I think my mobo is dying

Maveric169

The Voices Talk to Me
Joined
5 Dec 2002
Messages
1,148
I think my mobo is dying, but I want to run this by the rest of you before making that determination.

Symptoms:

Last night we had a guest staying overnight, and my PC with all its fans can be a bit loud to those not accostomed to it, so I shut it down. Today when I turned it on it started acting very strange. The bios failed to id both my harddrives, or my RAM, and then gave me the BSOD with "IRQ is not equal or less than....." screen.

So I restarted the computer. This time it ID'ed the primary HDD but not the slave, ID'ed the RAM but not my video card. So I moved my monitor connector to the onboard video port to get the monitor to work. But the comp hanged on the Windows loading screen (with the blue night ridder bar).

So I restarted again, this time the computer Id'ed everything correctly except my video card, and booted normally (after getting the safemode boot option screen). It also flashed that new hardware was installed and after reviewing the hardware manager it installed the S3 Graphics ProSavageDDR (microsoft corporation), under display adapters. I have no idea what happened to my Geforce 4 TI 4200 device drivers. They have just disappeared.

Now my first thought was that maybe the bios battery was dying and that the bios was losing all the settings, but upon reviwing the bios setting nothing seems to have changed (best I can tell) and I have no loss in the system clock. Both time and date are correct, unless it updated with the internet before I could even check it.

So I am not really 100% positive what is happening ro what the cause is other than the mobo crapping out somehow. Any ideas, troubleshooting thoughts, etc are welcome.

Anyone have a "A" socket mobo there not using?
 
My first recommendation to you would be to remove one card at a time until all are out (rebooting each time) and then place one in at a time until you find the problem. It may not be your motherboard.
 
Quick update:

i just had to do a windows update, it also found an update for that S3 graphics deal, and restarted my comp. After this restart, it re-enabled my Geforce card and booted with no problems. This is strange.

I tried removing everything 1 piece at a time, but the problem did not resurface with any component. It appeares it is a random or intermitant problem.
 
This more sounds to me like cracked solder/pathways that when the companoents coold down after being on 24/7 for so long shrank apart.

Having the pc on will have warmed things up so that all connections are secur and in place and everything is working normally again.

I'd perform a test say 2 or 3 more times leaving it off overnight and seeing how it is when it powers on in the morning. If you hve the problems again but they go away after warming up then I would hazard youo need to leave it on while you save up to replace the motherboard.
 
LordOfLA said:
This more sounds to me like cracked solder/pathways that when the companoents coold down after being on 24/7 for so long shrank apart.
If not cracked it could also be Cold solder joints.
 
Lord and AZ, that makes sense. I will test that theory out and see what happens, see if I can reproduce the error tonight.
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
Any of the SP crew still out there?
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Impressed you have kept this alive this long EP! So many sites have come and gone. :(

Just did some crude math and I apparently joined almost 18yrs ago, how is that possible???
hello peeps... is been some time since i last came here.
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