Win7 Sp1 has killed two MOBOs - Any Ideas?

Ok

to answer some of the new questions and some old

The day went like this
Got up - Switched on PC with all parts in it from yesterday when it worked fine.
Switched on PC - NADA, ZIP, ZILCH, NOT even BIOS
Several hours of scratching head and writing on here.
Removed all components, reseated in the following order

The build as of last night was

1 x SSD - Boot
2 x WD Caviar in Raid
2 x Storage Drives - SATA
1 x Opt Drivce
1 x GTX570 - Main
1 x Gtx9800 - PhysX
4 x 1g or RAm

Today the same build would not boot even though the PC shut down with no apparent issues, much the same as the old board did when it "went"

After several posts and taking in the info i did the following

Unseated ALL parts

Reseated the following

1 x VGA = Brand New GTX570
1 x Ram Dimm
CPU


NOTHING ELSE - Booted to BIOS - NO OS Not present messages for obvious reasons.

Then

Installed 1 x SDD - Boot Drive

Booted to Windows fine

Then

Tried each Ram stick on its own

4 x it booted no problems

Reseated all Ram

Booted no Probs

Added 2nd VGA card - Booted no Probs.

If the orignal build was bad why then did the PC fire up first time and present no issues whatsoever until SP1 was installed and continue working until I shut down as per the start of this post?

I appreciate that It MAY be a hardware issue but giiven I have now tried every permutation of the hardware and it suddely works again is it hard to see why i suspect SP1?

I didnt reseat the cpu as the system booted before I got to this stage and therfore I assume the cpu is not presenting an issue, especially since I installed the same chip into a 2 nd pc and it booted fine with no present issues.

re single beep on bios then yeah, it seems that its reporting back fine. How I got the bios to boot again was by removing the ram and reseating them. whhy would I need to this though after something as simple as a shut down. I think long term I may buy new ram but of course if the probolem presents itself again, what thhen more money on new parts until; I have a new system ? !!! ;->

Are the startup RAM voltages on your MOBO appropriate for you model RAM?
Have you checked the manufacturer's website to see if you have the lastest BIOS installed and if not, what issues were addressed for the later revisions?

bizjer said:

re single beep on bios then yeah, it seems that its reporting back fine. How I got the bios to boot again was by removing the ram and reseating them. whhy would I need to this though after something as simple as a shut down. I think long term I may buy new ram but of course if the probolem presents itself again, what thhen more money on new parts until; I have a new system ? !!! ;->

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Probably because you are completely removing power from the system when you either switch off the PSU or unplug from the mains.

Try this, next time it doesn't power on, just unplug the computer from the wall, then plug it back in and hit the power.

bizjer said:

The system was working fine up until 1st march. I shut the PC down and when I went to boot up the next day nothing, not even BIOS. I did all of the usual tests and came to the conclusion that the MOBO had died. It is also worth noting that on the last night I had the PC running I installed Win7 SP1!

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This is the point that the problems began and I can understand given Microsoft's history of service pack problems that you might have thought SP1 was the cause.

We are unlikely to find out why but the mobo seems to have died.

bizjer said:

After assuming the worst and waiting 3 weeks for a new motherboard from the US I assembled the PC back together & it worked fine.The PC is the same build as above save for the motherboard which is now

Acer MC72XE, It is a branded form of an MSI P7N diamond.

All systems boooted up fine. I installed Win7 64bit with no issues. I then installed Win7 SP1 and low and behold the next day (Yesterday) I went to boot in the morning and nothing, black screen. no BIOS, no beeps no nothing

Click to expand...

I understand here, that you got your new mobo built it in to your PC installed Windows and then SP1.

I can imagine that apart from new starting the PC when required, that it was never really switched off in this time until you went to bed.

A new start does not cap the power to the PC so it would be possible that a bad build went unnoticed.

bizjer said:

I appreciate that It MAY be a hardware issue but giiven I have now tried every permutation of the hardware and it suddely works again is it hard to see why i suspect SP1?

Click to expand...

It suddenly works again?? Maybe you have built it together right, I hope so

The similarity between the first and second mobo might however be an indication that something is still broken

Only one way to find out and that is to use it and install windows updates

I would be interested to hear how it goes

bizjer said:

I appreciate that It MAY be a hardware issue but giiven I have now tried every permutation of the hardware and it suddely works again is it hard to see why i suspect SP1?

I didnt reseat the cpu as the system booted before I got to this stage and therfore I assume the cpu is not presenting an issue, especially since I installed the same chip into a 2 nd pc and it booted fine with no present issues.

Click to expand...

You can suspect all you want but SP1 does not cause such problems. You absolutely, definitely, and without any shadow of a doubt, or possibility of discussion or argument, had/have a hardware problem.

As has been pointed out, you don't even need an operating system ( apart from the BIOS) to initialise hardware.

Presumptions, assumptions, suspicions, surmise, guesses, and any and all related matters have nothing at all to do with diagnosing PC problems.

You have to isolate what is causing the problem, and remove that cause. If you do it methodically, and you have the knowledge and equipment or software to do so, you will be able to say exactly what was causing the problem.

If it works after reseating the RAM, then it is highly likely that badly seated RAM was the problem. Mismatched RAM, ( and this can happen even with similar sticks that are on the upper and lower tolerance limits, or even outside them), can cause problems when it gets warm etc.

There are lots of possibilities, but loading Windows 7 SP1 is not one of them

You are doing people a disservice by continually suggesting this.

Regards....Mike Connor

Wow,

I take it you are a programmer then mike.I dont see how Im doing anyone wrong by suggesting they have programmed something wrong, no worse than you all suggesting I havent built a pc correctly.
This will be my last post on the subject as it now seems to work however. Before the PC died and was reborn as per the above posts the following can be said

1 - After the fresh build on thursday ie the very first tiime it boooted up andwas installled with Win7 + The SP1 i was left with 9.3g of space on the SSD.
2 - After getting the pc to boot again following the removall and reseating of the ram (which incidently mike are all identical even down the week of manuufacturing) the SSD shows that there is now 15gig free.

Im not going to suggest what it may be as clearly we are not allowed to crticise software here. Does seem really strange to me that the SSD would somehow shed nearly 5gig of DATA on its own and stiill actually boot properly and run as it should. I suppose it impossible for the SP to have installed then when trying to reboot has failed to flush its own cache/copy files and leave the pc in limbo. as mentioned clearly accusing software isnt the done thing here yet a simple search acrosss the net will show hundreds of posts about hardware going wrong after Sp1 install. Of courrse it could jusy be my machine displaying these posts as a way of making me believe its just me! ;-0

Thank you all for the helpful comments and otherwise!

Biz

Ageeb said:

Are the startup RAM voltages on your MOBO appropriate for you model RAM?
Have you checked the manufacturer's website to see if you have the lastest BIOS installed and if not, what issues were addressed for the later revisions?

Click to expand...

Yeah,m

The Ram is 1.8 - 2.1 v SLI ram in an Nvidia based SLI mobo. Im 1200% certain they would have made sure their own hardware worked in their own hardware. The ram has variable vooltage and has been given more than enough juice. Seems as if the ram was holding something in it that caused the pc to freeze before bios. odd stuff.

bizjer said:

Wow,

I take it you are a programmer then mike.I dont see how Im doing anyone wrong by suggesting they have programmed something wrong, no worse than you all suggesting I havent built a pc correctly.
This will be my last post on the subject as it now seems to work however. Before the PC died and was reborn as per the above posts the following can be said

1 - After the fresh build on thursday ie the very first tiime it boooted up andwas installled with Win7 + The SP1 i was left with 9.3g of space on the SSD.
2 - After getting the pc to boot again following the removall and reseating of the ram (which incidently mike are all identical even down the week of manuufacturing) the SSD shows that there is now 15gig free.

Im not going to suggest what it may be as clearly we are not allowed to crticise software here. Does seem really strange to me that the SSD would somehow shed nearly 5gig of DATA on its own and stiill actually boot properly and run as it should. I suppose it impossible for the SP to have installed then when trying to reboot has failed to flush its own cache/copy files and leave the pc in limbo. as mentioned clearly accusing software isnt the done thing here yet a simple search acrosss the net will show hundreds of posts about hardware going wrong after Sp1 install. Of courrse it could jusy be my machine displaying these posts as a way of making me believe its just me! ;-0

Thank you all for the helpful comments and otherwise!

Biz

Click to expand...

Hmmm..you aren't going to give up simply assuming and presuming various things, are you?

I am not suggesting anything at all, apart from various ways and means to repair your computer.

I do program some things, yes, but I am primarily a systems engineer. For many years I was the chief of network engineering,hardware development, documentation, implementation and customer support, at a, ( very large !), international subsidiary of Citibank. All this running on a massive GAN (A network that (a) is composed of different interconnected computer networks and (b) covers an unlimited geographical area. Note: Loosely synonymous with an internet (as opposed to the Internet (with an uppercase "I"), which designates one specific network).

I have designed, built, repaired, upgraded, and modified THOUSANDS of PC's and other hardware, and planned, developed, and supervised the installation of many more. I was also responsible for the supervision and training of the technicians involved in this.

While it is always understandable that people do not want to admit they might have made a mistake, or want to look for somebody or something else to blame, the fact remains that the single greatest cause of various failures is operator error, in all it's various guises.

My long experience, knowledge, ( I have certificates for things you most likely have never heard of), does not prevent me from making mistakes.

What people write on the net about various failures and how they attribute the faults they perceive is doubtless interesting reading, if you have the time to waste, but most of it is surmise and conjecture. Unless there are hard facts involved most such stuff is completely useless, and indeed only serves to confuse people. Telling people that Windows 7 SP1 "killed" your motherboard is arrant nonsense.

You are perfectly entitled to your opinions, and even to assume or believe whatever you like, regardless of the facts. It wont help you much when you are trying to repair things. That's just how it is...........

Regards....Mike Connor

mike,

No I will never give up assuming lol. I understand your point about not wanting to admit being wrong however I do feel that ih this case im not, maybe time will tell. I respect what you have done and are doing for a career, kudos to you on that however like me not wanting to admit to being wrong its also possible for folks to fall into the category of If I havent ever seen it then it cant happen or be true. Thats down the road to religion!!! As for other people who are filing posts after installing sp1 you have just assumed that they are all stupid or something. Sorry but literally thousands of people complainging of hardware faults is just too much of a coincidence for it to not be a valid point. As for building thousands of pcs, iom not being funny but its not rocket science is it. plug the blue plug into the blue socket. plug the square cpu into the square hole.......please dont make out that its anything above that level of interaction.
As mentioned, the pc now works after reseating(and testing each on its own) the ram. Believe me the dimms slots are so tight it would be nigh on impossible to seat them wrong. Part of me wishes that I had videod the whole experience or have a live cam on the situation. The lesson ive learned here is to just do it myself! saves a lot of answering the saame questions over and over again!

Regards

Biz

bizjer said:

mike,

No I will never give up assuming lol. I understand your point about not wanting to admit being wrong however I do feel that ih this case im not, maybe time will tell. I respect what you have done and are doing for a career, kudos to you on that however like me not wanting to admit to being wrong its also possible for folks to fall into the category of If I havent ever seen it then it cant happen or be true. Thats down the road to religion!!! As for other people who are filing posts after installing sp1 you have just assumed that they are all stupid or something. Sorry but literally thousands of people complainging of hardware faults is just too much of a coincidence for it to not be a valid point. As for building thousands of pcs, iom not being funny but its not rocket science is it. plug the blue plug into the blue socket. plug the square cpu into the square hole.......please dont make out that its anything above that level of interaction.
As mentioned, the pc now works after reseating(and testing each on its own) the ram. Believe me the dimms slots are so tight it would be nigh on impossible to seat them wrong. Part of me wishes that I had videod the whole experience or have a live cam on the situation. The lesson ive learned here is to just do it myself! saves a lot of answering the saame questions over and over again!

Regards

Biz

Click to expand...

Obviously you don't know much about building hardware. What people now refer to as "building" PC's is merely placing various complete modular parts together in a prescribed manner. Very little knowledge is required. This was the first "real" computer I built;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark-8 this was the second http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800

and I have lost track and count of all the others.

With regard to the "road to religion", religion starts with faith, and faith is believing something you can neither prove or disprove. I prefer hard facts.

Good to hear that your machine is now running.

Have a nice day!

Regards....Mike Connor