P4C800-E Deluxe Dead?

A few years ago I built a new computer and with my leftover P4C800-E mbo
plus some extra odds and ends I had lying around and a cheap case w/ PS
from Newegg I built a friend a computer. She's been happy with it all
this time until a few days ago when she called saying she couldn't make
WinXP do what she wanted it to do. I made a house call and sure enough,
if you tried to open e.g. Windows Explorer, WinXP would ask what program
you wanted to use to open explorer.exe. I'm not making this up.

So I brought the computer home and opened it last night and found it was
caked with dust inside. After cleaning it out, hoping all the while
that this would turn out to be a heat problem, I plugged it all back up
and ... nope, it was still acting crazy.

So I removed the 40 Gig SATA hard drive that was in it (yep, 40 gig) and
set it aside, replacing it with an old 250 Gig HDD I had stored away in
a drawer. It was functional -- I'd tested it just a couple of days ago.
I used an old flat cable I had lying around to hook it up.

And before I turned everything back on, I maybe made a big boo boo. The
rheostat that sits between the processor fan and the MBO had been
flopping around and I decided the system really didn't need it. Just
let the fan run full blast all the time, I thought. So I took out the
rheostat and connected the fan straight to the MBO.

Then I turned everything on and the computer booted but it wasn't seeing
the HDD. BIOS showed no HDD connected.

So I turned everything off and re-set the flat HDD cable and turned
everything back on and suddenly I smelled something burning.

I jerked out the power cord and waited a few minutes and plugged
everything back in again -- I even put the rheostat back -- and now ...
nothing. The processor fan runs and the green light on the motherboard
is on and I can hear the HDD running, but nothing comes up on the monitor.

I tried a different power supply and got the same result. I tried
booting with no HDD connected. No dice.

Did I fry the processor because I took out the rheostat? Makes no
sense. The fan was spinning fine without it.

The computer is dead. How did I kill it? I have no idea.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

Bill Anderson wrote:
A few years ago I built a new computer and with my leftover P4C800-E mbo
plus some extra odds and ends I had lying around and a cheap case w/ PS
from Newegg I built a friend a computer. She's been happy with it all
this time until a few days ago when she called saying she couldn't make
WinXP do what she wanted it to do. I made a house call and sure enough,
if you tried to open e.g. Windows Explorer, WinXP would ask what program
you wanted to use to open explorer.exe. I'm not making this up.

So I brought the computer home and opened it last night and found it was
caked with dust inside. After cleaning it out, hoping all the while
that this would turn out to be a heat problem, I plugged it all back up
and ... nope, it was still acting crazy.

So I removed the 40 Gig SATA hard drive that was in it (yep, 40 gig) and
set it aside, replacing it with an old 250 Gig HDD I had stored away in
a drawer. It was functional -- I'd tested it just a couple of days ago.
I used an old flat cable I had lying around to hook it up.

And before I turned everything back on, I maybe made a big boo boo. The
rheostat that sits between the processor fan and the MBO had been
flopping around and I decided the system really didn't need it. Just
let the fan run full blast all the time, I thought. So I took out the
rheostat and connected the fan straight to the MBO.

Then I turned everything on and the computer booted but it wasn't seeing
the HDD. BIOS showed no HDD connected.

So I turned everything off and re-set the flat HDD cable and turned
everything back on and suddenly I smelled something burning.

I jerked out the power cord and waited a few minutes and plugged
everything back in again -- I even put the rheostat back -- and now ...
nothing. The processor fan runs and the green light on the motherboard
is on and I can hear the HDD running, but nothing comes up on the monitor.

I tried a different power supply and got the same result. I tried
booting with no HDD connected. No dice.

Did I fry the processor because I took out the rheostat? Makes no
sense. The fan was spinning fine without it.

The computer is dead. How did I kill it? I have no idea.


Does the ICH5R Southbridge look like this ? Intel has never admitted
to a problem, but a number of people have had Southbridge failures,
and only for ICH5/ICH5R.

http://onfinite.com/libraries/179057/2ea.jpg

That is where I'd look first.

The Southbridge normally has no heatsink on it, as it doesn't need one.
The symptoms to me, look like latchup failure, and the burn location
correlates with pad power for USB on the Southbridge. (Static electricity
enters a USB port, USB physical layer goes into latchup, bond wires for
USB power burn.) So the bond wires heat up to incandescence and burn the
IC. If the bond wires fail fast enough, you lose the USB ports and otherwise
the computer boots. If the bond wires hold, it burns the IC package, and the
silicon die is a write-off. If you can see the burn mark, then
chances are it won't boot again.

Back in warranty time, at least one user claims that Asus soldered a
replacement ICH5 onto his board, and sent back the same board as
was forwarded for RMA. I don't know if there was any hidden warranty,
or support from Intel for this problem. There is no web page on the Intel
site, that I've been able to find about it.

Gigabyte is the only company, to actually have a web page about it.
They mention ICH4 in this description, but I've never seen a posting
about a burned ICH4. They're always ICH5 or ICH5R.

http://tw2005.giga-byte.com/Motherbo...AQ/FAQ_456.htm

Paul