Possibly need to replace my motherboard

[AlleRacing]

Hi all, long time channel watcher, new to the forum.

 

I have some questions, namely, I think my motherboard (Asus Maximus VI Formula) is done. I want to test further to be certain that's the culprit, so I'll post what I've tried and what it's doing. Came home, computer was off, LEDs on the GPU and motherboard were lit up, but the case power button and the onboard power button didn't start it. I've tried removing all extraneous components and using a different power supply, and it still doesn't power on, though I occasionally see the backlighting on my keyboard flicker. I tried pulling the memory modules out and tried different modules in different slots, still nothing. Is there anything further I can test, or can I be relatively certain it's the motherboard?

 

Now, if it is the motherboard, that leaves me with a couple of choices. It's out of warranty by a year, and replacing it new is actually $10 CAD more than when I originally bought it. Comparable LGA 1150 boards are similarly pricey. I figure if I'm going to spend >$300, I may as well upgrade since it has been 4 years. This is where I'm stuck in choice paralysis. The 7700k at least seems like a straight upgrade, and has fantastic single core and gaming performance. However, I didn't like the lack of PCI-E lanes, I had to drop my audio card out of my system to run SLI. As far as I understand, the 7700k is still at the same number of lanes, and if I want more I'll either have to go LGA 2066, AM4, or TR4. From benchmarks I've found, and for some reason they don't seem very comprehensive, both Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 seem to offer very competitive performance in games and blow it out of the water in most productivity. The 1600/X and 1700/X in particular were ones I was looking at, the 1600/X being significantly cheaper. Upgrading would of course also mean having to get a bunch of DDR4 memory, which is going to tilt the price higher, and probably getting an AM4 bracket for my cooler. The LGA 2066 option doesn't look terribly appealing, as I don't want to be spending >$700 just on a CPU and the 7800X just doesn't seem to compare well to cheaper options.

 

So, given this scenario, what would my best options be? I understand that the 4770k is still a pretty strong CPU, but if I can still sell it for a bit of return that'll be great. Same with the RAM.

[Colin Donoghue]

the 8700k is coming out soon and it is rumored to be faster than ryzen in every way because Intel had no competition but now they do so they are putting out bigger upgrade to compete with ryzen and amd

I would wait for the 8700k

 

[Zebedeeboing]

What are you using your system for? No need to go overkill if it's gaming/light productivity dude. Save the extra spondulies and put it into gpu or extra ice cream  

[AlleRacing]

1 hour ago, Colin Donoghue said:

the 8700k is coming out soon and it is rumored to be faster than ryzen in every way because Intel had no competition but now they do so they are putting out bigger upgrade to compete with ryzen and amd

I would wait for the 8700k

 

How soon? My main computer is currently down until I replace that motherboard, so I'm stuck using my work laptop.

 

To be honest I had no intention of upgrading right away, my system was still going pretty strong. Part failure just forced the issue.

[hammer3339]

just stick a normal, mid range board in there, it'll cost you probably 100 - 150 bucks and you're back on the road. realistically you're almost definitely not using all the 'features' of your luxury board and as the board has no affect on performance just replace it with the cheapest (*Decent) one you can find.

[kirBi]

Coffee Lake is coming out on October, I think. Since that's within a month or so, it's probably a good idea to wait, but I have to say rumored benchmark result for 8700k is very underwhelming...

[AlleRacing]

Yeah, could probably throw a $100 or so board in there. I do use a good chunk of the features on my board though, and buying a cheaper part as a stop gap between upgrades doesn't sit well with me. I could sell my 4770k and DDR3 RAM and get some return, it's looking like I can get good return on the CPU just briefly looking on eBay and kijiji.

[Colin Donoghue]

55 minutes ago, AlleRacing said:

How soon? My main computer is currently down until I replace that motherboard, so I'm stuck using my work laptop.

 

To be honest I had no intention of upgrading right away, my system was still going pretty strong. Part failure just forced the issue.

October

[AlleRacing]

After doing a little more searching, could a dead CMOS battery be the culprit? I read a thread on the steam forums where someone had an issue with the system not booting at all, and the solution for him was replacing the battery. I think I was having issues with the battery before (system clocking not keeping time after shut down), so probably worth at least testing.

 

It's a good thing I already have my system mostly gutted, because changing the battery on this motherboard is a huge pain in the ass.