My motherboard is very hot

HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

While I was away on business my Gentoo Linux comptuer shutdown. I tried diagnosing it over the phone with my wife (god love her) and she plugged it into another outlet and it started back up. I figured it was a bad outlet. When I got home the system was down again. Pressing the power switch did nothing. I unplugged it and then plugged it into the original strip and then system made a sound like it was starting but then dead again. I figured there is a bad component or short somewhere. I opened the case and move wires around to see if there was a bad wire somewhere. When I tried to power it up it came up fine. I thought maybe one of the loose power connectors where shorting somewhere. While I was away from the computer it shutdown again. I fiddled with the wires again and it came back up. I fiddled with the wiring while it was running I figured if it shutdown or I got shocked (or both) I would at least figure out what it was. I can't get it to shut down. I messed with everything, even touching components. Right now the PSU, HDs, CDROM, video, chipset and cpu are running normal but at the back of the board where the connections are it is running hot. Very hot. None of the connectors on the back are hot but specifically a chip labeled PCNet is too hot to touch. When you get close to the board you can feel the heat. Networking works because I am on the net typing this message.

1) can dust cause a kinda of short? The board it very dusty.

I thought that maybe the shutdown could be heat related but once it is shutdown only fiddling with the wires gets it to come back up.

2) If I have a bad mobo (K7S5A) can I just replace with a K7N2 and reboot or do I have to change some drivers first? I realize the network will be different but will it at least boot?

3) Has anyone seen problems like these before?

I had a bad PSU about a year ago but I put a new one in.

Thx for listening
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Beattie · Apprentice Joined: 24 Jun 2002 Posts: 155

you may have to boot to the live cd and recompile the kernel if you change the mobo, but it might just work.

if it's really dusty, try cleaning it out and see if it still gets that hot.

nmcsween · Guru Joined: 12 Nov 2003 Posts: 381

1) Highly doubt it since many computers I've seen are horrably full of dust
3) Never seen anything like that before.
It could be that your board is shutting down from the obvious heat issue. To fix this why not just dust the mobo off and buy a few memory heatsinks and some thermal epoxy, rent a IR camera and take a shot of your mobo, then simply expoy the heatsinks on, many chips run hot as hell in a few of my computers but nothing that heatsinks won't fix.
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dalek · Posted: Fri May 14, 2004 9:10 pm Post subject:

Have you tried a google search to see if anyone else had this problem? Could it be that something is touching on the backside of the mobo?

Just thoughts. I'm not there and long distance diagnosis is pretty rough, actually short distance is rough sometimes. Weird things happen.

Later

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My rig: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P mobo, AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core CPU, ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU cooler,
G.SKILL 32GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GTX-650 video card LG W2253 Monitor
60TBs of hard drive space using LVM
Cooler Master HAF-932 Case

nx12 · Apprentice Joined: 14 Jan 2004 Posts: 193

I think it's better to clean up your mobo. Dust also can be the reason of that all.
Check your power supply. May be it's just dying. If you have lmsensors check the voltages. Or if your BIOS has PC Health option check the voltages there.
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HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

I have been travelling a lot so I am loosing track of what I have done. I did add a new HD (primary on second channel) and a 512MB RAM stick. It ran for a week or two or more like that before the problems started. The new/old RAM ran fine in my Windows machine for over a year (although it wouldn't run at its rated 333MHz. I am running it at 266MHz now). The new (and it is brand new) HD is running pretty hot and is showing dma errors.

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

I'm sorry, I'm having trouble following what all you've tried and havent just now :oops:

(forgive me, Friday night...), but in my experience, if one won't even start, first test memory and then video card. If it still won't fire up, then it's the mobo.

I used to go through them when my office was in another room. I was lucky to get a year out of one. But now in this room, I'm kinda going thru power supplies while my current mobo is over 18 months old. I got a real good antec power supply last time and it's made it past the one month threshold I was getting out of the others.

And I have one of those 500 dollar back up power things that's supposed to be a really quality surge protector too.

All that to say, power surges.... our worst enemy. Also, I've heard it's not too uncommon for mobos to short out.

I hope this helps some.
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HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

I have an APC that this computer is plugged into. This power up thing is very strange. For example: It powers down. It will not power up until I unplug the PSU, plug it in again and then hit the power button. Sometimes it starts the system up and then 2 seconds later it is off. This last time I did this 5 times. Then it will run for an hour maybe and then reboot.

I ran memtest86+ and it came up with one failure. I removed the newest RAM sim in there and the one I am suspecting since there is a 256MB and 512MB and the error was at 298MB. Then the system wouldn't boot. Same scenario as above. After about 5 times of unplugging the PSU and restarting the system it powered up. Since one of the HDs was getting hot I have unplugged it and I will see how long it runs.

The voltage regulators and the network chip are very hot. I suppose this could be related to the video card but it is running at the moment. OK voltage regulators do get hot. My newer mobo in my other comp has the regulators underneath so I can't compare.

Thx again all for your help

Update
I may have found my problem. I did another google search k7s5a +regulation and found a link that says with a K7S5A you should have a total tco (+5v and +3.3v) of 220w for a cpu over 1.33 GHz. I am at 1.4GHz and at 189W tco. Even though it is a 400Watt PSU it can only supply 15A at 3.3v where this article says it should be 28A. I searched NewEgg.com and found that nearly all their PSUs from 300 - 550 watts all had 27A or 28A at 3.3v. Perhaps it is my PSU that is to blame. The system has run fine for a year. About 2 or 3 weeks ago I put in more RAM and another HD. I took out the RAM and the 2nd HD and see if it runs overnight. If so then I am off to get a new PSU. Funny thing is a new mobo would have been cheaper. Just wouldn't have solved the problem.

Thx
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dalek · Posted: Sat May 15, 2004 7:37 am Post subject:

I know this much, if a motor is "starved" for power it will run hot as hell, literally. If that P/S is not putting out enough voltage then it will likely run hot.

If you have a volt meter, try to measure what it is putting out. If you have a mobo that has the sensors built in and can read them from that. I can watch mine through Gkrellm. My 3.3v is actually 3.26, 5v is 5.0V, and 12v is 11.9v. That is pretty close. If that 3.3 is 3.0v or less that may cause problems. The 5v should not be less that 4.75 or so. The 12v should not be any less than 11.75 or so. The closer the better though.

If you can, get a good power supply that is well made. I have a APC 430w. It works well and I have had three hard drives and a CD R/W. I also have 6 80mm fans, counting P/S and CPU fans.

This may be a good start, not to pricey but not one of those cheapies that burn out hard drives and/or mobo.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-154-013&depa=1

If you have a air compressor, blow out the dust balls. When you do, make sure you use your fingers to keep the fans from spinning. I have messed up fans before doing that. They spin so fast they mess up the bearings, especially those little ones like on video cards and chipsets.

You can use a small screwdriver for the power supply one. I take the cover off of mine when I clean it. Do not touch the printed circuit board in there. There is a few capacitors that have over 200vDC in there. Nasty jolt there.

Hope something here helps. Keep posting what you get.

Later

_________________
My rig: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P mobo, AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core CPU, ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU cooler,
G.SKILL 32GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GTX-650 video card LG W2253 Monitor
60TBs of hard drive space using LVM
Cooler Master HAF-932 Case

HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

Thanks for all the input.

I just got a new 400W PSU but this one puts out 292Watts on the 3.3 and 5v rails as opposed to my other 400W PSU only could supply 189W. The system has powered up but I would bet that it is only a matter of time for this problem to come back so I am going to get a new mobo tomorrow. The back of the board is really heating up as before.

The nice part about getting a new mobo is that I am going to try to get one with built in sound that supports hardware mixing (if such a beast exists). I am tired of Firefox crashing when there is FLASH on a page. I understand that this has to do with the lack of hardware mixing with the onboard sound.

Any suggestions on an AMD based mobo that has built in sound that supports hardware mixing and is supported by Linux? I will search these forums as well as the ALSA site but if you know off the top of your head I would appreciate it.

Thanks again for all your help.
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dalek · Posted: Sat May 15, 2004 8:06 pm Post subject:

I have read somewhere that hardware mixing with built-in audio don't exist. I, or we, may be wrong though. Most are done in software.

Whatever is getting hot may be pulling all that power from the P/S and causing it to shutdown from the lack of power. Just a thought.

Later

_________________
My rig: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P mobo, AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core CPU, ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU cooler,
G.SKILL 32GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GTX-650 video card LG W2253 Monitor
60TBs of hard drive space using LVM
Cooler Master HAF-932 Case

BlackEdder · Posted: Sat May 15, 2004 8:11 pm Post subject:

I know that hardware mixing isn't suported by the intel8x0 driver although my card should support it (nforce won't release enough info for the developers to make a real good alsa driver for the card (a7n8cx-deluxe with nforce2). But for a lot of cards it is supported. You will have to check out the alsa documentation though.

So be aware that hardware mixing isn't enough, there also has to be a good enough alsa driver for it

HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

With the new PSU the system has stayed running for an hour. The mobo is getting hot and the PSU is pretty hot so I just shut it down. Tomorrow I am going to PC Club and getting a new mobo.

Thanks for the insight to the mobos. I had my eye on a $69 Gigabyte board but I can't see what sound hardware is on there. I saw that the nvidia driver is the standard intel8x0. So I agree with you guys that hardware mixing doesn't exist with on board audio in Linux or it is hard to find.

Before I get a new mobo do you have any suggestions for me as far as features that I night want. My last 4 3 mobos have been of the value < $80 variety. I don't really need cutting edge performance since I only have 266MHz RAM and an AMD 1700+. I don't play games on this comp either. It only has a GForce MX 400. It is my Linux play machine (and mail server atm).

The GigaByte for $69 seems to be a good value. It has the KT600 chipset on it. I don't know anything about it.

Any recommendations?

Thx
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The strong must protect the Sweet.

dalek · Posted: Sat May 15, 2004 9:24 pm Post subject:

I did a google search and links show it compatable with Linux. Sounds like a good deal.

Let us know if new mobo does the same thing.

Later

Oh, mine works good to. It's below.

_________________
My rig: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P mobo, AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core CPU, ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU cooler,
G.SKILL 32GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GTX-650 video card LG W2253 Monitor
60TBs of hard drive space using LVM
Cooler Master HAF-932 Case

HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

I just purchased a Gigabyte K7 Triton. It has the nforce 2 chipset. I installed everything but I can't boot. i get

BlackEdder · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 7:40 pm Post subject:

Hmm it might be your ide driver. The ide driver you should use is depended on the chipset on your motherboard.

HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

I had the PCI generic driver enabledbut now I also enabled the generic ide driver and now it boots!

Unfortunately the hd performance is terrible. No DMA. I tried enabling it but it said it wasn't allowed. I suppose this has something to do with the fact that I am using the generic driver. I saw in another post that someone said to enable the nvidia IDE driver. I do not have that option in my kernel config. 2.6.4-rc1-mm1. I will try emerging the latest. I can't get video going either. Networking and USB seem to work though.

Hopefully now that I have a new mobo and PSU my shutdowns will not happen anymore. I will report back in a few days on my system stability.

I will start new threads on my other problems.

Thank you all so much for your help!
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dalek · Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 11:20 pm Post subject:

OK, you need this one under device drivers, then ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support, select this one for sure:

HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

I swear I looked at it 5 times and didn't see it. When I finally got my system to boot by using the default driver and ran make menuconfig, I finally saw it. I guess it was always there, I just didn't see it. I enabled it and rebooted but still no go. I am going to try again but disable the generic driver and just keep the AMD/Nvidia one.

dalek, thanks for all your help!

I am currently using my Gentoo box with my new PSU and mobo.

I also got video working.

Update
That didn't do it. I still can't enable dma. I read some stuff on the forums but it doesn't help. They say to enable AMD and Nvidia IDE support. I did, but no go. dalek, what kernel version are you running?
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BlackEdder · Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 6:43 am Post subject:

What is the output with
hdparm -i /dev/hda (I presume it''s hda for you too)
and
hdparm -d1 /dev/hda
(both as root ofcourz)

dalek · Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 8:43 am Post subject:

This is what my screen looks like:

HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

dalek · Posted: Tue May 18, 2004 1:40 am Post subject:

Your welcome. I learned the hard way, if that kernel ain't right, it will be buggy at the least.

WOW, lighting bad over here. < ducking for cover>

Later

I hope.

_________________
My rig: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P mobo, AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core CPU, ZALMAN CNPS10X Performa CPU cooler,
G.SKILL 32GB DDR3 PC3 12800 Memory Nvidia GTX-650 video card LG W2253 Monitor
60TBs of hard drive space using LVM
Cooler Master HAF-932 Case

AgentMascan · n00b Joined: 04 May 2004 Posts: 29 Location: Idaho, USA

Have you cleaned out that dust yet?

dust & oil-->heat & other bad things
heat--> additional bad things including system instability
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HomerSimpson · l33t Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 869 Location: Ohio, USA

I tried cleaning the dust out first but it didn't make a difference. I didn't use any special cleaners. This mobo was on its 3rd PSU so I just decided not to mess with it anymore and put in a new mobo and PSU.

Thx for the help.

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The strong must protect the Sweet.