My trusty and loved Asus P2B-F died

It happened strangely - I was looping 3D Mark 2000 with Vcore at 2.10V. Everything was sweet and and stable. Then suddenly screen went black and power led began to blink like in suspend mode.

I tried to reboot, set everything back to default, took out all the cards and drives, tested with different memory, PSU and display card (PCI), even cleared cmos by taking battery out - no help. I thought that voltage killed the tortured CPU (finally got it stable at 868MHz) and borrowed a celeron 400 from local shop. Didn't help. The shop keeper was kind enough to borrow me Abit BH6, slocket and TNT2 m64 for testing! With TNT2 machine showed some signs of life but not enough... Switched then to BH6 and there it was, alive again.

There are no seeable defects on motherboard, all capacitors etc. look just as before. I think that it was anyway too high power consumption that killed the board. It is rev 1.00 which, if remember right, doesn't have as strong 5V line as later revisions.

I think I'll buy this BH6 (cheap, used), although it doesn't seem to be as good as P2B-f was. It has low VIO (3.28V), no headers for thermistors or on-die diode and I had some problems with PCI slots. ISA slots, which I would need for old scanner controller card don't seem to work at all - reports bios checksum error (?!) and asks system diskette.

This BH6 will do good anyway because I won't o/c this computer anymore. I am getting a 1.4 GHz Athlon and sell this one to my father after putting it to nice clean and quiet state.

It is sad. I really loved that mobo (sniff)

So what you doing with that old dead board?

Well, if it's completely dead, he could always put a frame around it and hang it on a wall. Sorry to hear about your loss.

Jay, I don't know yet. Maybe I should still do some testing because it showed some sort of signs of life. Anyway I will take the heatsinks and blorb off from it for future use. I don't think I can use its components for spare parts but I have for long been curious to know how thick is the plastic cover on BX chipset. Maybe I'll do some kind of autopsy to find out...

Does anybody know what means the ambulance noise it kept when I tested it with the TNT2?

Depend on what bios is in it ami, ect.
Here is a page that should tell you.

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

Resurrection!

I decided to check once more. Made some sloppy setup right on table with only the necessary stuff. I used this borrowed Celeron 400 (SL3A2) but forgot to change the fsb to 66 (and multiplier which doesn't matter). It booted after a while and reported bios checksum error which was kind of expected. Funny thing is that Celeron was happy with 600 MHz and without a heatsink (got quite hot fast) for minutes I had system powered. I tested then with my PIII and everything was like it should after visiting bios.

I have no idea what is the reason for healing. Maybe there was a shortcut somewhere from some metaldust or something, who knows. Btw that ambulance sound means cpu error (Award bios).

I have anyway used today BH6 - some modest overclocking experiments. I can get to 882MHz easily but it is not stable (Prime95) with 1.95V and 97 CFM blowing on HSF. Asus slocket doesn't work well with BH6: if I set voltage from Soft menuII to CPU default and to 1.95 from slocket it gives 1.65V anyway. I used the bios flash trick to get around.

I think I'll buy this BH6 for a spare part. It can be that P2B-F will actually die soon or be otherwise unstable. I feel kind of attraction towards that Celeron also - I could build another computer around the parts I have (memory, BH6, HD, HSF, PSU).

cant comlain when stuff comes back from the dead now can you?

jay said:

cant comlain when stuff comes back from the dead now can you?

Click to expand...

no!

And this made me finally buy a new computer. I'm hoping get the parts tomorrow. I kept the BH6 but not the celeron - don't need another machine.

Karsta said:

no!

And this made me finally buy a new computer. I'm hoping get the parts tomorrow. I kept the BH6 but not the celeron - don't need another machine.

Click to expand...

The fold team could use the units that both machines could produce. See the folding catagory for details. Good troubleshooting on your board. Sometimes just disconnecting power for about 10 sec. will reset everything. Never jump straight into teardown.

Maybe I should learn me more about folding at home. The thing is I don't normally keep computer running if I'm not using it (noise&waste of energy).

I found two possible reasons for sudden death:
1) the insulation of wires of CPU measuring thermistor were broken at the edge of heatsink. Unlike reason esp. because I didn't have thermistor connected on later tests.

2) There was something on slocket connector strips. It possibly connected two of the strips. I think it was Arctic silver2 because I got it off only with acetone. Why it would cause shortcut long time after installation, is not obvious to me.

Now the computer is running with everything on default and Radeon 32 DDR VE. Cpu cooler is GORB again and there is no case fans but insulation for silencing. Even 80mm PSU fan is slowed down with 47ohms. CPU load temp is well over 40° which is ok with default clock.