I think my mobo is dead.

[RJARRRPCGP]

I have an MSI MEG z490 ACE mobo. Last night while gaming the pc screen went black and though the pc was still running, nothing responded so I did a hard shut down. Once I did that, nothing came back on. I could see the little power button on the mobo was lit up but nothing would come on at all.

Your symptoms are different than my B450 Tomahawk, which I found unexpectedly off in my other room! Did you take off the FET heatsinks to see if the thermal pads are liquid-y?

My B450 Tomahawk, literally suddenly became lifeless, showed no signs of life, not even LEDs!

raptor lake is a monster, and best buy still has my mobo in stock at clearance price, i think you should go raptor lake personally

View attachment 267903

But, does BestBuy demand Totaltech like they did months ago?

My kid's x570 Strix-E board was acting up recently. I had a hell of a time diagnosing it. It would act like a psu or gpu fail, reboot on load. However neither psu/gpu were bad after testing. Then it started acting more flaky, unstable in dual channel or all dimms filled. Luckily have other systems to swap the cpu/ram into which was good in alt system leaving the board as the culprit. That was confirmed after a replacement board.

That kind of flakiness, reminds me of early-to-mid '00s motherboards. Possibly bad caps on motherboards with those symptoms, even when not leaking or bulging! But even the flakiness-with-non-visibly-failed-caps, is a more likely phenomenon on early-to-mid '00s motherboards. Sometimes late-'00s motherboards as well.

 

[Space Lynx]

Your symptoms are different than my B450 Tomahawk, which I found unexpectedly off in my other room! Did you take off the FET heatsinks to see if the thermal pads are liquid-y?

My B450 Tomahawk, literally suddenly became lifeless, showed no signs of life, not even LEDs!


But, does BestBuy demand Totaltech like they did months ago?

must not for clearance items, cause i didn't see anything like that at checkout. my mobo was 173 and at checkout that was the price i paid + tax obviously.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

must not for clearance items, cause i didn't see anything like that at checkout. my mobo was 173 and at checkout that was the price i paid + tax obviously.

Did BestBuy pull back on that, like Newegg did with the shuffle? Because at least since very-late-March of 2022, no shuffle required anymore.

 

[Space Lynx]

Did BestBuy pull back on that, like Newegg did with the shuffle? Because at least since very-late-March of 2022, no shuffle required anymore.

no idea. i think it was only super in demand items. i don't think they do that anymore.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

no idea. i think it was only super in demand items. i don't think they do that anymore.

When I got my first Sapphire Nitro+, the Radeon RX 6600 XT, the shuffle was definitely not required.

 

[Space Lynx]

When I got my first Sapphire Nitro+, the Radeon RX 6600 XT, the shuffle was definitely not required.

I'm building my niece her first rig right now actually, just spotted a 6600 xt for $219. its going to play loads of games on high settings high refresh at 1080p. should be a lot of fun for her.

most likely giving her my old monitor, and a spare case i have as well. still need need some ram and cpu. such a great time to be a budget gamer, never thought i'd be able to build her a very capable rig this cheaply.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Always disconnect every drive except the OS drive when installing an OS

XP was worse, I had to disconnect the internal card reader for anything NT 5. Because it looks like another ATA drive to the installer of XP!

Vista and later, ignores internal card readers and proceeds normally.

 

[Space Lynx]

just went to checkout. sold out before i could get it. fuck. well, the build is on hold again for a bit. hopefully prices keep coming down, i def want to get her a 6600 xt for around this price. just have to keep being patient, i think this price will be more common moving forward.

 

[Mussels]

XP was worse, I had to disconnect the internal card reader for anything NT 5. Because it looks like another ATA drive to the installer of XP!

Vista and later, ignores internal card readers and proceeds normally.

thats the era i learned to disconnect things too, the amount of problems solved by simple stuff like "uhhh.... did you install your bootloader to your digital cameras SD card?"

 

[mechtech]

So I ended up just buying a new MSI Z590 Tomahawk mobo and installed it, only to discover that of the three slots for M.2, slot one does not work with a 10th gen CPU and only an 11gen so I said F it and bought an i7 11700k. I really wanted to use that #1 slot for my M.2 drive.

After installing the new CPU I had nothing but trouble getting the board to post. In an act of desperation, I removed the 11700k and tossed my 10850K back in and the PC booted right up. Before I return the new CPU, I will update the BIOS and swap CPUs again. Maybe that will solve my problem. I really hate to give up that m.2 slot. I like to run at least three M.2 cards.

I then accidentally wiped all of my drives during the windows 10 install, the first time I ever did that, so now I'm 9 hours into an 18 hour deep scan to retrieve all of my lost files. /sigh. It's been a punch-in-the-gut weekend.

Oh and to top it off, my Crucial P3 2 TB M.2 (a few weeks new) slotted in the M.2 slot #3, is no longer detected, within the BIOS or windows. I want to pull it and pop in another one just to make sure if it is the card or slot that is janked, but I have to wait for this deep scan to get done.

...I should have just built a new PC but after pricing out what I want, I was looking at around $1200 for the board, CPU, and memory. I figured $500 was the better option but I'm having regrets now.


lol, what a weekend.

Motherboard usually a 3 year warranty. Should have tried RMA

 

[WhiteNoise]

@mechtech I still will look into that but I wasn't going to wait for an RMA. I need my PC now!

/edit I went ahead and requested an RMA. It was approved and I will send it off tomorrow.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Quick update. MSI fixed my board and it arrived back at my house yesterday. So now I have the board and i9 10850 to either sell or give one of my kids a totally ridiculous upgrade.

 

[cnmcdee]

A 10 year old system usually has dried thermal paste that does not conduct very well and is usually the cause of a lot of problems where it overheats very quickly and just shuts off.

I would refurbish thermal paste very well with a tiny drop of baby oil which reconstitutes it back like new.

Also voltages of a power supply over 10 years can get flaky / degraded. I recommend testing it under load with tools like an ATX power supply tester. A power supply will work GREAT with no load, but if you have a high-wattage CPU and a old power supply it's another scenario. I always overbuild my powersupply because I know in 5 years it will probably degrade the capacitors etc. Since Amazon is literally GIVING away 750w for like $45 I would start there.