Hall of Fame

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3. MASQUE...156,648
4. garycase149,128
5. dbrunton122,955
6. PCBONEZ77,036
7. SysExpert76,291
8. coral4771,892
9. sparkmaker57,726
10. jamietoner55,310
11. Computer...54,502
12. rindi46,738
13. noxcho40,689
14. f-king37,835
15. David-Ho...34,698
16. moh10ly33,465
17. leew31,791
18. Merete27,195
19. JohnnyCa...27,051
20. PUNKY25,758
21. hathehariken22,829
22. Kavostylin21,797
23. burrcm21,075
24. andyalder20,075
25. jhyiesla19,324

1. Callandor2,829,518
2. garycase1,956,857
3. nobus1,039,991
4. jhance728,690
5. willcomp638,606
6. SysExpert537,359
7. sparkmaker510,721
8. leew449,870
9. MASQUE...447,301
10. jamietoner422,709
11. rindi415,933
12. tmj883393,975
13. PUNKY393,668
14. dogztar384,300
15. PCBONEZ352,493
16. dbrunton314,348
17. wlennon300,673
18. mysticaldan300,190
19. f-king285,636
20. rid278,331
21. RoadWarr...262,326
22. sciwriter244,093
23. coral47230,701
24. magarity202,509
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6.8

Dead motherboard - PSU problem?

Asked by radomirthegreat in Miscellaneous Hardware, Hardware Components

Tags: gigabyte, capacitators

It happened again!
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Q_20790214.html

This time, it was a Raidmax 420W power supply and a Gigabyte GA-K8NCS-939 motherboard. It was my friend's computer, and it just passed away without a detected warning.

The setup included multiple hard drives, including a 160GB Hitatchi. There was also 1GB of dual channel ram, a Venice core Athlon64 3000, 4 PCI cards, and a Radeon 9600XT. When the board died, I took it out of the case to look for burning PCB areas and blown capacitators.

Almost an hour into the autopsy, I touched a standoff hole in the top right corner. Here's a picture:
http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/MotherBoard/Products/Products_GA-K8NSC-939.htm#
That's where the board's power connecto is, along with several capacitators, resistors, and, according to the wires on the back of the board, CPU and ram lines.

The capacitators, resistors, and the standoff hole, along with the PCB in that area, were burning hot to the touch - this was almost an hour after the PC was shut off. The board is dead, obviously, and my friend has filled out an RMA form and sent it out.

And now for the question:
Because the PSU's voltages were stable, is this a matter of amps? The 9600XT does not have a molex power connector - all its current goes through AGP. With multiple PCI devices, a video card, hard drives, a DVD burner, and 1GB of ram (40W per GB, right?), did a whole lot of amps just travel through the board and wreak havoc? My friend was playing Halo: Combat Evolved when his PC shut itself off, never to turn on again. Do I blame the power supply? Is the power supply still usable? If the motherboard comes back, and everything is back in place but with a different power supply, can the same thing happen again? How can this problem be diagnosed so as to prevent it from recurring?

Thanks a lot!

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Dead motherboard - PSU problem?

Asked by radomirthegreat in Miscellaneous Hardware, Hardware Components

Tags: gigabyte, capacitators

About this solution