Is my motherboard fried?!

  • Thread starter Punknoodle
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Ok so the other night I was using the PC and loaded up iRacing. After about 20 seconds of being on track, it crashed, big time. Sound went all weird, screens went grey etc.

I was able to restart, and tried again, same thing. So, I assumed it was an iRacing issue. I changed track, went out again and it happened again. This time, the computer was really laggy and stuttery, even after I quit iRacing. So I restarted again, and tried to load Assetto Corsa, bang, crashed straight away and I couldn't even Ctrl+Alt+Del. This time, my PC wouldn't boot windows at all.

It would get to the bios screen and start to load, but then it would hang, the screen would go blank, and that would be that. So, I tried start up repair, but that failed.

The problem escalated after that. It got to the point where I couldn't even get to the BIOS screen. So I tried removing the Ram and just having one in at a time, and it would help initially, but then it would go back to the same problem after the next reboot. Tried clearing the cmos, removing the battery, no help.

Removed every other component so it was just the motherboard, CPU and a single stick of ram. No good. So I swapped the port the ram was in, and it booted fine. All the way to Windows. I pop the other stick in, boot again, yep no problem at all. But then I'd restart, and it would fail again.

I've removed and reseated the CPU. No issue there.

Checked the voltages of the ATX plug, all at the correct voltages.

Motherboard is a Gigabyte Sniper Z87 with a Core i5 4670K, 8Gb corsair ram. Tried both bios settings (dual bios).

I feel like I'm at the point where I admit that it's the motherboard but not sure if I should just try to source another 1150 board or upgrade to an 1151 and change the CPU and ram at the same time.
 
Try doing the following.

Clear the CMOS
Download memtest 86+, install it to a USB drive and boot from it.

You can try upgrading the UEFI but this can be risky at the best of times, hard to say what can happen with an unstable system.
Good thing is if there is an issue, being a dual bios, just start from the other bios.
 
Sounds to me like it's a GPU issue. Are you using a dedicated card or on-board?
 
I pulled the system apart again and just had the motherboard cpu and ram installed and it kept having the same issue even after the clear cmos and battery removal so I'm confident its either a motherboard or cpu issue.

Good news is that it appears as though it's still under warranty, just. So I've removed it and boxed it up and I'll be dropping it off today.

If they do deem it faulty I'll be asking for a credit, as I've already decided I'll just buy a new cpu, DDR4 ram and a new board and upgrade. Also selling my gtx 780 and I'll pick up a 1070 as well.
 
I pulled the system apart again and just had the motherboard cpu and ram installed and it kept having the same issue even after the clear cmos and battery removal so I'm confident its either a motherboard or cpu issue.

Good news is that it appears as though it's still under warranty, just. So I've removed it and boxed it up and I'll be dropping it off today.

If they do deem it faulty I'll be asking for a credit, as I've already decided I'll just buy a new cpu, DDR4 ram and a new board and upgrade. Also selling my gtx 780 and I'll pick up a 1070 as well.

Sounds like you've got it sorted out. I'll say this for posterity though - you can boot straight into a CPU stress test to see if the CPU fails, but even that won't really decouple it from a potential motherboard problem. If it failed a CPU stress test though I would assume it was the CPU that was bad and not the motherboard. Similarly, if memory failed a test I would assume it was the memory and not the motherboard. The only way to really diagnose a motherboard is to get the same failure with a known-good component.
 
Sounds like you've got it sorted out. I'll say this for posterity though - you can boot straight into a CPU stress test to see if the CPU fails, but even that won't really decouple it from a potential motherboard problem. If it failed a CPU stress test though I would assume it was the CPU that was bad and not the motherboard. Similarly, if memory failed a test I would assume it was the memory and not the motherboard. The only way to really diagnose a motherboard is to get the same failure with a known-good component.
Yeah that's the problem, I don't have any spare components to test with. I somewhat tested the memory by running only one stick at a time, I doubt both sticks failed at the same time.
 
Did you watch the mobo POST? I know it's after the fact, but it tests the key components during initial boot. CPU, memory, storage and GPU. There should be an LED indicator for each. If one fails the LED generally illuminates red, or will simply stay illuminated, and if you have a speaker hooked up to the mobo, will emit a beep.
 
Did you watch the mobo POST? I know it's after the fact, but it tests the key components during initial boot. CPU, memory, storage and GPU. There should be an LED indicator for each. If one fails the LED generally illuminates red, or will simply stay illuminated, and if you have a speaker hooked up to the mobo, will emit a beep.
Yeah it had debug codes on the motherboard and it would fail to post and kept cycling through the same numbers.

Regardless, it was sent back but it was 2 days(!) out of warranty so that's that.

I'm now replacing the motherboard with an MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon with an Intel Core i5 6700K, 16Gb Corsair Vengeance 2400MHz DDR4 and replacing the GTX 780 with a GTX 1080. Should be a significant upgrade.
 
Yeah it had debug codes on the motherboard and it would fail to post and kept cycling through the same numbers.

Regardless, it was sent back but it was 2 days(!) out of warranty so that's that.

I'm now replacing the motherboard with an MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon with an Intel Core i5 6700K, 16Gb Corsair Vengeance 2400MHz DDR4 and replacing the GTX 780 with a GTX 1080. Should be a significant upgrade.

You could have contacted the manufacturer to see if they would still RMA it.

2 days might still be close enough for them to provide you with one.
 
That sucks.

I had a Gigabyte board in my system initially but it sucked so I replaced it with an Asus. The only problem I've really ever had - BIOS freaked out once and I couldn't boot. Tore the computer apart, reassembled it, everything is fine. Never figured out what happened. I think the CPU wasn't seated right. I did notice I had some bent pins on my socket, which I pushed back using an old credit card.

Let us know what happens with your machine. I bet you it's the GPU.
 
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That sucks.

I had a Gigabyte board in my system initially but it sucked so I replaced it with an Asus. The only problem I've really ever had - BIOS freaked out once and I couldn't boot. Tore the computer apart, reassembled it, everything is fine. Never figured out what happened. I think the CPU wasn't seated right. I did notice I had some bent pins on my socket, which I pushed back using an old credit card.

Let us know what happens with your machine. I bet you it's the GPU.
Did you mean CPU? As the GPU wasn't even installed at the end when I was just trying to get it to post.

Anyway, no longer going to use those components as I have a new motherboard, ram, cpu and gpu on their way.

Didnt use the words ACL?
I sent an email saying that I'd first made contact with Gigabyte a few days prior so within warranty period, and asked if they would come to the party seeing as how it was so close. I suggested that because I'm needing to upgrade to a new system that I have to buy new ram, cpu, motherboard and that I was upgrading my graphics card as well at the same time, that it would be fair to just throw in the motherboard with the order.

Seemed fair to me, they would have made more with the other components to offset the price of the motherboard and would have secured my future business and my recommendation to others but instead I spent a couple of grand elsewhere. No skin off my nose, wasn't going to bother with fighting over a couple of hundred bucks, it was just the principle. The place I went to had the gpu I wanted for a lot cheaper so it worked out.

Looking forward to trying out the new system.
 
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