SOLVED Gigabyte 990fxa-ud3 rev 1.1 or FX-8120, might be dead

I think I killed one or both yesterday.

In an attempt to lower temps and push for higher clocks, I decided to make some changes to my setup.

-I felt I applied too much tim when I recently installed my h110, so I cleaned both surfaces with Isopropyl Alcohol and reapplied using a pea sized blob in the center of the cpu

-Also my top 7970 was over heating @ 1150/1600 @ 1.2v, so I decided to add a 120mm fan between the 200mm front intake and the cards, blowing through the middle of the 2 cards to help push some cooler air between the cards and allow the top card to breathe better.

Thats it.

Booted it up, launched Tomb Raider with cards @ 1150/1600 @ 1.21v and just walked around a bit and watched temps on cards.

Success! Top card was holding steady @ 78c after 20-30 mins.
Prior, everything froze after 5-10 mins.

Coming off my victory over the GPUs, I decided to prime and test my cpu temps after my newly applied tim. Also thought a good heat run would help cure it.

10 mins in, everything looked great, temps seemed a few degrees lower right off the bat, temps were very slowly climbing from 50c when I heard a zap and everything shut off instantly.

When I try to power it back on, nothing. No fans, no lights, nothing.
I opened it up and felt the VRM sinks... crazy hot, burn my finger hot.

left it for 10 mins, came back... nothing

I swapped the power supply with my backup rig and removed one of the 7970s... nothing.
I also swapped this power supply into the backup rig and it powers on.

So power supply seems to be fine.

After pulling the bios battery for an hour and unplugging everything except for video card and h110, I get lights and the h110 powers up but no post.

So the question is, is the mobo dead or the CPU, or both?

I suppose I could throw that X3 on the board and see if it'll post.
Or just use this as an excuse to go Haswell in the next few weeks!

Have you checked the board for any physical damage. Check your ram slots too.

If you have a spare processor to toss in, you can try it. That eliminates one variable. If you have another system that supports the 8120, toss it in there and see.

Thanks guys,
I haven't checked those things out yet.

I do have an X3 445 which would work on the board, but I didn't think to try it before I installed my old h70 + AP-14(have 4 cores clocked to 4ghz @ 1.52v) and one of my 7970s in my backup rig.
Was more interested in getting something decent up and running again (right in the middle of Tomb Raider, awesome game)

That x3 445 + 1 7970 handles Tomb Raider pretty well, all things considered.
min frames above 30 and averages in the 50s

I'll probably have some time this weekend for additional troubleshooting.

thanks again for your suggestions!

8120, dead
The UD3 is still going, now with the x3 445 installed

thanks

So I thought this was solved. It's not
I went and bought an 8320 today. Wont post same as the 8120. Blank screen.
change it back to the Athlon, posts fine.

Bios is up to date.

Is it possible the vrm is compromised and is capable of running an Athlon, but not an FX?

I'm lost on this one

Xeon_KI said:

So I thought this was solved. It's not
I went and bought an 8320 today. Wont post same as the 8120. Blank screen.
change it back to the Athlon, posts fine.

Bios is up to date.

Is it possible the vrm is compromised and is capable of running an Athlon, but not an FX?

I'm lost on this one

Click to expand...

This is possible, perhaps a cap exploded.

I had a board that was partially bricked. it was an AM2+ M3A32 MVP deluxe wifi. It stoped posting anything that was 45nm tech. No athlon II, or the 940BE would post in it. It would however post a 6000+ and 6400+ that are just as power hungry as the 940BE.

The board was bricked pretty hard. I tried 3 different bios chips with different bios revs on it and the only bios chip that would post the board was the original.

Sad to say, your board is definitely bricked.

Thanks man, you are probably right. turns out my asus matx board also supports fx chips.
After updating the bios, the 8120 was installed and... nothing, no post.
Next up the brand new 8320... works like a charm.

So sounds like the 8120 blew and took out something on the board along with it or vice versa.

I'm taking the 8320 back tomorrow
So it's either an $89 965be and run it on the ud3 or a 4670k + mobo