680i LT - No boot problem as of yesterday

[pcbrand]

Hi All,

Was fine for 6 months since I bought it. Played all the latest 3d games and never overheated or shutdown on me.

Also I should point out that I am fairly computer savvy and this is not the first box I have put together.

Day before yesterday I shutdown the PC for the night (using window XP to perform a normal shutdown). And yesterday when I tried to turn it back on it started exhibiting the now infamous no-boot problem.

I'd like to emphasize that the PC was rock-solid stable all this time and there was no catastrophic event of any kind, it just simply stopped working one day.

The symptoms are as follows:
*When I press the power button, the lights and fans come on for a few seconds and immediately shutdown.

*If I keep trying, after several times, the PC will actually boot up further and even get into XP. However, after usually 2-3 minutes it will shutdown again and without any warning.

Here's what I tried to do so far:
* Clear the bios with the jumper (however I noticed that the clock is retained for some reason - is it possible it's not doing a complete wipe?)

* Play around with the memory sticks in different positions.

* Clean the dust that accumulated on the fans and heat sinks (I had an overheating problem because of dust in another pc)

* made sure all the cables are not loose and securely plugged in

* take out most of the preipherals (other than the video card)

* openned a ticket with XFX support a couple of hours ago

When none of the above made any difference I did an internet search and found this site. I was surprised to see how common this problem is and I must say I am a bit worried.

I would appreciate any helpful tips since I already did pretty much everything I could think of. Perhaps how to properly clear the bios (see my comment above) ?

[Irsh]

Make sure the CPU sink hasn't slipped. Maybe reaply ASilver and reinstall.

[srpeters18]

Are you using a heatsink with pushpins or screw-type hold-downs. It sounds like it might be grounding out on something. Or, I had a problem with my heatsink being on too tightly causing it to not boot on the 780i. Also, see if one of your friends has a power supply that you can borrow, sounds like you may not be getting clean power.

[pcbrand]

The heat sink is the one with the push-pins, not clamps.
It's a Q6600 CPU. The only other components on board are a 8800GTS card, a couple of SATA drives and a DVD burner. The PSU is a ZXC Extreme (or something like that). And there are a bunch of USB devices connected to it via an external hub with it's own power.


Just to clarify - I never actually used it for any overclocking (yeah - pretty lame I know). So everything is stock on this rig. High end components and all that, but none of them pushed beyond their limits. So I never actually applied any thermal paste or anything like that to the CPU machine.

I really don't think it's an overheating problem - it would take more than 2-3 second to overheat enough to shut down.

I will look to see if the CPU fan + heatsink maybe warping the motherboard or perhaps loosen the screws up a bit as someone here suggested that too much pressure on the CPU causes this type of behaviour as well.

I took the bios battery out this morning before I went to work and hopefully this will wipe the bios completely.

What puzzles me in all this is that the system was actually working just fine for a pretty long time, and most of the issues described here would have caused a problem right away. I am almost certain I will have to RMA it. But from reading on the board - I am not sure if this is worth the time/effort and cost... I saw that a couple fo guys here actually got the newer 7-series boards, but most simply got refurbished 680i LT boards.

Does anyone know what the current poilicy for RMA is on these boards?

[pcbrand]

Ok so came back home tonight after the cmos battery was out for the whole day.

It's actually seems to have gotten worse... Now I can't even get as far as I was able to before. I was able to boot into POST 1 out 5 tries or so. Now it doesn't even get that far anymore.

From reading around the boards - I am inclined to think this is a heat sensor problem (or some other sensor). I wish I knew how to bypass the sensors just to verify my thoery and see if it will boot...

I also removed the thermaltake heatsink and fan and everything looks ok down there.

Anyways - I am now waiting for the response from XFX support. It's been about 24 hrs now and still says "with technician".

It looks like an RMA shipping will cost me about $30 (I am in Toronto Canada) so I have to wonder if it is worth it or just give up and go for a new board?

[Irsh]

So I never actually applied any thermal paste or anything like that to the CPU machine.


If I understand correctly you don't have any thermal compound on the CPU heatsink?
You need it overclocked or not.

[srpeters18]

I'm surprised it didn't cook sooner. And actually, 2 or 3 seconds is plenty of time to overheat a processor. Through many heating and cooling cycles with the processor and HSF there could've been slight warping due to uneven heat transfer, I guess, and causing your problems.

[pcbrand]

I'm surprised it didn't cook sooner. And actually, 2 or 3 seconds is plenty of time to overheat a processor. Through many heating and cooling cycles with the processor and HSF there could've been slight warping due to uneven heat transfer, I guess, and causing your problems.

Guys, just quick clarification - I did not say there is no thermal compund. I said I never applied anything myself (as in beyond what came in stock). I bought this as a motherboard/cpu combo so I think everything was already applied before I got it.

It has a very nice thermaltake cooling unit (about half the size of a big block - but still nice). I took it off yesterday and there is indeed the white thermal compound (arctic ice if I am not mistaken) that came with it.

I could not detect anything wrong nor are there any shorts at the bottom of the motherboard it's at least 5mm clearance off the case wall everywhere. The board's lights are all on as well (blue, amber and green).

I also did a visual check of all the capacitors on the board, and all looked ok.

As far as frying the processor, I have some experience in that department from the P3 and P4 days... :-) I don't think it will happen in 2-3 seconds when you boot cold. It's not running anything yet because the POST doesn't even come on. It also did not feel hot at all... Besides, it did boot from time to time, so I can safely assume the CPU is still operational.

It looks more and more like some kind of intermittent failure - probably a heat sensor or some other safety feature that's triggering. I only wish there was a way to know for sure...

Lastly - does anyone know where the heat sensor is? And is there anyway to disable it so I can run the rig in "debug mode" to see if it is indeed a sensor problem?

[Pablo 54]

Your memory tests out OK? Can you get it to boot briefly with one stick?

[pcbrand]

Your memory tests out OK? Can you get it to boot briefly with one stick?

Memory tested ok (when I was able to reach post).

I just got off the phone with XFX support. They RMA'd immediately - didn't even bother to try and troubleshoot...

They don't do cross-shipping though - so they have to get my board first (1-2 week?) and only then will ship me a replacement (another 1-2 weeks).

So I am looking at a 3-4 weeks delay here, can't really afford to wait that long as I have some work related stuff I have to do on that PC.
I think I am just going to get a new board for now and then just build a secondary PC for my kids with the RMAd 680i.

Any recommendations?

All I have is an EVGA 8800GTS, a couple of SATA drives and a bunch of USB devices. So pretty much any decent PCIe 16x board will do.