Troubleshooting a motherboard problem is like trouble shooting your car when
it won't start. Is the battery dead, is it out of gas, is the spark getting to
the spark plugs. See where I am going with this. Your problem could be any where
from the power cord plugged into the wall socket all the way to the keyboard.
When you have a problem and have ruled out all the external devices [mouse,
keyboard, commercial power, and monitor] then you start on the internal devices,
hard drive, cd rom, floppy, video card, any installed auxiliary cards like the
sound card, NIC, power supply, and so forth.
One indication that your motherboard is experiencing problems is when
you power it up and goes straight into the BIOS setup. Some times you will get
an error message about why it went into the BIOS setup, some times nothing but
the setup screen. Another indication is with the newer motherboard one of the
embedded devices has failed, you can press on and install a card to replace that
device or if under warranty send it back to the manufacture for repair or
replacement.
So what is your motherboard doing that is out of the ordinary? Not starting
at all? Dumps to BIOS setup? Can't see the hard drive or cd rom? Mouse not
working or intermittent? Keyboard not functioning? No sound from the embedded
sound device? No network connectivity from the embedded NIC? Your USB will not
connect on one or more ports?
Well let's see if you can fix that problem.
Before we run down the list did you get a POST error or beep code? If you did
then go to the manufactures web site and look it up, this will be faster than
trying to find the solution through this check list.
Question: Have you changed anything in the BIOS? Added any new cards? Removed
any cards? Added memory? Upgrades of any kind?
If you have changed any thing from the
BIOS to adding or removing cards then
the problem is not your motherboard!
If you have not changed any thing then we know that the problem has something
to do with hardware, let's assume that the power supply, mouse, keyboard, and
video is good.
First go into BIOS, check the time and date [yup this is an indicator] if it
has reverted to the default time [any time other than the current date and time
will be the default] then your internal battery has died and needs to be
replaced. You can set the time and date and reset all the BIOS settings but when
you power the system down you will lose those settings and have to do it again
when you power it back up. [This is assuming you have your computer connected to
a power strip with surge protections and power everything down while not in
use!]
If the BIOS settings are correct then we need to look at your problem.
Normal trouble shooting is to reseat all cable connections including power
connectors, memory, cards, and the processor [use care while removing and
reseating the processor!]. See page 18 of the
Self Computer Repair Unleashed! Manual
for more tips and safety procedures.
Problem still persisting?
If reseating everything did not cure your problem next disconnect all cables
from your mother board, remove any cards with the exception of the video card,
leave the power to the motherboard, the memory, and the processor. Did the
problem go away?
Let's assume that your problems is not an embedded device [sound, nic, video,
or usb] and it persists once you have the board stripped down to minimum support
devices [mouse, keyboard, video card, and memory].
You are down to four possibilities:
The processor is failing [over heated and intermittent].
A memory module has failed.
Something on the motherboard has burnt and is
shorting out.
A auxiliary wire [power led, hard drive activity led, reset button, or soft power button] has shorted out.
After checking the memory [if you have two or more memory modules try removing one if that doesn't swap them
out] and the aux wires and the problem persists you will need a magnifying glass to look at all the ic's
and wire traces on the motherboard looking for burnt areas or ic's.
If you have an IC or a trace that has burned through there
isn't any you can do but buy a new
motherboard.
For those that want to do low level component repair this page is a short
tutorial on repairing
damaged components.
This site contains a lot of information. As
with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
on this web site you a can
ask your question here and we will endeavor to get you the most up to date
answer possible!
