Fried motherboard

[bengasman]

Got definite confirmation today that my motherboard is dead.

Computer is 3 ½ years old, and fairly high spec in those days. 3.2 gb, 160 + 160 + 120 hard disks and medium video card

As computers go, they are never fast enough, but I did not have real complaints.


Company that build and can probably fix it, has moved 1 direction and I moved the other so round trip will now be 3 hours. Sending by courier pain in whatsit.

Main question: is it worth getting another mother board or not?

 

[Deluks]

How did you diagnose the motherboard as being damaged?

3.2gb? or Ghz?

Medium graphics card? or well done?


Depends what they are charging for the work, and what processor is in it currently.
Is it a 3.2 ghz Athlon XP? If so flog it on fleabay as they have great resale value.

Then buy a new cheap 'n' fast Intel dual core chip/mobo combination.

If it's a 3.2 pentium 4, then it won't resell for that much. So hang onto it and just get the board replaced.

Do you know what make/model the motherboard is? It should be written on it somewhere, normally next to or between the card slots.

 

[bengasman]

It is 3.2 ghz of course, was half asleep by the looks of it. It is a pentium 4 which was recommended at the time as being more reliable than amd. it seems intel and amd have changed place as number 1 several times, no idea who is considered to be the better of the 2 at the moment.
motherboard is a 'gigabyte' raid 1 with a '8 x 'agp' dufa on it. this appears incidentally to be the culprit. 12 volt on the fan connector, but no movement on the fan. teh 160 gb drives are ata and the 120gb is a sata. funnily enough, the sata is decidedly slower.
Would i have compatibility issues with the old drives and video card if i got a completely different board?

 

[Deluks]

Does the machine boot up at all? have you tried another fan, or one of the other fan connectors? I've had mobo's in the past that have had a knackered fan header but the rest of the board has been fine. The power supply could also be the cause of the problem.

If it's a socket 775* (unlikely) then you can take your pick from loads of newer boards. that will also be compatible with the Intel dual and quad core CPU's, so upgrading in the future will only require swapping the chip over.

If it's a Socket 478, there are only a few companies still producing them, here's one that will fit the bill. Although it doesn't have RAID





*Be aware that any newer 775 board will need to be compatible with your memory. You probably have DDR(1) whereas the majority of mobo's these days require DDR2. (fortunately this is cheap and you can get 1GB for about £12)

Your graphics card being AGP will also require a board with an AGP slot, unless you get a newer PCIe graphic card to match the new motherboard, or get one with onboard graphics.

 

[bengasman]

It is the little fan that does not run, but I have 12 volt on the pins. I guess the fan somehow stopped, and the chip burned out.

I get zip, not even the bios screen at the very beginning of the startup. Tried other card and still zip

I think it is only worth it to change the board if I can keep using the rest. If I have to buy another graphics card, memory and what have you, I might as well get a whole new computer.

Thanks for the help so far, any other advice is surely welcome.

 

[Deluks]

Ah, the fan on the motherboard that keeps the little square northbridge chip cool.
If you can find the model number (again, will be on the board next to the slots) then you might be able to get an identical working one on ebay.

Useful reference Here

Sorry link is carp, click on the correct socket type in the product list for a list of boards, yours should be there somewhere.