 

[navychop]

"Not many things you can do if you can't get through POST.

Have you tried any diagnostics using Hiren's Boot CD or Ultimate Boot CD? If you have another machine that will take vanilla DDR, you can move that to another machine for testing using Memtest86+ from one of those discs. Same with the hard disks but you can use HDAT2 from one of those discs."

Can't get that far.

 

[navychop]

"When my P5B-VM died, I just decided to build this little guy. A water-cooled 4th Gen Core i7-4770k with nVidia 760 ITX, 16GB DDR3, 2x 750GB HD, 6x BDXL writer in a case 7" x 9" x 11"."

Nice. And we both like Sprite. But right now, I have to do this as close to $0 as possible, or not do it.

 

[Neutron]

Disconnect the power supply power from the MB (should be 20 or 24 pin). Jumper the green wire with any of the grounds with a paperclip. Turn your power supply on with the switch on the power supply. Does it power on? If not I would say it's your power supply. If so it's definitely your motherboard.

Jumping these two wires tricks your power supply into thinking it's connected to the motherboard. Make sure you have one of your other drives plugged into the power supply for load.

 

[navychop]

"...In cases like this, a lot of times I will head to eBay and look for a cheap exact replacement...."

Good idea. Found very similar, new in box. Might go that way if I can't raise this from the dead. Amazon had one, with a picture of a camera, for an obscene amount. Lot's on eBay used- not going there, considering. But there are 2 or 3 possibilities there.

 

[Rey]

Ebay would definitely be the way to go when going after old mobo's for cheap. I have a couple of Asus AMD mobo's laying around at work. I'll see if any are compatible with your cpu. Stinks that about 6 months ago I cleaned out my closet and threw out a mobo that would've been perfect for you.

 

[navychop]

Disconnect the power supply power from the MB (should be 20 or 24 pin). Jumper the green wire with any of the grounds with a paperclip. Turn your power supply on with the switch on the power supply. Does it power on? If not I would say it's your power supply. If so it's definitely your motherboard.

Jumping these two wires tricks your power supply into thinking it's connected to the motherboard. Make sure you have one of your other drives plugged into the power supply for load.

It 's a 24. My PS tester is a 20.

Both pins alongside the green are common- PS fan did not come on with jumpering. I tested the 4 & 6 pin power connectors, and the 4 pin square ATX12v mobo connector- no voltage or .04. But the mobo green light comes on.

Well, let's assume it's the PS. Since it's a PC Power and Cooling, I think there's a good chance when it died it did not take the mobo with it.

NOW- the F-Panel pinout in the manual to the motherboard does not match the silkscreen on the motherboard. I'll just have to fiddle with that, trusting the silkscreen first.

I have a PC P&C Turbo Cool 425 ATX 20 pin on hand. Thought I had a better one, but it's not jumping out at me. And a couple Apollo 300w (don't know why I kept those).

But WAIT! There's MORE! I found my tester 20 to 24 pin adapter (leaves 4 pins on end n/c), and tried that. No green light. The PS is truly dead. But it still bugs me that the mobo green light comes on.

RAM is 184 pin DDR.

Let's see:

-Take a chance on the motherboard being good and buy a $7 20-24 pin adapter and see if the 425 is good. If mobo bad, buy from eBay, $50-$100 and reuse everything else.

-Buy a new PS and chance the mobo being good. If mobo bad, buy from eBay, $50-$100 and reuse everything else.

-Buy a new low end mobo ($60-$100), CPU ($40), 4GB RAM ($40) and PS ($50). Put Linux Mint on it. Reuse case, memory card reader and 250GB Barracuda 7200.8 SATA and IDE optical drives. Use mobo video. $200 or so. NOT Plan A today.

Cannot build new main PC and repurpose current to Mint. $$$ And I have some W7 upgrade discs on hand, but certainly will not go to W8 or W8.1.

Or I could possibly convert one of our two laptops to Mint, or explore the dual boot option.

Have I overlooked anything? Comments, please?

 

[navychop]

Ebay would definitely be the way to go when going after old mobo's for cheap. I have a couple of Asus AMD mobo's laying around at work. I'll see if any are compatible with your cpu. Stinks that about 6 months ago I cleaned out my closet and threw out a mobo that would've been perfect for you.

Thanks. A few months ago, cleaning out non salable stuff from my last employer, I threw out whole functional PCs, mobos and a bunch of accessories. Always thought I had way too much hanging around. Now, in my junk closet (tours, two bits and sign a waiver) I found lots of IDE opticals, floppy drives and yet more cables. I have a laptop combo lock cable and LoJack I never used, and a Linksys AE2500 Dual band wireless N USB adapter that I have no idea where it came from. And found a Centronics cable run behind my desk! And a couple of Brick Walls.

BTW, anyone know if those 20-24 pin PS adapters work correctly?

 

[avg1joe]

It doesn't sound like it is an issue in your case but when dealing with older machines check the bios battery as well. To replace your old machine start telling all your friends about the imminent demise of windows xp, explain to them what a zero day exploit is and offer to take their xp machines off their hands.

 

[Rey]

Sorry Navy. I'm here at work and went to look at a few asus boxes stored away.I guess someone needed the boards as they weren't in there. :/

 

[Gbo]

does the cpu fan connect to the motherboard? I have seen some ASuS board not start when the fan is bad........ Might have locked up in storage.

 

[navychop]

AMD Athlon 64

View attachment 95864

View attachment 95865

Looks like socket 939 to me. No such mobos at Newegg, Microcenter, Tiger Direct. Still looking.

Was my photo of the CPU deleted because of copyright or some such issues?

 

[navychop]

Interesting in a single day the 20-24 pin adapter link I made changed at Amazon, pointing to the same adapter, but it's not Prime anymore.

I did not want to wait any more than two days, so I ordered a similar one and it'll be here Friday.

 

[navychop]

does the cpu fan connect to the motherboard? I have seen some ASuS board not start when the fan is bad........ Might have locked up in storage.

Yes, this is true. If the CPU fan is not plugged in to the correct power point, and working within specs, the system will not boot. At least, for this motherboard. And I had removed the CPU & fan to examine them.

But we didn't get that far. The PS is dead, as tested disconnected from the mobo. I tested the replacement (20 pin) and it seems fine. When I remove the old PS I will open it to see if there's an inside fuse or such.

 

[navychop]

Sorry Navy. I'm here at work and went to look at a few asus boxes stored away.I guess someone needed the boards as they weren't in there. :/

Thank you all the same. Hopefully, this mobo is good.

 

[navychop]

It doesn't sound like it is an issue in your case but when dealing with older machines check the bios battery as well. To replace your old machine start telling all your friends about the imminent demise of windows xp, explain to them what a zero day exploit is and offer to take their xp machines off their hands.

Yes, I thought of that. If the mobo comes back to life, and the settings are still there, I'll assume it's good to go for some years. If the mobo does not return to life, I'll remove it and test and maybe replace. Nothing to lose- I think I've already got a replacement available.

As to the second part of your post- that is devious, underhanded and dastardly. I like that in a guy!

 

[navychop]

Now I've got 6 hours to decide on THIS. It's the deluxe version of this mobo. Everything that currently plugs in will work. Hmmmm. $41 plus shipping....