TR Forums

Hello,

I built a new build (Octobers Econobox) about a month or two ago and everything was running fine. Today it seems to have died. My mobo is a GA-965P-S3.

My girlfriend was on it and she said she got a blue screen and then everything went black with a "checksum error". Everytime I start it, I get one beep, everthing powers up ok and the monitor goes into standby mode, and nothing else happens.

Is my mobo fried?

At one point it went to a screen that said "AWARD BIOS V1.0 Scanning bios image in harddrive...." and then nothing else happened after that. I can't even get that screen to come up any more...I've unconnected everything and reconnected, etc. but it seems like it's totally dead.

Is my BIOS corrupted and if so how could it have happened? I'm not sure if this has anything to do with this but I was hearing a clicking noise this week...it almost sounded like something was "switching" inside...I don't know if this has anything to do with this or not....

Do I need a totally new mother board? Is there any way to fix?

Help!

Thanks

Bad mobo is a distinct possibility. But it could also be bad RAM, or even a failing PSU.

Before going any further, just try reseating the memory modules and video card; sometimes this will cure flakiness issues. If that doesn't help, you will need to figure out what the bad component is by process of elimination.

Try testing the RAM in a different system. If you have (or can borrow) a spare PSU, try swapping the PSU. Basically, you will need to either swap known good components into this system, or test components from this system in another system, until you narrow it down.

You were exactly right, i had some bad memory. Everything started like normal. I feel stupid, but it's much better than buying a new motherboard.

Thanks!

Quality control on RAM seems to suck these days. In the past couple of years I've had multiple modules that either wouldn't run stable at rated speed, or became flaky after several months of use. Not just generic crap either; even name-brand stuff.

Not sure what's up with that. I suppose it could be a symptom of the bottom falling out of the DRAM market (price-wise). Super-low prices mean vendors are more likely to cut corners to turn a profit...