My motherboard might be dying

[CheerUpEmoKid]

hey guys, recently my pc has been having a problem. it has been shutting itself off randomly and wont power back on unless i unplug the psu for 5+ seconds. i asked on many forums and ive come to the conclusion my mobo or psu is dying.

i filled out and sent in an RMA form to antec for my power supply, and i was looking at the warranty info on the MSI website here:

http://www.msicomputer.com/support/sup_genwar.asp

it has a price for RMA under warranty listed...

does this mean that i would have to pay them $35 just to RMA my motherboard? isnt that a bit ridiculous?

am i missing something here?

 

[lopri]

I don't think you're missing anything. I believe MSI asks for $50 for video card replacement. I know it's a bummer but that's life.. That said, I do have a doubt on PSUs that come with Antec cases, so you may want to post in PSU forum with the detailed symtoms.

 

[wolverineI]

Originally posted by: CheerUpEmoKid
hey guys, recently my pc has been having a problem. it has been shutting itself off randomly and wont power back on unless i unplug the psu for 5+ seconds. i asked on many forums and ive come to the conclusion my mobo or psu is dying.

i filled out and sent in an RMA form to antec for my power supply, and i was looking at the warranty info on the MSI website here:

http://www.msicomputer.com/support/sup_genwar.asp

it has a price for RMA under warranty listed...

does this mean that i would have to pay them $35 just to RMA my motherboard? isnt that a bit ridiculous?

am i missing something here?

Sounds like a PSU issue. They have good sales on Seasonic at newegg right now.Just got my wife a $100 seasonic for $69 free shipping. 500w 8 pin cpu the works. A spare is always handy to have.keep the Antec as a backup,like I did.Hers you would have to hit reset every other bootup.the fans and lights would come on,but no boot. Antec also.worked hit or miss on several mobos.DFI lanparty I had to turn off the power supply after shutdown,if it was left on.wouldnt start period.had to unplug the power cable for 10 minutes. biostar 770 hit or miss if it would start without reset. New seasonic not a problem.

 

[Kaspian]

Another vote for psu.

 

[CheerUpEmoKid]

ok i guess ill rma my psu and see what happens from there, how long does an rma usually take? and does it cost anything to rma something to antec?

 

[CheerUpEmoKid]

ok well i have my brother's PSU hooked up to my pc now, testing it out. gonna try to crash this thing to make sure its my PSU and not my mobo

 

[CheerUpEmoKid]

ok well with my brother's PSU which i am certain is working correctly, my pc still shuts itself off. i guess that leave the motherboard.

does this mean that its definately the motherboard? im almost positive its not the video card cause this never happened to him when he used it.

so do i need a new mobo? what do you guys think?

 

[CheerUpEmoKid]

guys, i cant believe it took me this long to think about and consider this buy, could it be my power strip where i plug all my stuff in? could it just be trying to suck too much electricity and cant handle it? it seems like its pretty old.

Right now, this is what I have hooked up to it:

Speakers
Two Monitors
My Computer
My cell phone charger
A fan

all of this is hooked up to my power strip, which has a small (not heavy duty) extension cord hooked up to it so it can reach the wall

could this be my problem? and not a hardware issue? i just realized there is no switch on my power strip for emergency turn off or whatever.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

u mean u don't have a UPS?

why dont u test and try to plug your PC into the wall and run some stress tests on it and see if its an electrical problem

 

[CheerUpEmoKid]

ok guys well so far ive plugged in a different power strip and a heavy duty extension cord so it can reach.

so far, everything is working great. all i have plugged in are my 2 monitors and my pc, nothing else, no speakers, fan, or cell phone charger

ill keep you updated

EDIT:

looks like i spoke too soon, about 3 seconds after i submitted this post my pc shut off on me. now its worse than before. when i turn off the power supply for a few seconds and turn it back on to try again, the pc powers on for like a quarter of a seconds and shuts off, have to unplug psu to get it back on and keeps shutting off, so im on my laptop now cause i cant use my pc.

so what do i do now? how can i test my motherboard? my brother has pretty similar parts to mine. how should i go about testing this now?

 

[CheerUpEmoKid]

well i have a bit of bad news. when i was pulling out my heatsink to remove the processor, apparently my cpu was stuck onto the heatsink. it didnt just stay in there so i could pull up that little lock thing then take it out, it just came out stuck to the heatsink. so i took a look at the bottom of my cpu where all the little pins are, and there are a few bent pins... bad, yes?

also, i was doing what i usually do to make my pc shut itself down, and it wasnt going. so then i start looking a my processor and out of no where, it restart itself. it didnt shut off like it normally does though. it just rebooted, i didnt have to unplug it.

i have my brother's parts in my mobo right now. all that is running is his video card and processor, and 1 stick of his 512mb corsair ram. so what do i do now? anyone know what i can do to try to make my pc get overloaded and shut itself off like it was before, so i can make sure its my mobo?

EDIT:

ok well it seems that with my brother's parts which i know are fine, and my motherboard which i think is dying, my pc still shuts itself off, but differently than it was before. now it just reboots itself instead of shutting off and not turning back on.

does this confirm that its my motherboard?

EDIT

ok well i googled on how to fix bent pins, it worked, somewhat. i still have 2 pins that are bent pretty bad, i cant get the, to stand up. one is right in the middle of all the pins and one is on the outside. how can i get these pins up? am i out of luck?

 

[jaggerwild]

Hello Cheer up!

You might try to remove the MB to see if it was shorting out in the case, also I have seen the buttons on cases go bad too.
Only good ideal about the bent pins is a jewler can fix them with small tools.
Good luck!

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: CheerUpEmoKid
ok well i googled on how to fix bent pins, it worked, somewhat. i still have 2 pins that are bent pretty bad, i cant get the, to stand up. one is right in the middle of all the pins and one is on the outside. how can i get these pins up? am i out of luck?

Small tweezers work pretty well. The pins move easily, so don't use much force or you might pull it off.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: Martimus

Originally posted by: CheerUpEmoKid
ok well i googled on how to fix bent pins, it worked, somewhat. i still have 2 pins that are bent pretty bad, i cant get the, to stand up. one is right in the middle of all the pins and one is on the outside. how can i get these pins up? am i out of luck?

Small tweezers work pretty well. The pins move easily, so don't use much force or you might pull it off.

Use a mechanical pencil to straighten the pins.

 

[CheerUpEmoKid]

i cant use a mechanical pencil to fix them because some of them are bent pretty badly. they arent just bent a little bit so they dont stand on an angle, some are bent so far that they are just parallel with the cpu itself.

ill give tweezers a try if i can find a pair around the house, thanks

 

[SilverTrine]

I had the same problem as you and not coincidentally I have a Smartpower power supply.

Smartpower is an awful design that can and does kill motherboards with bad power. My Smartpower PSU killed my motherboard and maybe the CPU.

I tried the Smartpower in a system I knew to work and it would only post and thats it.

Even if you think the Smartpower is working I would dump it and get a different power supply. Its an awful design.