strange.. but true! :(

Let me clarify what I am saying...

I think you're on the right track with your motherboard replacement... as far as I can tell it will work with your CPU and memory. So that is all good....

BUT... I would be very wary of simply plugging in a new motherboard until I knew exactly why the old one got fried. A little bit of static electricity can ruin a CPU chip, a RAM card, or a board chip... but a bit of accidental static electricity would NOT destroy memory slots. Something really bad zapped your system, and could zap your new MB as well.

Go ahead and get the new MB, just don't use it until you can guarantee the same thing won't happen all over again.

stevieray,

Go ahead and get the new MB, just don't use it until you can guarantee the same thing won't happen all over again.

While I understand your drift, there are no guarantees either in the cyber or real world that are iron clad.

I see only two possible root causes for the problem, the first the tech has ruled out...the PS. The second is surge protection, which apparently didn't work sufficiently on his equipment. The best solution for surge protection is a good UPS, but I'm not going to say that is an iron clad solution either.

thanks for your furher respectful observations.. I will ask them to check my Power Supply before plugging my motherboard in. (addressed to seekermeister and stevieray)
Could it be though..(hypothetically speaking) that the surge protection didn't work and that a sudden electrical cut in the power fried my RAM slots and soundcard? lol wtf are the odds of that!

Thanks in advance

Surge protectors are of varying quality and also have different ratings in terms of the amount of surge that they can handle. I'm not certain what to expect from a surge protector that has failed...if it would still permit current to flow or not, but then it is not just surges that can cause damage, voltage drops can also. However, I doubt that a voltage drop could have fried your RAM slots.

ok then.. negating the surge protection factor.. is it hypothetically plausable for a sudden electrical cut in the power to fry my RAM slots and soundcard?

I don't think so, but I'm no electrical expert. I think that it would depend exactly on the nature of the damage. The fact that the slots don't work doesn't necessarily mean that they were fried. I could mean that some kind of device on the motherboard that controls the slots was damaged.

harjafsormok said:

ok then.. negating the surge protection factor.. is it hypothetically plausable for a sudden electrical cut in the power to fry my RAM slots and soundcard?

I would say a cut in power no , but a surge in power could

if ... the PSU went dead short on the transformer with no cutout protection, which would suggest badly designed PSU ?

seekermeister said:

While I understand your drift, there are no guarantees either in the cyber or real world that are iron clad.

True enough... there are no ironclad guarantees.

seekermeister said:

I don't think so, but I'm no electrical expert. I think that it would depend exactly on the nature of the damage. The fact that the slots don't work doesn't necessarily mean that they were fried. I could mean that some kind of device on the motherboard that controls the slots was damaged.

My PC building is limited (only one so far), and it was an Intel, not an AMD... but my understanding of AMD design is it has no external (i.e. MB based) northbridge... its all on the CPU. If this was an Intel design, then the FSB chip could be damaged, and that would affect the RAM... but I think AMD isn't structured that way.

Perhaps the OP should go to a hardware forum, like Tom's, and ask the experts there. They do nothing but build PCs and blow them up thru OCing... they'd know exactly what's going on.

I'm not positive that I understand what you mean by "external" northbridge, but I can assure you that AMD motherboards do have both northbridge and southbridge chips on them. Exactly what they do, or how they relate to the CPU, I will leave to others with a better understanding.