990fx shorted ... I guess ?!

[stijnbilliet]

Motherboard: Asrock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer

Power Supply: CoolerMaster G750M

Processor: FX8320

Graphics Card: Sapphire Tri-x r9 290

RAM: 2X (8GB Kingston HyperX Fury)

Cooling: Hyper 212evo and 6 (or so) case fans.

 

Hi so ... PC doesn't POST anymore the mobo seems to be the issue (did mobo swap), however upon unplugging the GPU the system will boot (led's power up and num lock is responsive). {https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6hnjcpedIzjblpBY0RlLUJPZEk/view?usp=sharing}

 

So this is where I'm at: I've built my pc 3 years ago and after a year or so my pc randomly shut down (fyi: I was playing the Forest :D). Instantly checked for a defective part, thought it was my PSU so RMA'd that got my very same PSU back (no problems found). Whilst checking for defects I ran some GPU intensive stresstests like FurrMark etc, PC did the same thing so i RMA'd my gpu, got it back (no problems found).

 

It was at this time that my brother bought his PC so we tried a cpu/mobo swap, so i got his i7 and he got my fx8320, but he had no problems (his GPU GTX 560ti ... we bought his in used condition). Everything good, but still his PC would very rarely crash or take very long to POST. Tried a load of stuff afterward, like OC'ing the CPU, but CSGO didn't like that too much, stresstests would run fine though. Undervolting his CPU to try take some load away, nothing helped. So I decided to set his PC at stock freq, but like i said it would still crash from time to time (while gaming).

 

Then I decided to upgrade to a GTX 1060, and give my r9 290 to my brother, but then we would have the same system once again (my fx rig). So he got the GTX 1060, but I needed it for a project I was working on (involving NVIDIA GameStream) so I needed that GPU, we swapped PSU so he got my 750w, i got his 650w hoping that we would not run into any problems here. As soon as I had swapped them the FX rig would not boot entirelly first it would get into the Windows login screen, but would shutdow immediately after loging in (driver issue), then it would only just get into the bios, but anything past that would cause it to shut down, following this was a bootloop that would only barely make it into the bios. Now the system wont POST and i'm quite fed up with it. Any suggestions ?

 

EDIT: Forgot to tell you that one of the pins on the USB3 header is bent but isn't making contact with any other pin. I also can't RMA the board because the warranty period is over.

 

TLDR: PC won't POST (Occasionaly) unplugging non-defective GPU does allow booting. I know that my motherboard is the issue because a mobo swap solves the issue. What is causing this ? Can I fix this ?

[Jonathan Lemmens]

Have you tried booting it with just one RAM stick? Try each slot separately

 

[stijnbilliet]

25 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

Have you tried booting it with just one RAM stick? Try each slot separately

 

Thanks for you response, euhm yes I've tried with on stick of RAM into different RAM slots. I've also tried different PCIe slots.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

20 minutes ago, stijnbilliet said:

Thanks for you response, euhm yes I've tried with on stick of RAM into different RAM slots. I've also tried different PCIe slots.

Ok, your story is a little confusing,  but as i understand it you have basically ruled out everything but the motherboard, RAM and CPU. Of these three the motherboard is by far the most likely to die first.

The only way to know for sure is to swap your CPU and RAM with another AM3+ platform instead of an i7 based system.

[stijnbilliet]

38 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

Ok, your story is a little confusing,  but as i understand it you have basically ruled out everything but the motherboard, RAM and CPU. Of these three the motherboard is by far the most likely to die first.

The only way to know for sure is to swap your CPU and RAM with another AM3+ platform instead of an i7 based system.

Yes i'm sorry for that, well you see there's so much info that I need to disperse. Well I've tried my CPU and RAM into another AM3+ mobo, and this runs fine aswell. I was just kinda hoping to fix my 990fx mobo myself. The AM3+ mobo that I am using now is quite ancient because it's a Phenom mobo with a bios update for the fx lineup, it can only use 4 phases of power and I can't realy overclock on it.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

1 hour ago, stijnbilliet said:

Well I've tried my CPU and RAM into another AM3+ mobo, and this runs fine aswell. I was just kinda hoping to fix my 990fx mobo myself.

There is no real way to fix a motherboard unfortunately. The only alternative in this case is finding a cheap used AM3+ mobo.

[stijnbilliet]

17 hours ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

There is no real way to fix a motherboard unfortunately. The only alternative in this case is finding a cheap used AM3+ mobo.

Well okay I'll try plugging in the cpu once more, just to be sure and well if that doesnt work out i'll put it on my shelf :D. Thanks for the response though !

 

EDIT: Reading up online shows that it might have been the chipset that has been failing on me. That explains why there was no heat when touching the heatsink (in the aftermath).