Need Help Picking a Motherboard

svyatko · Post by **svyatko** » 19 Sep 2009, 18:59

Hi

I need some help again. Anyways If any of you remember I had some problems with my new pc that I was building. Well I never fixed it actually. I went through FIVE Asus striker 2 formula boards and...no luck. Well I still think that something is wrong with the motherboard, since each one I get gives me a different problem!!! Here are the problems I had so far.

MB 1 - I think the problem with the first one was that it only loaded up until bios, and than froze. (I think)- This was half a year ago...

MB 2 - Constantly froze... around 2-3 times a day. I had this motherboard the longest... for about 4 months.

MB 3 - I think it also froze constantly so I sent it back also.
MB 4 - Worked for about 1 day, and then when I turned it on, and went in to bios it showed that the South Bridge was overheating. --when the temp. got to 100 C ---It froze.

MB 5 - This is the one I have right now. Worked for one day. AND than after I restarted pc nothing works...well no beep when turning it on, no signal to Monitor. All fans spin, I can open the CD tray. So I took out all the parts, except the CPU, I even took out the memory, and it's the same, it should have beeped that there is no memory at least, right?

Well I think the motherboards that Asus is sending me were sent back to Asus by other people and all Asus does is do some quick fix on them and than redistributes them again.

BUT, please tell me what you guys think.

I am thinking of calling Asus on Monday and try sending them the MB back and getting my money back. Hopefully I will talk them into giving my money back, because they have a no return policy.
____________________________________________________________________________

Anyways I am looking for a new motherboard to buy. Here are the specs that I need it to go with.

Memory - DDR2 1066, I have 2 memory sticks, each one 2GB.
CPU - Intel, LGA 775 socket, 2.66 GHz, 1333 FSB
At least one 2.0 x 16 PCI express slot.
SATA 3.0Gb/s support

The reason I'm asking for help is because I don't know with which South Bridge and North Bridge to go with. (I am considering to play games on the pc so keep that in mind)

O and on Newegg, when I am choosing a motherboard, when I click on FSB i get some options like: 1600/1333MHz and 1333/1066MHz...So does that mean as long as the options is 1333MHz that it will work with my CPU?

Hope I made sense. Thanks for reading, and Please give me some options with which motherboards to go with.

svyatko · Post by **svyatko** » 19 Sep 2009, 19:21

Hm, I thought there will be beeping if the memory is missing. Well even the Asus Guideline for solving PC startup problems says so:

Please remove all components from your motherboard apart from your CPU, CPU fan, power supply (Yes, I do mean remove your RAM and video card too) then try again.

Can the PC speaker report POST beeps now?

Yes, the system now beeps as it should.
Still no beeps from the system.

http://support.asus.com/pcassistant/pca ... uage=en-us

Well I can't go with AMD now since I already have an intel CPU.

Post by **floodhound2** » 20 Sep 2009, 08:19

I would guess that after 5 motherboards that its not a motherboard problem.

Look I am an Electronics Engineer and I am 99% sure that you are doing something wrong. Do you know about ESD? I am also sure that Asus has a high number of boards that wont fail and for you to get 5 in a row is very unlikely. Unless your place of purchase is of low credibility.

Get a note pad and take notes

1. Never mind the BEEPs for now and wear an anti static strap.

2. Make sure the PC case has motherboard standoffs.

3. Plug into the motherboard the CPU, CPU fan (heat sink compound), and 1 stick of RAM

4. Place Motherboard into the Case mounting on standoffs

5. Plug in the Power supply and CPU power connectors including CPU fan

6. Plug in the Monitor, keyboard, mouse. If you have On board motherboard Graffics Card, use it.

7. Plug in the Case Front Panel buttons "Correctly"

8. Turn on PC.

9. Will it Go into Bios?

Notes to take are:

CPU socket type and style
Motherboard model number
Ram style
Power supply WATTS and connectors

Report back and we will continue...

svyatko · Post by **svyatko** » 20 Sep 2009, 09:27

floodhound2 wrote:
1. Never mind the BEEPs for now and wear an anti static strap.

I don't have an anti static strap, maybe that's a problem. But still it worked perfectly fine the first time I turned on the PC, it's when I restarted it, it wouldn't do anything.

2. Make sure the PC case has motherboard standoffs.

Yes the case does have the places to screw the motherboard to.

3. Plug into the motherboard the CPU, CPU fan (heat sink compound), and 1 stick of RAM

4. Place Motherboard into the Case mounting on standoffs

5. Plug in the Power supply and CPU power connectors including CPU fan

What about the case fans? Don't plug them in?

6. Plug in the Monitor, keyboard, mouse. If you have On board motherboard Graffics Card, use it.

So do you want me to use a video card? I have 9800 GTX+, the motherboard itself doesn't have one.

7. Plug in the Case Front Panel buttons "Correctly"

8. Turn on PC.

9. Will it Go into Bios?

Notes to take are:
CPU socket type and style

The socket looks exactly like this one:
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/img/2004/0 ... lga775.jpg

LGA 775

Motherboard model number

Asus Striker 2 Formula
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131255

Ram style

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231184

Power supply WATTS and connectors

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817702018
I believe that's the one. I bought mine in Best Buy, but I am sure that's the one.

Report back and we will continue...

Hope you don't mind the links. Thanks

Post by **bad_brain** » 20 Sep 2009, 10:51

hmm...have you used the same PSU with every mainboard? because that can be the reason too, I had a PSU once that caused the system not to boot (actually nothing at all happened) every couple of weeks....

svyatko · Post by **svyatko** » 20 Sep 2009, 11:13

bad_brain wrote:hmm...have you used the same PSU with every mainboard? because that can be the reason too, I had a PSU once that caused the system not to boot (actually nothing at all happened) every couple of weeks....

Well I checked the PSU when I had like the third Motherboard. I thought maybe it was making the pc freeze, so I bought a new one, but it still froze, so I returned it back to the store.

Post by **floodhound2** » 20 Sep 2009, 11:22

You might have the wrong CPU. Do you know what kind you have ?

Also is the motherboard sitting on jack screws / stand offs?

Since you have no on-board video is the graphics card working correctly and if so is it the right one?

svyatko · Post by **svyatko** » 20 Sep 2009, 11:38

floodhound2 wrote:You might have the wrong CPU. Do you know what kind you have ?

Also is the motherboard sitting on jack screws / stand offs?

Since you have no on-board video is the graphics card working correctly and if so is it the right one?

Well this is my CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115131

My video Card - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125245

I was thinking the Video Card says 1GB GDDR3 memory...and my memory sticks are DDR2... could that be the problem? But still that doesn't explain why there is no beep.

I have like the original screws that look like these - http://imgsrv.worldstart.com/ct-images/build15.jpg with these things - http://i3.ebayimg.com/02/i/000/a9/b2/e288_1.JPG

Post by **floodhound2** » 20 Sep 2009, 15:15

No the Video card will be ok but, take a look here. This could be your problem and you might have to do as suggested.
http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=wOFZuyplXj0vLmAc

This is the link that you can match up the CPU to the motherboard. Check it in case I picked the wrong CPU.
http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=wOFZuyplXj0vLmAc

Looks as thought you should flash the Bios do to the new CPU.

svyatko · Post by **svyatko** » 20 Sep 2009, 15:35

floodhound2 wrote:No the Video card will be ok but, take a look here. This could be your problem and you might have to do as suggested.
http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=wOFZuyplXj0vLmAc

This is the link that you can match up the CPU to the motherboard. Check it in case I picked the wrong CPU.
http://www.asus.com/Product.aspx?P_ID=wOFZuyplXj0vLmAc

Looks as thought you should flash the Bios do to the new CPU.

Nice find! Well I'm going to need to find a different CPU now since there is no way I will start-up with this one, right? Oh, by the way my motherboard has 1.03G version of bios(says so on the motherboard itself). My friend has a Core 2 Quad Q6600. Will that possibly work with the version of bios I have right now.

You have given me hope