Faulty mobo?

By DeadMG on December 7, 2008 6:56:11 PM from

Symptoms:

Freezing. This is first one app, then the next, then the next till the whole system is down.
Poor transfer speeds. This includes Ethernet (6mbs over gigabit connection) and USB (3mbs on a USB2 port and stick, 26MBs on another machine)
Poor overclockability (by this I mean a G0 quad core couldn't break 2.7GHz on an entirely custom cooling setup)
Assorted hangs and crashes during boot up, and assorted failures in Windows.
During booting (before loading screen) I get "Disk read error. Press ctrl+alt+delete to restart". Five times straight. HDD is ten months.
RAM issues (the same sticks placed in different slots either produce a black screen, not even BIOS or POST, or work normally)
Generally, anything plugged into the USB ports does not come out again. I have had hardware failures on flash drives, MP3 players, mice, webcams, and headphones at a rate far, far above the norm. The significant thing about this is that USB headphones always fail in exactly the same order (and from this you can imply that many have fallen this way). First right headphone, then mic, then left. I charge my iPod from the plug with an adaptor.
When running Orthos and CoreTemp, the difference between the coolest core and hottest core was 13 degrees. Checked in February and it was 5 degrees.
When Windows underclocks your CPU to save power, it should clock it back up during use. It didn't, even while all four cores were maxed.

System is ten months old, all new components. Vista Ultimate 64bit, I run a tight ship in terms of viruses etc, I use the Vista Ultimate imaging tool to eradicate anything that disagrees with me and keep a 64bit and 32bit ISO. You can be guaranteed that I re-image the main drive frequently, both updating the ISO and putting it back on, like playing a hard FPS with the quicksave and quickload buttons. Q6600, Corsair XMS2 4-4-4-12 800MHz DDR2, nVidia 8800GT, Asus P5KC is the mobo in question with the latest BIOS.

The only other thought I have been having is power supply. Our mains here has a history of not being reliable, and the PSU is a no-brand 700 watter.

However this is reaching the point where I simply will not use USB devices(that are not completely essential) and my machine will fail to boot for an hour.

EDIT:

These are symptoms which definitely did not exist five months ago, and were only in infancy two months ago. This is another major reason I am inclined to point at hardware.

+5 Karma | 7 Replies

From everything you're saying, the mobo seems like it might be an issue.

I've had the same issue with the HDD, swapped my cables and it worked fine. Might be worth a shot.

I've also had the same issue with the OCing (My Q6600 could only be raised about .2 ghz) and replacing the mobo is what I eventually had to do.

With everything happening together like this, I wouldnt even bother attempting an OSRI. If you were dead shot on T/Sing it though, I'd OSRI/Swap memory with another system, replace the HDD cord and check the voltages from the PSU.

Mobo seems like a safe bet though.

what i would do, maybe a little extreme, i would disconnect and take everything out, hard drive, video card, ram, cpu, etc, and check each one, ya got nothing to lose except time, then if it still does that, i am not sure, but try eliminating one thing at a time,something could be loose, by removing everything and re install you are reseating everything,

CPU might be fried. (Check the fan for dust clugs, it takes about between three days and two weeks of +15C_+30C overheats for any good chip to start behaving VERY badly, every hours after this is downhill sharp & fast!)

Or the PSU doesn't ramp up to necessary amps, erratically. (400W, nowadays is considered quite edgy... even when you think or guess that your 700 outputs are in fact **constantly** reaching that level).

Cables, too.

Too large a time frame. There is no up and down sudden shebang, it's a gradual increase over many months.

Thanks for your inputs. I have added a couple of extra things that I have forgotten.

Return the motherboard to Asus! It is for sure the problem...

Asus... try looking at the chipset fan, they have a habit of seizing. Mine has a few drops of non conductive oil on it.

There is no up and down sudden shebang, it's a gradual increase over many months.

Well, it doesn't negate the fact that sligthly higher heats to the CPU chip can spread over months rather than weeks or even a few days. All i'm saying is that after a certain point, the whole system CAN (start to) suffer from a faulty fan-cpu combo ***AND*** behave erratically for a number of times until that specific hardware is inspected or fixed when it is proven that overheat is the cause.

For what it's worth, i've never seen any significant mobo failures BEFORE the cpu has either failed or doesn't react as it should or as with any other elements in that tower.

A simple loosed up cable to the HD framework (or anywhere else, btw!) is another 'symptom' which can be verified rather easily - judging from what you described in the initial post.

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Faulty mobo?