What do you think happened?

[Mitzlplik_SP]

OK, thankgod this ain`t my new quad core givin me crap. *knock on wood* thats been running great.

This is my old main,ran UO great and alot of other games but it did have its limitations. Still,was a great comp for a second and am just looking for general thoughts as to what you think may have happened. Maybe it`ll point me in the right direction. At this point, I`m not really sure what to think aside from maybe a mobo problem or my cpu fried out. Heres what I`m workin on:

Mobo is Geforce 6100M9
AMD Athlon 2.4g
120g seagate HD
3 g ram
Nvidia 7600gs 512 vid card
I don`t have my cd rom hooked up,basically unplugged all peripherals when I was trouble shooting the PS.

At the beginning the first sign of trouble was after boot up in the morning. I went to play a game and during that time when the monitor (old brick of a 19 inch) clicks and switches between windows and gameplay........ my computer shut down. No warning,just BLINK....OFF. So I turned it back on,it rebooted fine and thought maybe a glithc or hiccup. Tried my game again and BLINK same thing OFF as soon as it switched between screens.

After that I thought it might be a monitor problem since this cord has always been tempermental.Sit just right and everythings green,that type of stuff. So,swapped out to a spare and rebooted. Everything seemed fine,tried the game BLINK same thing. I`m thinkin WTF.... OK either vid card is takin a dump or maaaybe PS? Just changed it so who knows.....

Next I took out the vid card and rebooted using the integrated card. Rebooted nicely and redid my drivers no sweat. I tried my game and it played it for a couple minutes than the damn thing shut off again without warning.

I next removed all peripherals and even changed the power supply. No soundcard,no cd rom drive and a different PS that I know works well,kept it for a spare even though its just a 400. After that it ran decent again,it played the game but I didn`t push it because with the onboard card it just plain sucked to play it.

I thought I would do a virus scan while it was staying on. Long story short, it will not stay on long enough to complete a virus scan OR to complete a scandisk after a reboot. It WILL stay on alllll day long and even stayed logged into my game for 2 days. I even had my 512card back in and everything was clicking right along..........except for the fact that if I ran a scandisk or a virus scan it will shut down without warning.Hmmmmmmm!

So here I am last night. After it running for days,playing my game for days with no issues....my virus scan decides to run a scan. OK,all my problems are not even in my thoughts, so I let it go and even started a scan on my main pc while I was at it. Well, 15 minutes later........ its off. Only difference now is it will not come back on.

Well to be more accurate,it will turn back on....all the fans are running,the HD`s active, no beeps during startup and from all indications everythings fine. But it will not start the monitor. The monitor light stays yellow all the time,won`t go green. I disconnected my 512 card and went back to onboard.....same thing. Fires up,everythings on but no monitor.Tried 2 vid cards and now 2 monitors.

I tried to be as precise as I could be as to the steps that I took and the steps in how this thing degraded to what it is now. I even thought it maybe a ram problem so I yanked em all out and tried starting with just one stick....than another,maybe that stick was bad,lol..... tried everything and it seems like it just puked rtf out to me.

Any thoughts?

 

[Storm]

burnt out your processor from over heating I bet ! I did the same thing with almost the same set up!
only i have the 6600 card! even my monitor cord was like yours! I bet if you had watched the temperature monitor you would have seen it running hot when you put a load on it!

 

[Mitzlplik_SP]

Dernit!

Well,least a cpu for this thing should be pirty cheap,think the mobo might even support some type of duo core,I`ll hafta check into it to make sure. Kinda thought it was cpu more than mobo since everything powers up and seems to run,just no output.

Kinda hard to think I overheated it though since I upgraded the OG fan to this:http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1150&ID=1569 but I guess anything is possible since I never really looked to make sure. I guess if it does turn out to be the CPU....lesson learnt!


*edit*

Well played around for a couple hours tonight to no avail. At this point I`m accepting its the cpu. I checked around and looks like my old cpu is an Athlon 64 FX. Single core,but the mobo site says any of the AM2 64 series (939) will work so I surfed around Tigerdirect. Found a nice Athlon 64 X2 5200+ for under $60.

I guess this could be a blessing in disguise,dump the single core 2.4 and end up with a duo core 2.7...... I can live with that.

Now.... since I`ve never swapped cpu`s before, is there anything one needs to do besides just popping it in,than greasin it up good before ya put the cooler on.... than just fire it up? Or should I reset the bios,than fire it up? Anything I should do or need to do to make the swap go easier? Or is it pretty straight forward?I`ve installed a few cpu`s before,but it was always into a new PC and was blank. Never did a swap into an already setup machine yet.

Thanks for any installation advice/tips.

 

[RawHeadRex]

Dernit!

Well,least a cpu for this thing should be pirty cheap,think the mobo might even support some type of duo core,I`ll hafta check into it to make sure. Kinda thought it was cpu more than mobo since everything powers up and seems to run,just no output.

Kinda hard to think I overheated it though since I upgraded the OG fan to this:http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1150&ID=1569 but I guess anything is possible since I never really looked to make sure. I guess if it does turn out to be the CPU....lesson learnt!


*edit*

Well played around for a couple hours tonight to no avail. At this point I`m accepting its the cpu. I checked around and looks like my old cpu is an Athlon 64 FX. Single core,but the mobo site says any of the AM2 64 series (939) will work so I surfed around Tigerdirect. Found a nice Athlon 64 X2 5200+ for under $60.

I guess this could be a blessing in disguise,dump the single core 2.4 and end up with a duo core 2.7...... I can live with that.

Now.... since I`ve never swapped cpu`s before, is there anything one needs to do besides just popping it in,than greasin it up good before ya put the cooler on.... than just fire it up? Or should I reset the bios,than fire it up? Anything I should do or need to do to make the swap go easier? Or is it pretty straight forward?I`ve installed a few cpu`s before,but it was always into a new PC and was blank. Never did a swap into an already setup machine yet.

Thanks for any installation advice/tips.

you switched in a NEW ps that you KNOW works and it still shut off ? IMHO it sounds like a thermal issue (or bad mobo cap) meaning after the cpu reaches a predetermined temp, it shuts down the system to prevent damage. did you play/clean the heatsink and maybe it was not seated correctly ? is the fan on the cpu sink spinning, is there massive amounts of dust under the fan on the sink fins ? i had the fx53 as well , funny.

amd2 cpu's use ddr2 , the fx53 used ddr1. there are some mobo makers that allowed ddr1 OR ddr2 on the same board. when amd2 came out, mobo makers scrambled to help computer users bridge the gap as ddr2 was still expensive then. ecs is one maker that comes to mind.

imho it's either a bad cap on the mobo(look for bulging capacitors around the cpu socket) OR the powersupply OR thermal issue. dl something like speedfan so you can see cpu temps and see if it rises slowly. at idle your cpu should be below 130F, under load it should not breach 160F-170F IMHO.

 

[Mitzlplik_SP]

I actually have the new PS that came with my new phenom I took it out because the one I bought recently was bigger/better. So I had this spare 600 sittin here and it worked,just like the original did.

Went from shutting down to this last time,it shut down and never came back on. Well,it won`t produce any visuals,no juice to the monitor (monitor light stays yellow)

I got bored this morning and gutted it. Pulled the cpu out and everything. Reset it, repasted it for the cooler and plugged everything back in.

Nothing. All the fans come on including the cpu fan but no output to the monitor. No beeps or noise at all on bootup besides the humming of the HD and fans.Tried both vid cards I have and the onboard and get the same result.

I checked for any of the bulging caps like ya mentioned but nothing jumped right out at me.

Well,maybe to be on the safe side and to avoid any suprises, I`ll just get a cheap duo core mobo/cpu bundle. That way I`m covered on both fronts.

 

[Harlequin]

I think it's likely a mobo issue.

Sound like AMD CPU overheating and shutting down abruptly, then finally burning out the mobo chips/capacitors. I don't think Athlons have a graceful thermal throttling feature, hence the abrupt shutdown.

If it were bad RAM/CPU, it shouldn't prevent your system from doing a POST.

I'm not an AMD fan, they are great value for money, but you pay it all back with increased electricity bills from the extra cooling you need to keep it running optimally.

 

[Mitzlplik_SP]

I think it's likely a mobo issue.

Sound like AMD CPU overheating and shutting down abruptly, then finally burning out the mobo chips/capacitors. I don't think Athlons have a graceful thermal throttling feature, hence the abrupt shutdown.

If it were bad RAM/CPU, it shouldn't prevent your system from doing a POST.

I'm not an AMD fan, they are great value for money, but you pay it all back with increased electricity bills from the extra cooling you need to keep it running optimally.

That would make perfect sense,specially the no posting thing. I like spare parts and been wanting a PC I can learn on,looks like I`ll have enough pieces to build a frankenstien pc after I get this mobo/cpu swapped out and get this thing back up and running. No better way to learn than doin it yourself, good ole trial and error,hehe.

I did have it in a bad spot now that I think of it too. Prolly not condusive to great cooling. I had 2 towers one in front of the other on a shelf. The one that burnt down was sitting right behind my new quad core. Prolly sucking in all the hot exhaust gettin blown outa the front PC. I didn`t think it`d make that big a difference,but maybe it was just enough to get it past that tipping point. Kinda feel stupid for not having a program to watch the cpu temps and such but o well,live and learn I guess.

My new comp has that software and it normally runs around 35 C idling.Than playing something like Atlantica or CoD with max everything it rises to between 43 and 45 C (113 F). So I guess thats not bad for a stock fan.

I loves my AMD though! My first pc was a p3. Went to AMD and never looked back and really never had a single problem until recently with this new quad core (which the MSI mobo makers seem to be more the blame than AMD for my initial troubles)and than this old 2.4 single core puking out. I know I`ve logged thousands of hours on this thing and it ran like a champ for 3-4 years solid. Guess I`m due for a lil misery,hehe. I`m just glad it happened AFTER I upgraded,instead of maybe in the beginning of this winter when I first got laid off. That would have sucked royally.

Thanks all for the replies/thoughts. Just gotta get the $175 for the 2.8g duo core cpu/mobo bundle I want. Nothin fancy,just want my old surfin/vent/bot computer back!

 

[Mitzlplik_SP]

Just thought I`d post the official cause of death. This is the mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Image...NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

It blew one cap open,was leaking some juice out of it. The other 4 (the 5 along side the cpu) are all swollen.

A RL friend looked at it and pointed out the obvious for me,hehe.

R.I.Pieces Mobo!

 

[Harlequin]

Thanks for the update! Always good to know the cause of things.

On the bright side of things:
1) You don't have to replace the CPU, meaning it'll be alot cheaper to fix
2) This one's more impt - I was right...

 

[Skylark SP]

Had the same thing happen on one of my 5 year old computers, and it had me just about pulling my hair out from a troubleshooting standpoint. I eventually had an experienced hardware tech look at it, and he pointed out the problem was the capacitors and that the motherboard was basically a write-off. (They can be replaced in some cases but it wasn't worth the repair cost for this particular board).

However, it should be noted that the capacitors can be damaged and not actually be visibly leaking. In the case of my motherboard, some of them were just tilting slightly relative to the plane of the motherboard or very slightly bulging - it certainly was not obvious if you don't know exactly what to look for (which I didn't). What I had actually noticed was a sharp almost chlorine chemical odor around the vicinity of the computer for a few days when I was messing with it, which later I found out was most likely the gel inside one or more of the damaged capacitors evaporating from the system heat and being blown out into the room through the cooling fan.

-Skylark