So I finally get my mobo back.... after three weeks of waiting. Plug it in and I get.... nothing.... all of my fans, CCs, and even the mobo's standby LED power up.... no POST though. Call AOpen tech support (yet again.... know 'em all by name now) and they suggest trying a new power supply. (If you don't recall I've had EVERYTHING tested... even the original mobo... which would boot, but only with slower processors). So, I run out and pickup a power supply (which I don't really have the money for). Get home, hook up the PSU and same as before. Check the connections and try it again.... same thing. On the third try it didn't start. Switched back to my Antec, started for a few seconds then the frickin' mobo catches FIRE!!!! SOB!!!! So, now I get to call them tell them that the new mobo caught fire and that if it ruined ANYTHING ELSE they're paying for it!


What in the name of (insert name god or idol here) did I do to deserve this hell!?!?! I know others with the same board and processor who have had no problems.... what could be causing all this?!?! Did I just get two bad boards in a row? What are the odds of my DDR400 Corsair CL2, P4 2.4B and vid card getting f@*$ed up? Do I have a chance in hell of getting reimbursed?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

Sincerely,
Seething in Denver

They had had damned well better pay for overnight shipping.... BOTH WAYS!!!!!!

You have become master of your computer, instead of allowing your computer to become the master of you. It is much more a pain in the ass to be the master, as you are learning. It gets easier over time when you learn more.

Well, I do know computers quite well, bu I'm beginning to think I should just stick with an abacus. No, had this machine wanted to master me it would have found something better to do than just self-destruct and try to take the rest of the components with it. I'm at such a loss with tis machine...

Mobo works (or used to) with a slower P4. Processor works (I hope it still does) with any other mobo. I just don't get it.... could it have been some wierd glitch in the proc?

So, BA whatcha think 'bout the odds of all of my components surviving (CPU, RAM, vid card)?

Well my family and I used to own a P2 266 and the mobo caught on fire after having it for a few years, but the AGP, RAM, and PCI cards were okay, but the Processor was a gonner. Hope this helps ya.

Well, when I spoke with them earlier today they said they'd pay to have UPS pick it up and ship my whole system to them... after I tried a different PSU. So, asfar as I see it they owe me anything that got fried. BTW - I tested the PSU's and every rail isd running in within the specs (give or take 5%... cheap multimeter).

I'm just so irritated, If not for all these issues I'd be up and running on a post-1994 rig (for about three months at that).

I once had a PSU literally explode into a fireball on a Pentium Pro system. The fireball was around two feet in diameter, it was pretty awesome. It didn't make much noise but a low Woomph and produced a lot of flames. The only component I lost was the CPU (and the PS).

CRE, may I ask you details about your hardware ?
Make and Model for the following:
Mobo
CPU
PSU
Video Card
I have the RAM
Case

And all your fans and where they are plugged in for power.

I am hoping I can help because even if you get new gear, you still have to go back through this again and if there is something that's wrong, maybe we can spot it and help you avoid a repeate. You can bet that if they replace this gear, it will be a one time shot, and they won't do it a second time.

Quote: Originally posted by lcpiper CRE, may I ask you details about your hardware ? Make and Model for the following: Mobo CPU PSU Video Card I have the RAM Case And all your fans and where they are plugged in for power. I am hoping I can help because even if you get new gear, you still have to go back through this again and if there is something that's wrong, maybe we can spot it and help you avoid a repeate. You can bet that if they replace this gear, it will be a one time shot, and they won't do it a second time.

Sure, I posted it all before though. I was just running the system lean... mobo (AOpen AX45-8XN), CPU (P4 2.4B 533 FSB), RAM (Corsair XMS3200 CL2 512MB), vid card (AOpen Ti4200 128MB w/vivo) and PSU (Antec 430 TruePower).

I had EVERYTHING tested at one of their local distributors and everything worked fine. The CPU worked in three different motherboards with no problem. The Motherboard worked fine with two different (slower) processors. Thus, it seemed the mobo was at fault... AOpen agreed and RMA'd it. Finally just sent me a different mobo (which I suspect was either a new revision or a refurb)... same problem. Per their suggestion, I tried a different power supply. Worked fine as far as powering up my fans & CCs (I wasn't about to risk my drives). On the third try it wouldn't power up at all. So, I reconnected my Antec PSU. Started up fine the first time. Cleared the CMOS and tried again and pop, sizzle, FLAMBE!! Nothing like that happened with my old (non-functional) mobo, so I figure that was due to a problem with the mobo. The transistor which caught fire is in the the middle of the power regulation circut.

Afterward, I jumper the green line on both PSUs and tested the voltage on each line... all within specs.

So, anyway, UPS will be coming to pick up EVERYTHING on Monday and one of AOpen's engineers will be handling it directly from there. They agreed that if anything is fried and the PSU is not to blame they will replace what needs to be replaced.

I have a feeling that even though it wasn't the CPU before... that's probably gone now. I hope everything else is fine.

I am going to ask you a question and it's going to sound like I think your a complete noOb, but please don't take offense.

Did you connect the special P4 power connector as well as the regular ATX power connector ?

It's the one shown below.

Attached Thumbnails

 

No offense... but I do know what I'm doing. Yes the P4 connector was hooked up. After the fire I jumped the Power-On lead to Ground and tested both PSUs.... EVERY rail is within specs.... even made sure the -5v and -12v rails were ok. There's no doubt in my mind that the problem was the mobo. Anyway, UPS is coming to pickup everything on Monday. This time it's being shipped to one of their local engineers in CA. They're paying for shipping and will replace any parts which may have been damaged. (Given that their distributor here in CO previously tested EVERYTHING and said that everything was ok, except for the mobo not liking my processor) So, new mobo is a definite and anything else that's fried. They assured me they'll ship back a fully operational machine.... they better.

Otherwise, (as long as my components are ok) I'll be keeping an eye out for the new GigaByte with the SiS 655.

EDIT: Just in case everyone is wondering.... I'm sticking with the SiS 648 (or GB's board based on the 655) chipset as I want onboard firewire (like having my PCI slots free) and a board which supports DDR400 out of the box, not to mention 8X AGP for down the road. I was initially gonna get the Asus P4S8X but I've read posts from way too many pissed off owners of that board (most of whom have switched to the AOpen AX45-8XN).

Wait for the SiS 655, itll be worth it

Quote: Originally posted by n00bishLaggeR Wait for the SiS 655, itll be worth it

Hecl, if I knew that I would have been forced to wait so long that the 655 has now come out I would have waited.... Dual DDR sounds yummy! Other than that and HT (for future upgrades) the 648 has all I need.... if only they'd get me a board that recognized my processor or didn't explode into flame.

I just can't believe that it could have been a minor glitch in the processor which allowed THREE other motherboards to boot fine and just not mine... Of course now that the replacement mobo caught fire I'm pretty sure my processor is dead. I prey my RAM's OK... if not, they're gonna be footing a pretty decent bill (fortunately, they've already agreed to that, and their distributor should have the test logs on file. Now for the wait.

They offered to have UPS pick it up.... three days later, I went and sent it priority via USPS... two days later UPS GROUND shows up!!! WTF!? They'd Dr. Wang better really get cracking on it by Monday (should arrive Friday or Saturday), otherwise I'm callin' one of my lawyer buddies for a nice nasty letter. A friend in Atlanta got a free DVD player and a free VCR after having trouble dealing with Phillips (His wife's a lawyer). ;D Hmmm..... maybe if she wrote them a letter I could get a free processor or vid card upgrade?

just out of curiousity and my pyromaniacal nature, was it like a small nuclear explosion on the motherboard? did it leave a crater? or was it like a fireball like BA's?

hehe sorry couldnt resist.....me and abuddy of mine were working on his girlfriend MSI kt333, upgrading the cpu, plugged everything back in and BLAM! WHOOOOSH! this transistor sitting next to the power management area instantly turned grey, melted and left a crater in the board, as well as one of the resistors next to it, shot off the board and hit him in the cheek (luckily he wears glasses).......it sucked ass, but i couldnt help uncontrollably laughing after it happened....it was so cool to see something just nuke like that after hearing all these horror stories of it happening to other people

Nothing so grand.... Sounded like a fire cracker as half of the ceramic shell of the transistor exploded into dust being pushed by a beautiful blue blossom of electroshemical luminesence and flame which was rapidly replaced by a more commonplace yellow/orange flare (like a road flare). Didn't do much to the rest of the board as the flame was more interested in shooting out directly at me. Although, had it been in the case I'm sure my power supply would've sucked it in and..... well...

Cool huh? Not quite the word that came to my mind... I don't believe any word in any human language is adequate to describe what I felt at that moment.

How about ****! ****! ****sucker! I haven't learned to pronounce the asterisks correctly yet.

Would $h!t!!!! bemore along the lines of what you had in mind BA? I know that's one of the few things that came to me at that moment.

Ok, this is OT BUT...

I'm suddenly reminded of a moment back when I was a delivery driver. I saw a hot blonde in a new Corvette, so I slowed down for a better look (so sue me, I'm male). She sped uppulled in front of me.... I saw her license plate and choked on the burger I was eating (pretty much had to eat on the run when delivering schtuff). It read MSTRB8R! I bet I know how she got that 'vette! I asked my uncle (Colorado State Patrol) how someone could actually get plates like that issued, he said that if it doesn't fall under the set list of forbidden plates it's decided on as they come through. hehe...

I've got a ton of ideas for plates if only they'd start allowing punctuation marks.

Well, good news and some bad....

I got a call from the AOpen engineer who's personally handling my problem. I was rather surprised he called me himself to discuss all the details. He managaed to get the first board sent to him from the RMA facility and, of course, he's got the charred one.

Seems that somehow I got lucky and received two bad motherboards in a row. Could I be any luckier? He tested all of my other components and EVERYTHING is fine!!!

The system had been running some burn-in software he has for 15 hours when he called this morning. It's going to be just a little longer though because for some reason when he allows the BIOS to boot with my Corsair DDR400 @ 400 Windows XP just keeps rebooting.... clock it down a bit and it's fine. It will POST and enter BIOS @ 400 tho.... So, anyway he went and bought a 512MB stick of Kingston (I think that's what he said) DDR400 to see if he can't get WinXP to run stable at 400.

In all honesty, as long as it's stable at 333, I'm cool. Just glad it's gonna be up and running sometime next week.

What are the odds or the Corsair stick being below specs? If his Kingston works I don't think I really wanna deal with exchanging the RAM now.... Is it possible it'll improve after a burn in period? He hadn't really done much experimenting with the RAM when we spoke, he's looking at that tomorrow. Hey, maybe, I can push 'em into going through one board after the other until they find one that'll accept everything and OC well...

Well, that's all. I just had to post an update. Lemme know yer thought on the RAM.

Anyone have any thoughts on the RAM issue? Let's not all reply at once.

Yea, I would suspect a few different things.

DRAM Timings might not be right.
Some BIOS have a setting for general performance, like fast, extra fast, or optimize performance, set that to a middle setting, but not agressive.
DRAM slightly affected by the melt down.