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What the heck did I do wrong? Fried my A7N8X Deluxe?



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 26th 03, 06:09 PM
Don Burnette
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default What the heck did I do wrong? Fried my A7N8X Deluxe?

Here's one for the books, if anyone has any idea what I did wrong, I would
be curious to know, as I don't want this to happen again.

I had an A7N8X Deluxe version 1.4. Had always been rock solid for me. I was
running an Athlon XP2400+ in it, and decided to drop an Athlon XP 2600+
Barton in it, since the prices were so reasonable now.

I hve built many computers, and upgraded cpu's many times with no problems.
So I get the new chip, install it, install a Thermalrite SLK900 heatsink w/
92mm fan, using Arctic Silver 3.
Turned it on, immediately went into bios to correctly set the fsb. Exited
saving changes, and it started to boot, then gave some error message about
cpu changing, then shut itself off.
Try as I might, I could not get it to post again. I would turn it on, the
hdd activity light would stay solid, and it would not even post. I checked
all my connections, verified everything was correct, still no go. I reseated
all my cards and ram, no go. I took everything out but video card, no go. I
tried clearing the cmos, still no go.
No post, no beeps, nothing. Monitor's power led was orange rather than
green, so it obviously was not getting a signal.
Treid replacing the cmos battery, and clearing it again - still , no post.
Tried putting the XP2400+ chip back in, to make sure the new Barton chip was
not bad. Still, no post..

At a loss, I figured I must have somehow fried my motherboard. So, I orded a
new A7N8X Deluxe version 2, and had it overnighted in from Newegg.com.
Put the new motherboard in, hooked everything up, including putting my new
Barton 2600+ with SLK 900 h/s, and she posted and booted just fine, and has
been running fine for the last 4 hours so far.

What in the world could have happened? This one has me stumped.
I did everthing correct, so I thought. I did it like I always do. I never
could get that mb to post again.

I am just curious, any ideas on what may have gone wrong? Seems like I
remember reading on these forums some cmos issue these earlier boards had
that could render them dead maybe??


OH, and one last question. I installed the Asus drivers off the included cd
rom. Any advantage to updating to the newer drivers from Nvidia.com?

Thanks,
--
Don Burnette



  #2  
Old November 27th 03, 04:30 AM
Don Burnette
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

P2B wrote:
Don Burnette wrote:
Here's one for the books, if anyone has any idea what I did wrong, I
would be curious to know, as I don't want this to happen again.


Did you remove standby power and take ESD precautions while working
inside the case? Failure to do either or both could have killed your
motherboard.

The chances of damage are very low - I know people who have built and
upgraded many computers with standby power on and a poke at the case
to discharge static electricity, and gotten away with it, but sooner
or later...

OTOH, it's more likely your motherboard just died naturally at the
same time you decided to install a new CPU. - cooling and warming
cycles stress electronic components, so they tend to fail at power on
or shortly thereafter rather than while running. The board might have
failed then even if you'd just shut down & taken the cover off to blow
dust out.

Another possibility is solder failure - the board always flexes a bit
during cooler installation, which can be the last straw for a bad
solder joint.



Yes, I took all the precautions that I usually do. Used my anti-static wrist
strap, made sure power was off and drained, etc.
Perhaps the board just plain failed at that time.
One thing that may have done it - I put the new cpu, heatsink, memory, etc
in while the board was still mouted to the slide in mb tray. This allowed it
to flex down a little as pushed memory in, etc.
Perhaps it just had a bad solder joint that cracked at that time - who
knows, I will be puzzled over that one for a while. Perhaps I should have
removed the mb from the tray and kept it on a flat surface.

This new version2 is still running well, I am a little dissapointed as I
still can't seem to hit 200 mhz fsb or higher - I do have Corsair LL pc3200.
Perhaps I just haven't found the right memory timings yet.
I am running it at 7-3-3=2.5T. Mem voltage at 2.6, cpu core at 1.75 ( Barton
2600+ ) , with an 11 multiplier.
Even at 196 mhz fsb though, it comes up showing as an XP3200+.

Don Burnette





  #3  
Old November 27th 03, 05:06 AM
Don Burnette
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

AJ wrote:
I do have Corsair LL pc3200.
Perhaps I just haven't found the right memory timings yet.
I am running it at 7-3-3=2.5T. Mem voltage at 2.6, cpu core at 1.75
( Barton 2600+ ) , with an 11 multiplier.
Even at 196 mhz fsb though, it comes up showing as an XP3200+.


Yeah I run at 197 FSB with that RAM for stability. With the RAM locked
at 100% and the AGP at 66Mhz. All stock voltages though. Change that 7
to an 11 for a better Sandra RAM score if you want it.
------------
When your PC gives a little they give a lot.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/disco


Will do, thanks, and Happy Thanksgiving to all!

--
Don Burnette

remove clothes when replying via email


  #4  
Old November 27th 03, 06:50 AM
P2B
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default



Don Burnette wrote:
Here's one for the books, if anyone has any idea what I did wrong, I would
be curious to know, as I don't want this to happen again.


Did you remove standby power and take ESD precautions while working
inside the case? Failure to do either or both could have killed your
motherboard.

The chances of damage are very low - I know people who have built and
upgraded many computers with standby power on and a poke at the case to
discharge static electricity, and gotten away with it, but sooner or
later...

OTOH, it's more likely your motherboard just died naturally at the same
time you decided to install a new CPU. - cooling and warming cycles
stress electronic components, so they tend to fail at power on or
shortly thereafter rather than while running. The board might have
failed then even if you'd just shut down & taken the cover off to blow
dust out.

Another possibility is solder failure - the board always flexes a bit
during cooler installation, which can be the last straw for a bad solder
joint.

I had an A7N8X Deluxe version 1.4. Had always been rock solid for me. I was
running an Athlon XP2400+ in it, and decided to drop an Athlon XP 2600+
Barton in it, since the prices were so reasonable now.

I hve built many computers, and upgraded cpu's many times with no problems.
So I get the new chip, install it, install a Thermalrite SLK900 heatsink w/
92mm fan, using Arctic Silver 3.
Turned it on, immediately went into bios to correctly set the fsb. Exited
saving changes, and it started to boot, then gave some error message about
cpu changing, then shut itself off.
Try as I might, I could not get it to post again. I would turn it on, the
hdd activity light would stay solid, and it would not even post. I checked
all my connections, verified everything was correct, still no go. I reseated
all my cards and ram, no go. I took everything out but video card, no go. I
tried clearing the cmos, still no go.
No post, no beeps, nothing. Monitor's power led was orange rather than
green, so it obviously was not getting a signal.
Treid replacing the cmos battery, and clearing it again - still , no post.
Tried putting the XP2400+ chip back in, to make sure the new Barton chip was
not bad. Still, no post..

At a loss, I figured I must have somehow fried my motherboard. So, I orded a
new A7N8X Deluxe version 2, and had it overnighted in from Newegg.com.
Put the new motherboard in, hooked everything up, including putting my new
Barton 2600+ with SLK 900 h/s, and she posted and booted just fine, and has
been running fine for the last 4 hours so far.

What in the world could have happened? This one has me stumped.
I did everthing correct, so I thought. I did it like I always do. I never
could get that mb to post again.

I am just curious, any ideas on what may have gone wrong? Seems like I
remember reading on these forums some cmos issue these earlier boards had
that could render them dead maybe??


OH, and one last question. I installed the Asus drivers off the included cd
rom. Any advantage to updating to the newer drivers from Nvidia.com?

Thanks,


  #5  
Old November 27th 03, 04:59 PM
AJ
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


I do have Corsair LL pc3200.
Perhaps I just haven't found the right memory timings yet.
I am running it at 7-3-3=2.5T. Mem voltage at 2.6, cpu core at 1.75 ( Barton
2600+ ) , with an 11 multiplier.
Even at 196 mhz fsb though, it comes up showing as an XP3200+.


Yeah I run at 197 FSB with that RAM for stability. With the RAM locked
at 100% and the AGP at 66Mhz. All stock voltages though. Change that 7
to an 11 for a better Sandra RAM score if you want it.
------------
When your PC gives a little they give a lot.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/disco
  #6  
Old November 27th 03, 05:52 PM
scott c.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Don Burnette" wrote in message
...
Here's one for the books, if anyone has any idea what I did wrong, I would
be curious to know, as I don't want this to happen again.

I had an A7N8X Deluxe version 1.4. Had always been rock solid for me. I

was
running an Athlon XP2400+ in it, and decided to drop an Athlon XP 2600+
Barton in it, since the prices were so reasonable now.

I hve built many computers, and upgraded cpu's many times with no

problems.
So I get the new chip, install it, install a Thermalrite SLK900 heatsink

w/
92mm fan, using Arctic Silver 3.
Turned it on, immediately went into bios to correctly set the fsb. Exited
saving changes, and it started to boot, then gave some error message about
cpu changing, then shut itself off.
Try as I might, I could not get it to post again. I would turn it on, the
hdd activity light would stay solid, and it would not even post. I checked
all my connections, verified everything was correct, still no go. I

reseated
all my cards and ram, no go. I took everything out but video card, no go.

I
tried clearing the cmos, still no go.
No post, no beeps, nothing. Monitor's power led was orange rather than
green, so it obviously was not getting a signal.
Treid replacing the cmos battery, and clearing it again - still , no post.
Tried putting the XP2400+ chip back in, to make sure the new Barton chip

was
not bad. Still, no post..

At a loss, I figured I must have somehow fried my motherboard. So, I orded

a
new A7N8X Deluxe version 2, and had it overnighted in from Newegg.com.
Put the new motherboard in, hooked everything up, including putting my new
Barton 2600+ with SLK 900 h/s, and she posted and booted just fine, and

has
been running fine for the last 4 hours so far.
. . .
Don Burnette


Just WAGing, but what BIOS level is installed on your 1.04 board? 1004 is
minimum level that supports Barton 2600+ on PCB rev. 1.04. You might just
have a corrupt BIOS now; maybe try another BIOS chip and see if it revives
the board.
http://www.badflash.com/

Or if you have access to another rev. 1.04 or 1.06 board, hot flash the BIOS
chip. It *might* be possible to use your rev 2.0 board to hot flash the
rev. 1.04 chip, if both boards use the same BIOS chips.

http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx...var1=62&var2=1


  #7  
Old November 27th 03, 07:14 PM
Joshua
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

OH, and one last question. I installed the Asus drivers off the included cd
rom. Any advantage to updating to the newer drivers from Nvidia.com?



I've read several posts elsewhere that the newer Nvidia drivers are
causing problems for some people. You might want to hold off unless
you are experiencing any problems that an update might fix.
  #8  
Old November 27th 03, 11:46 PM
R_Supp
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Before I binned the board I would spend a couple more dollars and get a new
bios chip from Jack at www.badflash.com and if that doesn`t remedy the
situation then at least you have a new spare bios chip.






"Don Burnette" wrote in message
...
Here's one for the books, if anyone has any idea what I did wrong, I would
be curious to know, as I don't want this to happen again.

I had an A7N8X Deluxe version 1.4. Had always been rock solid for me. I

was
running an Athlon XP2400+ in it, and decided to drop an Athlon XP 2600+
Barton in it, since the prices were so reasonable now.

I hve built many computers, and upgraded cpu's many times with no

problems.
So I get the new chip, install it, install a Thermalrite SLK900 heatsink

w/
92mm fan, using Arctic Silver 3.
Turned it on, immediately went into bios to correctly set the fsb. Exited
saving changes, and it started to boot, then gave some error message about
cpu changing, then shut itself off.
Try as I might, I could not get it to post again. I would turn it on, the
hdd activity light would stay solid, and it would not even post. I checked
all my connections, verified everything was correct, still no go. I

reseated
all my cards and ram, no go. I took everything out but video card, no go.

I
tried clearing the cmos, still no go.
No post, no beeps, nothing. Monitor's power led was orange rather than
green, so it obviously was not getting a signal.
Treid replacing the cmos battery, and clearing it again - still , no post.
Tried putting the XP2400+ chip back in, to make sure the new Barton chip

was
not bad. Still, no post..

At a loss, I figured I must have somehow fried my motherboard. So, I orded

a
new A7N8X Deluxe version 2, and had it overnighted in from Newegg.com.
Put the new motherboard in, hooked everything up, including putting my new
Barton 2600+ with SLK 900 h/s, and she posted and booted just fine, and

has
been running fine for the last 4 hours so far.

What in the world could have happened? This one has me stumped.
I did everthing correct, so I thought. I did it like I always do. I never
could get that mb to post again.

I am just curious, any ideas on what may have gone wrong? Seems like I
remember reading on these forums some cmos issue these earlier boards had
that could render them dead maybe??


OH, and one last question. I installed the Asus drivers off the included

cd
rom. Any advantage to updating to the newer drivers from Nvidia.com?

Thanks,
--
Don Burnette





  #9  
Old November 29th 03, 12:20 AM
Milleron
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 21:30:00 -0600, "Don Burnette"
wrote:

P2B wrote:
Don Burnette wrote:
Here's one for the books, if anyone has any idea what I did wrong, I
would be curious to know, as I don't want this to happen again.


Did you remove standby power and take ESD precautions while working
inside the case? Failure to do either or both could have killed your
motherboard.

The chances of damage are very low - I know people who have built and
upgraded many computers with standby power on and a poke at the case
to discharge static electricity, and gotten away with it, but sooner
or later...

OTOH, it's more likely your motherboard just died naturally at the
same time you decided to install a new CPU. - cooling and warming
cycles stress electronic components, so they tend to fail at power on
or shortly thereafter rather than while running. The board might have
failed then even if you'd just shut down & taken the cover off to blow
dust out.

Another possibility is solder failure - the board always flexes a bit
during cooler installation, which can be the last straw for a bad
solder joint.



Yes, I took all the precautions that I usually do. Used my anti-static wrist
strap, made sure power was off and drained, etc.
Perhaps the board just plain failed at that time.
One thing that may have done it - I put the new cpu, heatsink, memory, etc
in while the board was still mouted to the slide in mb tray. This allowed it
to flex down a little as pushed memory in, etc.
Perhaps it just had a bad solder joint that cracked at that time - who
knows, I will be puzzled over that one for a while. Perhaps I should have
removed the mb from the tray and kept it on a flat surface.

That's almost surely the reason the board failed. I've gotten away
with replacing a heat sink without removing the board from the case,
but I knew at the time that it was likely to break something (I did it
because I didn't really care if I had to upgrade motherboards).

This new version2 is still running well, I am a little dissapointed as I
still can't seem to hit 200 mhz fsb or higher - I do have Corsair LL pc3200.
Perhaps I just haven't found the right memory timings yet.
I am running it at 7-3-3=2.5T. Mem voltage at 2.6, cpu core at 1.75 ( Barton
2600+ ) , with an 11 multiplier.
Even at 196 mhz fsb though, it comes up showing as an XP3200+.

Don Burnette





Ron
  #10  
Old November 29th 03, 05:42 PM
Don Burnette
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

That might be worth a try, just to salvage the mb if nothing else.

Thanks,

Don Burnette


R_Supp wrote:
Before I binned the board I would spend a couple more dollars and get
a new bios chip from Jack at www.badflash.com and if that doesn`t
remedy the situation then at least you have a new spare bios chip.






"Don Burnette" wrote in message
...
Here's one for the books, if anyone has any idea what I did wrong, I
would be curious to know, as I don't want this to happen again.

I had an A7N8X Deluxe version 1.4. Had always been rock solid for
me. I was running an Athlon XP2400+ in it, and decided to drop an
Athlon XP 2600+ Barton in it, since the prices were so reasonable
now.

I hve built many computers, and upgraded cpu's many times with no
problems. So I get the new chip, install it, install a Thermalrite
SLK900 heatsink w/ 92mm fan, using Arctic Silver 3.
Turned it on, immediately went into bios to correctly set the fsb.
Exited saving changes, and it started to boot, then gave some error
message about cpu changing, then shut itself off.
Try as I might, I could not get it to post again. I would turn it
on, the hdd activity light would stay solid, and it would not even
post. I checked all my connections, verified everything was correct,
still no go. I reseated all my cards and ram, no go. I took
everything out but video card, no go. I tried clearing the cmos,
still no go.
No post, no beeps, nothing. Monitor's power led was orange rather
than green, so it obviously was not getting a signal.
Treid replacing the cmos battery, and clearing it again - still , no
post. Tried putting the XP2400+ chip back in, to make sure the new
Barton chip was not bad. Still, no post..

At a loss, I figured I must have somehow fried my motherboard. So, I
orded a new A7N8X Deluxe version 2, and had it overnighted in from
Newegg.com. Put the new motherboard in, hooked everything up,
including putting my new Barton 2600+ with SLK 900 h/s, and she
posted and booted just fine, and has been running fine for the last
4 hours so far.

What in the world could have happened? This one has me stumped.
I did everthing correct, so I thought. I did it like I always do. I
never could get that mb to post again.

I am just curious, any ideas on what may have gone wrong? Seems like
I remember reading on these forums some cmos issue these earlier
boards had that could render them dead maybe??


OH, and one last question. I installed the Asus drivers off the
included cd rom. Any advantage to updating to the newer drivers from
Nvidia.com?

Thanks,
--
Don Burnette






 




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