GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK Ebay HATCHET JOB! (with pics!)

WELL! At first glance I thought it was probably the cleanest-looking used motherboard I had ever seen...



...but MAN... that second glance:



Why the hell would you even DO something like this? I mean the description CLEARLY states: "Getestet . Funktioniert einwandfrei." "Tested. Works Flawlessly." HOW THE HELL IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!

Here's a factory pic of what the motherboard should look like. It looks like it's missing a resistor... and whatever the hell "CU2" is... Don't know... but I would imagine it was there for a reason.

That sucks..

Send it back! I bet the audio still works, but I highly doubt that obsolete PCI slot works.

EarthDog said:

That sucks..

Send it back! I bet the audio still works, but I highly doubt that obsolete PCIE slot works.

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Well I can't really send it back! He's gonna pull this "Private ebay seller, no returns" thing that they have here in Germany. So I'll have to go through Ebay and tell them that this guy lied in the description about the product "working flawlessly." And they'll probably just give me like 20 bucks back or something.

Any idea what the hell that missing CU2 chip could be?

Missed that...

Looks like a Texas Instruments chip... perhaps an opamp?

What's that?

That section has to do with the audio.



Snip taken from PCTekreviews

Worst case scenario is you buy a sound card.

As ED said, that PCI 1 slot is obsolete anyways and the board has hopefully enough for your uses.

An OpAmp is what drives the headphones...

If you google the P/N Soul posted, you get this: http://www.ti.com/product/NE5532

Soulcatcher668 said:

That section has to do with the audio.

View attachment 187138

Snip taken from PCTekreviews

Worst case scenario is you buy a sound card.

As ED said, that PCI 1 slot is obsolete anyways and the board has hopefully enough for your uses.

Click to expand...

EarthDog said:

An OpAmp is what drives the headphones...

If you google the P/N Soul posted, you get this: http://www.ti.com/product/NE5532

Click to expand...

Well thanks guys... That puts me at ease a bit. Practically every USB device I still own (USB mixer... DDJ turntables... etc...) has a built-in soundcard. I can use one of those for the time being. I still put in for the return anyway because I think it's just bad mojo not to point those things out specifically. Like all the description said was "Missing Heatsinks... condition as in photos... and functions flawlessly"

It would've saved me a lot of hassle if he'd just said "audio section damaged... besides that it still works." Or something like that. It's just misleading and I don't like letting guys get away with stuff like that. He has like a 98% approval rating and some of the guys gave him neutral feedback even though they also had things that didn't work. A guy who's made it a HABIT of doing that shouldn't have such a high rating.

Like I said... Ebay will probably offer me like 20 bucks and protect ME against bad feedback from him... so that will at least cover the costs of the heatsinks I had to buy.

EDIT: And SoulCatcher... How the HELL did you find that?

rainless said:

EDIT: And SoulCatcher... How the HELL did you find that?

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Years of google-foo training high in the Tibetan mountains.

Id bet by googling the name of the board and review.

Not all reviews go over that, however, that is from a review.

Shhhh...... Tibetan mountains EarthDog......



Actually it was 'GA-Z97X-UD5H-BK audio section'.

Ahh, yes, that super secret google code to get what you want...

Hahahaha! You guys are even better than I remember!

And EarthDog! My how you've grown! We've certainly come a long way from arguing in the Console Gaming section!

Oh well... I'm sure that for the purposes I bought this machine for (namely Video Color Grading) it will do just fine. I should be able to, in fact, rely on the HDMI from the Video card for audio no? Or does that just use the motherboard's audio? Or do video cards have their own audio or something these days?

You can get audio out of the GPU (a GPU that has one), yep. Just need to install its drivers (will say HDMI audio).

I don't think I played in the console section much at all... regardless, its great to see a familiar face! I hope you are well!

Well... I was issued an INSTANTANEOUS 25 euro PARTIAL REFUND (I already have it). Considering I paid 45 for the board that would make this an absolute steal if the board really works. (I won't know that until I get a CPU.

Now the Northbridge is going to be an interesting thing to setup... The mount holes for it are GIGANTIC: I have both an active cooler and an old Gigabyte Heatsink that somebody gave me.. and neither one of them will cover the mounting holes. (Though I do have some little heatsinks which should cover the VRMS just fine. Might have to try zipties or something... I have a little piece of thermal... I don't know what to call it... it's almost like a thin thermal "gum"... that I got off the northbridge of my old laptop motherboard. I would imagine that should help balance the top of the Northbridge chip since it's slightly raised and I know neither Heatsink would sit flush. What say you?

Why don't you use thermal adhesive instead? The board's warranty is voided so no harm in using artic silver thermal epoxy for the active cooler on the nb.

Also on a side note, you're not only missing the chip for the audio, you're also missing a capacitor.

Nebulous said:

Why don't you use thermal adhesive instead? The board's warranty is voided so no harm in using artic silver thermal epoxy for the active cooler on the nb.

Also on a side note, you're not only missing the chip for the audio, you're also missing a capacitor.

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Meh... I might use both And yeah... I mentioned it in the first post. I think I accidentally called it a resistor though. (Still kinda shocked/pissed at the time... now... since it was just 20 bucks... I don't care so much.)

I'm hoping that capacitor is tied into the audio section somehow. Since I (obviously) won't be using the onboard audio, I'm less likely to care. I already ordered 5 of those CU2 audio chips. I can see if I can find a capacitor too. Then... if I feel like it... I can try my hand at soldering those onto the board. (They both look relatively simple the way they're setup... I've spent a lot of time building drones lately... so it looks just like six feet soldered onto pads. I can unsolder what's left of what's on there and solder the new feet on. And the capacitor... if I can find it HELP GOOGLE EXPERTS... is just a positive and negative leg.)

My main thing with the heatsink is just BALANCING it.... cuz that silver thing is the middle is like a little rectangle sticking up. That's why I wanted to use the thin thermal strip, so that it will be less likely to fall off because of the weight (and the spinning.)

EDIT: Also, as marked in the Description from SoulCatcher... The entire audio section is separated from the rest of the board, which is why the whole thing didn't fry when the audio section got wrecked. That capacitor is *definitely* part of that audio section. So no biggie.

That actually really pisses me the **** off. Dude document and send back immediately. I have literally never bought anything off Ebay in my life. I have been fortunate enough to have very good experiences buying and selling on Offer up and Craigslist. I've probably done a total of 20 transactions in person and went well. But there have been about 5-10 I have walked away from too. I seriously would lose my mind over something like that. Lol ok I got ahead of myself, as soon as I saw the Post Title I knew it was you getting your board and I didn't even finish reading your post before I started typing a response but I stopped and finished. I'm glad to see you got a partial refund now and if you are deciding to keep it I hope it works Flawlessly without audio. I just still can not believe people still do crap like that and get away with it. I have a friend I used to live with in an Oxford House that swore by Ebay lol idk if that's just something you run into all the time over there or what but man I feel for ya. I've been interested to see how this little project was gonna turn out. That's a neat little fan idea you've got on the chipset, hopefully it's enough those suckers get warm. Anyway sucks to see stuff like that, hope the rest of it works.

I've been buying on eBay for years (somewhere around 500 transactions I would guess) and always was able to get my money back on any defective or erroneously described purchase. I've gotten full refunds several times and also and got to keep the item - once a motherboard, once with an ES CPU that wasn't supposed to be ES, and another other time with a USB card. I've had to open cases against scammers, and always won the case and got back my money. Ebay is buyer oriented, I always protect myself when selling by taking photos of the item including the serial number and always ship fully insured. Hell, eBay won't even let sellers give bad feedback to buyers anymore. Anybody who thinks Craig's List is a better idea is a little looney.

Rainwater said:

That actually really pisses me the **** off. Dude document and send back immediately. I have literally never bought anything off Ebay in my life. I have been fortunate enough to have very good experiences buying and selling on Offer up and Craigslist. I've probably done a total of 20 transactions in person and went well. But there have been about 5-10 I have walked away from too. I seriously would lose my mind over something like that. Lol ok I got ahead of myself, as soon as I saw the Post Title I knew it was you getting your board and I didn't even finish reading your post before I started typing a response but I stopped and finished. I'm glad to see you got a partial refund now and if you are deciding to keep it I hope it works Flawlessly without audio. I just still can not believe people still do crap like that and get away with it. I have a friend I used to live with in an Oxford House that swore by Ebay lol idk if that's just something you run into all the time over there or what but man I feel for ya. I've been interested to see how this little project was gonna turn out. That's a neat little fan idea you've got on the chipset, hopefully it's enough those suckers get warm. Anyway sucks to see stuff like that, hope the rest of it works.

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Thanks man! Yeah it really sickens me when people do stuff like that. I had to start a WHOLE NEW Ebay account (I've been with them since they founded) when I moved to Germany, and I've made about a 100 transactions and I have 100% approval. I can't fathom this guy... trying to nickle and dime 10 bucks here... twenty bucks there off of defective gear. It's like being a meter maid! (I would LITERALLY rather stave to death and freeze in the street than be a meter maid. I know what it's like to have your day ruined by a piece of paper on your car. And I would not live with myself with that being my job.)

I couldn't do it to someone. Not somebody who's excited and waiting for that package to come... not to ANYBODY for that matter. I'm just a different kind of guy.

So yeah... Like I said... the heatsink covers the Northbridge just fine... it just doesn't really fit the holes. in the board. THAT part is going to be tricky... but I'll figure something out.