fried mobo?

[slmettler]

System Specs:

Athlon 64 3200+
GA-KVNXP Gigabyte MOBO
(2) 1gb Crucial PC3200 ram sticks
ATI Radeon 9600xt
Creative Labs Soundblaster 5.1
(2) 37gb raptor hard drives set to raid0
(1) WD 80gb hard drive
DVD burner
CD drive
floppy
Enermax 470w ps
XP Pro sp2

Ok, so I was having some issues with the RAM overheating awhile ago and the system would only be stable with a single stick in the first slot. So I bought a new A64 cooler arctic freezer fan and 3 RAM heatsinks for the extra memory that I hadn't been using (RAM Iceberg DDR).

After installing the new arctic freezer and the ram heatsinks my computer would start but none of the lights on the case front would come on and the mouse wouldn't respond and the monitor wouldn't register a video signal. All I get on the monitor is a message saying "monitor in power save mode. activate using PC".

So I went back to one stick of memory. same problem. I unistalled the arctic freezer and reinstalled the stock cpu fan with one stick of memory. same problem.

Did I fry my motherboard or does someone have any ideas on what the heck is going on?

Any help/suggestions/ideas would be most appreciated!

 

[FlashDude]

Are all the fan's on?? Are there any post beeps? have you tryed resetting the cmos? (battery/jumper) Reseat the cpu make sure you didn't pull to hard if the stock hsf was stuck to it. If none of the above work i would say the board's toast. I like gigabyte alot but I guess even they have the odd problem. by the way it was telling you awhile ago there was something wrong when it wouldn't boot with two sticks of ram.

 

[slmettler]

yes, the fans are on, but i'm not getting any post beeps. how do you reset the CMOS?

I figured the mobo had issues because of the ram, but another poster told me to see if cooling down the ram would help. i have read that some mobos can be touchy with ram.


I'll try those other ideas of yours. thanks for the speedy reply!

 

[fuz_master]

FRIED FRIED!!!

 

[CrazeD]

Have you tried other RAM?

 

[slmettler]

i have tried other ram. same issues.

 

[magouster]

To clear the CMOS, take the little silver disk-battery on the motherboard out for about 10 minutes, pop it back, and all should be okay! Yeah, agree with Flashdude, make sure the CPU is correctly seated. Is the standby LED lit on the motherboard?

 

[slmettler]

guess its dead

ok, so I guess the mobo is toast. I've tried everything i can think of. perhaps its ok... i wanted to upgrade to an SLI board soon anyways...

one question for you guys. all of my stuff is on the raptor hd's, including operating system. i use the 80 gb wd hd for extra stuff, music, etc..

can i just plug in my hard drives to the new mobo and go from there or do i need to reinstall XP?? if i need to reinstall xp, what do you guys typically do when you are switching out mobos? i mean, what and how do you transfer all of your data on the hd's?

 

[FlashDude]

Because of the chipset drivers that are installed on that hdd, and bootsector changes it will not boot with a new motherboard, You "MAY" get the option to just reinstall when you try to boot it, but not always!! Even If you manage to get it reinstalled over the current install you will still need to activate the copy of xp again anyway so why not just format it and do a fresh install, You will be way better off. (nothing like a fresh install to bring a smile to your face) When I install a new motherboard I always do a fresh install!!

 

[slmettler]

thanks, Flashdude, for the info. So what's the easiest way to get all of my data off of the raptors so that I can do a clean install? Do you guys all have second computers that you transfer stuff to? I'm not sure if my question is making sense...