X58A-UD7 (rev 1.0): Shuts down after 10-15 seconds

[parad0x]

Hi guys,

I have a feeling my much-loved motherboard has developed a fault.
First here are my specs:

• PSU: Corsair HX1000
• Motherboard: X58A-UD7
• CPU: i7 920 D0
• RAM: G.Skill Trident 3x 2GB sticks
• GFX: AMD Radeon 6950 (2GB)
• Sound: Audigy 2 ZS
• Storage: Areca ARC-1222 SAS RAID controller with 4x WD Caviar 1TB
• Cooling: Watercooled
• Overclocked?: No, has been running stock for last 3 months.

It's been working perfectly for a year and a half - I had some RAM issues back when I bought it in 2009 but it was a faulty DIMM. After replacing it it's delivered faultless service until yesterday.

The problem: I turn on the machine, it begins POSTing, it passes POST and then prepares to boot. It then suddenly powers off without any warning or error shown.

Sometimes it will shut down later, sometimes it will shut down earlier. Sometimes it stays on long enough for me to enter the BIOS setup, but will shut down even if I get in there. It won't stay on long enough to actually begin booting from the hard disk.

Things I've tried:

• Clearing CMOS (obviously) - I can confirm this has worked as it now shows the Gigabyte splash screen - I normally disable it.
• Removing all extra cards leaving just the Radeon
• Replacing Radeon and using a spare basic Voodoo 3 (!) in the PCI slot.
• Swapping PSU - I only have a 300W PSU spare but should be enough for bare-bones motherboard and basic PCI VGA card.
• Removing extra RAM and trying 1 stick at a time over all banks.
• Re-seating CPU and cooler (waterblock)

So far, nothing has changed - the board still won't stay powered up for longer than 15 seconds.
Can anyone suggest any further troubleshooting, or does it look like my board is faulty?

Thanks for any help - I'm a bit upset about this as I'll be receiving BF3 today and won't be able to join my friends Gutted!

[Dark Mantis]

Hi.

We can't have a situation like that where you will have the game but not be able to play it!

I think the first thing to try is to reflash the BIOS from the Backup chip in case of corruption. This can be a fiddly procedure so you may have to try a few few times before you get it right.

You can kick in the backup BIOS by shutting down the PSU from the wall, then hold down your case power button in and then turn on the power supply button, a few seconds later the board will start, shut off the power supply then.   Then you can turn on the power supply again and power up the board normally and DualBIOS will kick in. Good luck.

[parad0x]

Thanks Dark Mantis,

I'll give that a shot when I get home tonight, I forgot this board has two BIOS chips.

Cheers.

[Dark Mantis]

Please let us know how you get on and if unsuccessful we can try something else. Good luck.

[parad0x]

Hi Dark Mantis,

I gave it a shot and you were spot on, those steps invoked the Backup BIOS just fine.

I held down the button, switched on at the mains, a couple of seconds later the board fired up. While keeping the button pressed, the board then turned off. I let go, pressed it momentarily, and it fired up.

It came up with a BIOS checksum warning and showed progress of it copying the backup BIOS to the main BIOS. It took about 30 seconds to complete and surprisingly it didn't shut down until the very end when it had finished.

Unfortunately on powering up again the same symptoms are showing up again

I've tried it twice just for luck but no go.

So the BIOS recovery works, but it hasn't solved my problem, sadly.

[Dark Mantis]

Try this next then.

Remove the power cable from the mains supply and then press the power switch on the case for a few seconds just to drain any residual energy in the PSU capacitors.

Once done remove the motherboard battery for at least one hour before replacing it.
 
Next plug back into the mains supply and boot.
 
You will now need to enter the BIOS by pressing DEL and load Optimised BIOS Defaults.

Make any other changes to the BIOS settings to suit your self like disabling the floppy drive, disabling the full screen logo and making the HDD the primary boot device and then press F10 to save and exit.

[parad0x]

Ok - unplugged, power drained and battery out, I'll come back in an hour or so with the results.

In the meantime I've managed to borrow a CAD workstation from work to get my game on tonight, albeit on lower detail

Cheers for the help and fast replies.

[parad0x]

Right, I've put the battery back in.

Things have gotten worse now - the machine won't even turn on. Pressing the power button makes all the LEDs come on for a split second, the fans spin briefly, and then the LEDs go back off. If I hold the power button, everything flashes on and off about 4 times a second!

I tried my spare PSU again, but with this one I don't even get any LEDs or fans, just a clicking noise comes from the PSU as if some kind of circuit breaker is latching on and off.

Tomorrow I think I'll take the motherboard out of the case and try to run it on a bench.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes I think that would be a good idea. The next thing is to remove the motherboard from the case and test it on the workbench.

Make sure that you observe anti-static precautions.

Lay some cardboard or use the motherboard box that is non-conductive on the worktop and remove the motherboard/CPU/heatsink/fan/buzzer/one stick of memory/graphics card and PSU from the case and put it on the cardboard. Add the keyboard and mouse and try and boot. The system should try and make a beep or series of beeps. Please post what sounds it makes.

[parad0x]

Hi Dark Mantis,

I finally got to the bottom of it and I have a working computer once again.

I had two problems.

First was my waterblock had lost contact with the CPU and simply wasn't cooling it, so the CPU was protecting itself and shutting the machine down. Having started again with some fresh Arctic Silver the machine is now running reliably and cool again. I feel very silly about this, though it's strange because the waterblock (Apogee XT) is bolted down with 4 screws and is under spring tension(!) Unless it was unevenly mounted...

Secondly, one of case's USB ports has become damaged and was shorting out. This was causing the board's rapid power cycling earlier. I've unplugged it and will repair it later

Unfortunately to add to my frustration the graphics card nearly died too! I was getting artifacts even in the BIOS screen. Because of XFX's poor warranty policy I had no warranty cover due to fitting my EK waterblock.

So instead I used a hot air reflow station to repair the card myself, and now I have a working card. I enjoyed a full evening of BF3 last night!

I'll probably retire it to being a spare and buy a new graphics card in case the repair doesn't hold out, but this time one with a warranty that allows for aftermarket coolers.

What a frustrating week, but I got there in the end. Thanks for your support!