I wrecked my motherboard!

[JCitron]

I can be an awful Klutz sometimes, well more than sometimes!

I destroyed a USB port in the back of my PC by somehow plugging the cable incorrectly. The cable didn't go in backwards, but what the connector did was pick one of the pins so that it broke the socket.

The problem wasn't noticeable right way. What was happening was I would lose my USB devices periodically. I checked power management, and things would be fine. I reset the BIOS, check the Windows registry, played with device manager, and even went as far as reinstalling Windows because it didn't look like a hardware problem.

Then one day I plugged in an external hard drive and I got a message about over current! I yanked the cable and all my ports went dead except for the two powered ports and my mouse and keyboard. Poking around and looking at the back of my PC, which is quite difficult to do, mind you, I noticed a shinier connector, meaning one of the insides had a brighter spot. I had bent a pin flat, which was shorting out when I plugged something into the back. I was able to bend the pin upright using a very tiny screw driver, and the port worked for about a minute then went dead again and it killed my USB ports.

The issue is this had done some damage to the motherboard and not just to the broken port which is something I could live with as I have plenty of others, and I could always get one of those cheap PCI-e USB port boards. What happened is the over voltage has damaged the Southbridge chip, which is the I/O controller for the SATA drives and all other ports. This probably explains why the other ports get weird now, and sadly I periodically lose my hard drives.

I could be in the middle of something and my data drives will disappear. I have to shutdown, if I can, restart and everything reappears and works fine for awhile. At first I thought this was a SATA power problem because of those new thin cables, but that wasn't the case, sadly.

I'm now investigating the new Skylake processors and new motherboards, which take DDR4 memory. I haven't made any hardware decisions yet, and I'm dealing with the intermittent system until I get the funds to upgrade. I figured that if I am replacing hardware, I will go for the latest and greatest. I will keep my hard drives, and new GTX780Ti since that's only a year old. The same with the power supply which is about the same age. I'll be replacing motherboard, memory, and the processor.

John

 

[LNERlover5]

Oddly enough, the latest isn't actually the greatest. That title belongs to X99 (Haswell-E)

Jack

 

[butler57]

John

Sorry to read about your dilemma - but why not go all out and get a 980 or 980Ti GPU, then you can run Tane like crazy!

 

[pdkoester]

You could unsolder the item bad on the board, and probably have the problems go away. Just will not be able to use that one.

 

[clam1952]

Ouch!

As a cheap stop gap, PCIe Sata controller, so long as the bios is OK it should pick them up ok.

May just be a blown bit of circuit track.

 

[JCitron]

Thanks guys on the suggestions.

I'll look into a SATA controller. That's a good idea, Malc and thank you for that.

The thing is I don't trust the motherboard anymore for stability though, and the thought of spending more money on it only to not have it work seems like a dead end. I have other hardware I can use, as in the machine I'm using to type this, but T:ANE testing now is out until I replace the system. My old Alienware runs TS12 okay, if not bad at all, but it definitely won't run T:ANE.

As far as replacing bad ports, that's definitely out. The new circuit boards are multi-layered with so many layers that heating up the board requires too much heat that can damage the nearby components. In my olden days, I used to repair boards including desoldering parts, so knowing how to do it is not a problem; it's the board thickness and too cool an iron to be able to do this cleanly.

 

[nicky9499]

They're getting harder to find but Ivy Bridge (and a Z77 1155 board) will get you lower temperatures and more overclocking headroom at a lower price with basically the same performance.

 

[JCitron]

They're getting harder to find but Ivy Bridge (and a Z77 1155 board) will get you lower temperatures and more overclocking headroom at a lower price with basically the same performance.

I found that out too, when I looked around after Clam1952's post. And that's what I'm thinking. The i7-6700k is out of stock right now, except for CDW where it's $100 more than everyone else! I can hold off until I save up my pennies and use my old Alienware M17x for TS12; T:ANE will have to wait because that machine is pretty old and runs hot. I don't need a pile of ash on my desk...

My 780Ti is nearly brand new and I'll keep that. It might be just behind the GTX980Ti, by a week's release, but it works quite nicely. The only things, which I said I need to replace, are mobo, memory, and processor. I can use everything else and save a few bucks.

I could see if I blew up boards all the time, but this is a first for me. Most of my older motherboards and parts go into the trickle down pool and we build gaming machines for others to use. They may not be the fastest computers, but for my little kid nephews, the machines are great for them to use. They get a few more years out of them before they finally are completely worn out. This time, however, this board goes in the grinder.

John

 

[ish6]

Hey John ---

If you're going for the latest on everything, etc ... get yourself a SSD drive! -- They're expensive, but there's always a deal out there!

Good Luck!
Ishie

 

[JCitron]

Hey John ---

If you're going for the latest on everything, etc ... get yourself a SSD drive! -- They're expensive, but there's always a deal out there!

Good Luck!
Ishie

I've got one already.

One less thing to worry about.

 

[Zeldaboy14]

Yikes! Sounds like you'll be spending some good money on a new motherboard.

 

[JCitron]

UPDATE:

I just ordered a motherboard, processor and memory today from New Egg. I spent the day checking various CPU, MB, Memory combinations, reading reviews, and researching parts. In the end I opted for what I think is a decent kit.

Intel Core i7-5930K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.5GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W BX80648I75930K Desktop Processor

MSI X99A GODlike Gaming LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 series 64GB (8 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2800 (PC4-22400) Intel X99 Desktop Memory

1 Cooler Master Hyper D92 - CPU Air Cooler with Dual 92mm Offset Push-Pull Fans and Accelerated Cooling System

I was initially going for a Skylake setup, but the CPU is non-existent, meaning out of stock until who knows when so after spending a good amount of the day researching those parts, I found I couldn't get the processor I wanted. I had no plans on getting an i5 and wanted the i7, which is not available so I started the search all over again with the Extreme series processors. The Haswell has a decent ratings and most people are pleased with the performance. I got the middle of the road one since the highest level one is still over $1,000! I then looked at RAM, which I ended up with 64GB instead of 128GB which the motherboard can handle. The 128GB turned out to be more than what I've spent for all the parts!

So now I limp along with my flaky old board until probably Monday when my parts come and I can kit up the machine.

John

 

[KTOutlaw]

I went with the x99 board and a 5920 cpu, I looked at the specs on the new skylake, but it also appears they only have 4 cores and run off the old bus system, meaning they are the cheap sets in my opinion, I have the option to upgrade this board to the 5930 and gain the 40 pci-e ports above the current 28 that I have, and with the x99 board I got the MSI Gaming 7, I also have the M2 SSD slot

 

[JCitron]

That's right. The regular i7 will still only have 4-cores. That's a nice motherboard and was my second option.

I've been using my flaky system all day and periodically I smell that acrid odor of burning electronic components!!!