1 day old mobo dead?

pickarooney

After carefully building my new box today I brought it home and plugged it in. Everything was going fine except for no audio output. I opened it up, checked all the cables and everything seemed OK. No sound on reboot. I tried a PCI sound card to see if that would make a difference but no - the only difference is that now I seem to have no network card. No light on the NIC when I connect an ethernet cable and no IP address assigned. Both problems occur with a liveCD as well. I swear I didn't touch or break anything but I'm baffled as to what's happened.

Solitaire

Silly question, but... did you install all the mobo/chipset drivers?

pickarooney

Nope, running linux so they're bugger all use to me. And the network was working grand for an hour.

VenomIreland

pickarooney wrote: »

Nope, running linux so they're bugger all use to me. And the network was working grand for an hour.

What distro? It took me a while to get sound and networking running in Arch Linux, might be able to help.

Daniel S

Install a quick copy of windows and install the drivers to see if that's it. Otherwise i'd be sending it back.

pickarooney

I don't have a windows CD, but the live CD should surely pick up the NIC drivers whatever about the sound. How could the ethernet port just die like that?

This is so depressing.

VenomIreland

pickarooney wrote: »

I don't have a windows CD, but the live CD should surely pick up the NIC drivers whatever about the sound. How could the ethernet port just die like that?

This is so depressing.

There should be an option in the BIOS for "Force NIC BIOS" or "NIC Force Enable" or something along those lines, I had to enable that to get Arch Linux's networking to work.

pickarooney

VenomIreland wrote: »

There should be an option in the BIOS for "Force NIC BIOS" or "NIC Force Enable" or something along those lines, I had to enable that to get Arch Linux's networking to work.

There doesn't seem to be anything of the sort unfortunately.

VenomIreland

pickarooney wrote: »

There doesn't seem to be anything of the sort unfortunately.

Anything about WoL at all?

pickarooney

Wake on Lan? It was off as far as I recall.

To reset the CMOS do I just pull off and replace the jumper in the same place?

VenomIreland

pickarooney wrote: »

Wake on Lan? It was off as far as I recall.

Worth a shot, I know I had to toggle something similar to that in my BIOS for networking to work in both Windows and Arch Linux.

pickarooney

Nothing doing I'm afraid. As regards getting it replaced, what would be the best course of action - dismantle it and give it back to the shop describing the problem or leave it in the machine and demonstrate it?

Hank Scorpio

Download a windows trial and install the drivers?

Spear

Some basic things first:

What model motherboard?

What model soundcard?

What's the the output of lsmod and lspci?

pickarooney

I brought it back to get tested. To be honest it's been over 10 years since I saw a NIC or sound card that wasn't detected automatically by the OS (and the replacement PCI sound card that worked with the same OS on a previous mobo didn't work with this either - tht and the faxt the ethernert port just suddenly ceased to function).

For info, the mobo is a gigabyte ma74gmt -s2 with onboard ati sound card and the other tested card was a creative soundblaster.

Nothingbetter2d

did u check to see if u accidently disabled both the onboard nic & sound chips in the bios?

pickarooney

I did. I also tried resetting to default and resetting to optimal configuration

pickarooney

Well, it's dead and they have no replacements in stock. Another week with no PC

pickarooney

What are you guys' opinions on MSI motherboards? A few people have told me to avoid them but then again my last one kept lasted 4 years compared to the one hour I got from the gigabyte. I've a budget of 50 euros in any case. Ideally I'd like an Asus but I'd be three weeks waiting on them to be back in stock.

Spear

pickarooney wrote: »

What are you guys' opinions on MSI motherboards? A few people have told me to avoid them but then again my last one kept lasted 4 years compared to the one hour I got from the gigabyte. I've a budget of 50 euros in any case. Ideally I'd like an Asus but I'd be three weeks waiting on them to be back in stock.

If your location isn't really France, I have a spare socket AM3 board you can have.

Maj Malfunction

Personally I stick with Asus, they have never given me any issue, so I'd say wait and get yourself an Asus.

Gigabyte boards have given me problems in the past, so I won't use them.

My friends have used MSI boards and have liked them, I've no experience with MSI myself, so can't tell you much more about them.

Solitaire

I've had problems with (much) older Gigabytes but the new ones are usually pretty good. Never had a problem with MSI, highly recommended. Not too pushed on Asus, their high-end products are nice (if ludicrously expensive) but their low-end offerings have become more and more rubbish over the least few years

pickarooney

Spear wrote: »

If your location isn't really France, I have a spare socket AM3 board you can have.

Unfortunately (in this case), it is. Thanks for the offer though.

I've been reading as much as I can about the various manufacturers and overall the consensus seems to be 1. Asus 2. Gigabyte and 3
MSI (with eVGA a good high-end option) but MSI seems to have an improving rep and offers possibly the best value for money.

I think I'll be getting a MSI M-atx 760GM-P33 as I can't get a refund and don't want to wait another 3 weeks.

cherryghost

I've had issues with MSIs boards, namely the last gen intel ones. The AM3 ones are highly regarded mind you.

Most Gigabyte AM3 motherboards work with Linux distros straight out

Nothingbetter2d

EDIT: see post below... weird double post error

Nothingbetter2d

Maj Malfunction wrote: »

Personally I stick with Asus, they have never given me any issue, so I'd say wait and get yourself an Asus.

Gigabyte boards have given me problems in the past, so I won't use them.

My friends have used MSI boards and have liked them, I've no experience with MSI myself, so can't tell you much more about them.

oh i have had good Asus boards and some bad ones. (when Asus go bad they really like to go bad mainly its their chipsets that tend to pop due to asus' policy of using poorly designed chipset coolers)

ive had only one MSI board before it was good though.

ive had one gigabyte board (ok)

intel boards are a really pain in the ass when they go bad mostly due to their awful restricted firmware.

pickarooney

Change of plan now; the shop was able to source an Asus M4A78LT-M LE Matx DDR3 from another branch and it should be here on Friday. Lots of USB ports but I'm not overly keep on VIA audio chips - they usually need some tweaking to work properly on Linux.

VenomIreland

pickarooney wrote: »

I'm not overly keep on VIA audio chips - they always need some tweaking to get working.

Fixed

BigEejit

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

oh i have had good Asus boards and some bad ones. (when Asus go bad they really like to go bad mainly its their chipsets that tend to pop due to asus' policy of using poorly designed chipset coolers)

http://photos.expertreviews.co.uk/images/front_picture_library_Expert_Reviews/dir_260/er_photo_130027_52.jpg

I have this mobo (Asus m4a785d-m pro) and the cooler is utter crap. Also after a year the raid started acting up and I had to stop using it because it was so unreliable.

Its been years since I had a MSI mobo, might give it a try for my next build.

pickarooney

I'm just about to go mental...

I got my replacement motherboard (the Asus) and set it up... ethernet OK, sound OK but neither of my IDE hard drives are recognised. I tried testing them individually and with different IDE cables and power cables but the OS still won't recognise them. I can sort of see one of them in the BIOS, but the name is scrambled (Maxtob *9*&) and it's unusable.

Am I just cursed or is there anything I can do to try fix this?

pickarooney

I'm tempted to try flashing the BIOS (three HDs on cable-select not recognised collectively or individually) but am concerned something might screw up. I can't face going back to the shop again, though I might have to.

Maj Malfunction

Have you checked you don't have a short from the motherboard to the case? Check around where the push outs for the USB connectors are etc.

Are you using an electro-static wristband or similar whilst installing the motherboard?

Just seems unusual that you'd have two mobo failures.

pickarooney

Maj Malfunction wrote: »

Have you checked you don't have a short from the motherboard to the case? Check around where the push outs for the USB connectors are etc.

Are you using an electro-static wristband or similar whilst installing the motherboard?

Just seems unusual that you'd have two mobo failures.

How can I see if there has been a short? I've never used a wristband, although I've taken every other recommended precaution but it is possible I've done something wrong.

Maj Malfunction

pickarooney wrote: »

How can I see if there has been a short? I've never used a wristband, although I've taken every other recommended precaution but it is possible I've done something wrong.

Make sure there are no pieces of metal caught in any of the ports at the back of the motherboard, it can sometimes happen when inserting the mobo into the case.

So long as you touch something metal before installing a mobo you should be fine from ESD and avoid wearing synthetic clothing.

pickarooney

Maj Malfunction wrote: »

Make sure there are no pieces of metal caught in any of the ports at the back of the motherboard, it can sometimes happen when inserting the mobo into the case.

So long as you touch something metal before installing a mobo you should be fine from ESD and avoid wearing synthetic clothing.

The metal façade thing was a bugger to get on. There were no specific instructions in the manual and I bent the little sticky-out bits (hoorah for terminological accuracy!) any which way I could to get them to fit around the various ports. Maybe that's teh problem. Is it best to snip those little bits off?

Actually, I think I put a riser in the wrong place with no corresponding hole above it. Might that be an issue? I only realised it after I'd plugged everything in and didn't want to pull it all apart!

pickarooney

Sorted!

That stray riser was indeed right under the IDE connector and putting it in the right place appears to have resolved the problem