M4A77T burnt out

I bought a M4A77T like 2-3 months ago, and it burnt out today.

It produces 1 long beep, and then 3 short beeps. I checked it out and that means that means a memory module error. I so moved the RAM to different slots, tried taking one out and leaving the other in, tried other types of RAM and it still produces the same error code.

3 months? really? damn you ASUS!!

Are you sure the PSU didn't have something to do with it? I don't recognize that brand/manufacturer and PSU's have been known to take out motherboards.

Is there any chance you had an electrical spike from the wall outlet? That can also cause boards to go belly up. I had it happen more than once before I decided to get some APC UPS's.


The good news is the board should still be under waranty.

Every other component is fine, I replaced the motherboard with a biostar 890 FXE, and my system is up and running @ 3.6 ghz with 1.44 vcore.

I put the M4A77T back in, and same thing 1 long beep, 3 short beeps.

Prior to this I had noticed the heatsink on the northbridge to be loose and wobbly.

I think the northbridge gave out from overheat, awful design.

You realise the RAM data doesn't go anywhere near the NB anymore, don't you? It goes straight from the CPU to the RAM sticks and has since the K8 came out in '05.

Patronage said:

I think the northbridge gave out from overheat, awful design.

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Unlikely. The heat that most chipsets now can withstand is pretty ridiculous. Even with a poor cooler, they'll at least continue to work for quite a long time.

I'd venture a guess that the power circuitry on the motherboard for either the memory modules themselves (VRM near the memory slots) or a power phase for the CPU gave out. So, the board can power on, but is unable to supply sufficient power to keep everything working.

Regardless, it's RMA time. Hopefully they'll take care of that for you.

Now if i can only find the receipt

QuietIce said:

You realise the RAM data doesn't go anywhere near the NB anymore, don't you? It goes straight from the CPU to the RAM sticks and has since the K8 came out in '05.

Click to expand...

I do now