ASROCK problem

On 2013-11-08 1:06 PM, Paul wrote:
Rhino wrote:
On 2013-11-02 5:20 PM, Paul wrote:
Rhino wrote:


Darn. I was hoping it was something as simple as a bad cable. This
sounds like it is going to be expensive to diagnose and fix and money
is NOT something I have on hand these days.

I'll figure out what I can on my own (and with your help)....


Turn off the power, pull the DIMMs, put them in an
antistatic bag so they don't get damaged. Turn on
the machine, and listen for beeps. If there is no
RAM, the processor can still run, and the code
it runs controls the beep pattern. Hearing it
beep in such a situation, is proof the processor
still works.

If that processor did not have the square 2x2 ATX12V
connected, then it could not beep. Your system was
working, and only if somehow that connector worked
itself loose, would that theory be practical.

Checking the power supply is going to be a more
"techy" procedure. If you have a multimeter, you can
check the voltages. Otherwise, you can replace the
supply (if you think that is cheaper than going to
a shop and paying a diagnosis fee). And there's still
no guarantee it's not the motherboard.

Is the power supply brand new ? Or was it
moved from an older system ? Does the supply
have a history of problems ?

My worst experience here, with diagnosing things,
is I ended up buying duplicates of practically
everything in the computer. And then the
"home repair" idea isn't as attractive. If you
get lucky on the "swap and test" thing, sometimes
you come out ahead.

When my RAM suddenly started throwing errors here,
just on a whim I adjusted Vnb (Northbridge) by
a step on the controls, and the errors stopped.
And that saved me a few dollars. I've had a fair
number of sticks of RAM that outright failed,
and when it happens, it's in the 1.5 to 2 year
timeframe. The RAM in that case, was "generic"
and didn't have a famous brand name on the sticks.
I bought the RAM locally. It "seemed like a deal",
and now, I don't buy crap like that any more.
My trick now, is to read the reviews for products,
before I buy them.

If RAM fails, and low memory locations cannot
hold valid contents, that sometimes makes a
motherboard "fail silently". My Nforce2 board
did that one day. A stick of Ballistix RAM
decided to have one of the chips completely
die on it, and the motherboard couldn't even
beep.

But that probably doesn't happen all that
often. When sticks of RAM get errors, usually
it's just a few bits on the DIMM with stuck-at
failures. Entire chips croaking, isn't as common.
And I didn't even overvolt those DIMMs. It
wasn't a "stress failure".

Pulling the DIMMs, I could get a "beep" from
the motherboard, so I knew my motherboard,
power supply and processor were OK. Since I'd
just pulled the RAM, I then knew there was somethine
seriously wrong with the RAM. Further testing
(in single channel mode), revealed the dead chip.



Sorry for the delay in following up; I got sidetracked by other matters.

I took the DIMMs out this morning (with the power disconnected) and
then powered up: I got three long beeps, repeated several times with a
short pause between each group of three. I powered off, put the DIMMs
back in and powered up again, expecting to see the same issue: no
beeps at all and reboot not proceeding. But instead, I got a single
short beep, some pops from the speakers, and then Ubuntu booted up (I
still had the Ubuntu 12.04 CD in the tray). Ubuntu behaved normally so
I shut down and removed the CD and rebooted to XP. XP also came up
fine. I'm a little puzzled about why removing the DIMMs and putting
them back in fixed anything but I'm not inclined to look a gift horse
in the mouth ;-)

The thing that bothers me is that I get two or three loud pops when I
boot up (either Ubuntu or XP); more importantly, the audio is
distorted when I play an audio file in XP (didn't try it in Ubuntu) it
is pretty badly distorted. I'm not sure what to make of that. Audio
was fine before this incident began. I thought that I was past my
audio problems with the USB gizmo. I'd appreciate any tips on how to
get the sound working better....



Sounds like the DIMM wasn't making good contact.

This is actually one of the reasons for pulling the DIMM :-)
You get the wiping action of a fresh insertion.

*******

With regard to a USB audio solution, pops could happen
if there are transients on +5VSB. Either the power supply
is not completely happy on the +5VSB output rail, or some
hardware in your computer is placing a significant load
on +5VSB.

At one time, the user could control the source of the
USB bus voltage, by means of motherboard jumpers.
On an old system, you could change power sources,
and do that change on a "USB stack" basis. Two USB
ports would share a single jumper. Some motherboards
would have four or five jumpers to play with.

You'd leave the USB keyboard stack set to +5VSB (so you
can do "wake via keyboard). And leave any other ports
powered by the +5VSB rail.

*******

OK. Good news. Your motherboard has two 1x3 power
headers with a jumper on each. So as a user, you
do have some control over the USB Vbus source.

PS2_USB_PWR1 PS/2 stack, as well as USB0,USB1,USB2,USB3 ports

USB_PWR2 USB4 .. USB9 (six ports total)

In the interests of science, turn off the computer,
unplug it, wait 30 seconds, move both jumpers to
the 1_2 position for +5V operation. The +5V rail
in your computer, is a lot stronger than the +5VSB
rail.

Power up, listen for pops. Tell us whether it's fixed.

If it is fixed, the issue could be too much current flow
through the USB_PWR type headers. Asrock loves to save
a few cents, by running too many ports through a USB_PWR jumper.
On an older Asus motherboard, it was two ports only, per
each 1x3 header.

The action of moving the jumper, will help from a second
perspective. It'll be a fresh wiping action, in case
the jumper wasn't making good contact.

One of the 1x3 headers is on the upper left hand corner of
the motherboard. The other 1x3 header is on the lower right.
Each one shares one inrush capacitor, over six or so ports.
Again, not that wonderful. The capacitor near a USB connector,
is to "hold up" or maintain the Vbus voltage, when a new
USB device is plugged in. USB devices are hard on the
Vbus voltage, as any bypass capacitor inside a USB peripheral,
draws an inrush of current. The capacitor on the motherboard,
near the header, is there to battle with that.

If you leave both jumpers in the 1_2 position, the only
side effect would be losing "wake on keyboard" capability.
Just as an example of why the ports were running from
+5VSB in the first place.

Paul


Sorry for the delay in following up on this thread but I have some news.

Today, I finally decided to try what you suggested. I powered down the
computer, pulled the power cord and waited 30 seconds as you suggested.
I opened the case and found the two headers you mentioned (with some
help from the motherboard manual). I found that the upper left one was
set on 2_3 and the lower right one was set on 1_2. I was going to change
the upper left one to 1_2, as per your advice, but found that it was
virtually inaccessible due to the copper butterfly cooler on the CPU.
Since I couldn't figure out how to remove the cooler - I misplaced the
instructions during my recent move and couldn't go online - I simply
closed the case again until I could research the technique.

Just for the heck of it, I powered up the computer again and the sound
was suddenly working just fine. My games and videos all had normal
sound, not badly distorted sound. I'm not inclined to look a gift horse
in the mouth and I try to follow the old rule "If it works, don't fix
it" so I'm just going to hope that it keeps working rather than mess
with it further.

I have to admit I'm a little perplexed over why removing the power cable
for a few minutes fixed this problem though. That doesn't seem
particularly reasonable. My best guess is that the act of moving the
computer so that I could get at moved a cable (or caused the USB port
holding the cable to move) in some small way to resolve the problem (at
least temporarily).

--
Rhino

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Rhino wrote:

Sorry for the delay in following up on this thread but I have some news.

Today, I finally decided to try what you suggested. I powered down the
computer, pulled the power cord and waited 30 seconds as you suggested.
I opened the case and found the two headers you mentioned (with some
help from the motherboard manual). I found that the upper left one was
set on 2_3 and the lower right one was set on 1_2. I was going to change
the upper left one to 1_2, as per your advice, but found that it was
virtually inaccessible due to the copper butterfly cooler on the CPU.
Since I couldn't figure out how to remove the cooler - I misplaced the
instructions during my recent move and couldn't go online - I simply
closed the case again until I could research the technique.

Just for the heck of it, I powered up the computer again and the sound
was suddenly working just fine. My games and videos all had normal
sound, not badly distorted sound. I'm not inclined to look a gift horse
in the mouth and I try to follow the old rule "If it works, don't fix
it" so I'm just going to hope that it keeps working rather than mess
with it further.

I have to admit I'm a little perplexed over why removing the power cable
for a few minutes fixed this problem though. That doesn't seem
particularly reasonable. My best guess is that the act of moving the
computer so that I could get at moved a cable (or caused the USB port
holding the cable to move) in some small way to resolve the problem (at
least temporarily).


Some jumpers and headers, use thin metal plating, and
a bit of corrosion can be present. Just touching the jumper
without pulling it, can be enough to restore operation.

Perhaps the power was flaky, because of the jumper to header
pin contact.

Paul