Need clarification that my motherboard is dying.

[C0RR0SIVE]

Put a heavy load on it and check the 12v, 5v, and 3.3v to ensure that it's with in proper operating ranges? Buy a good quality PSU tester? 5 years isn't too old, but old enough I would start to worry about quality.

 

[porgorg]

Okay, thanks.
I found OCCT which reads that it's good to test on PSU's, I'm just again worried about it destroying other components like storage, graphics etc.. I'm assuming I can run it from CD which I think would be safer.

 

[porgorg]

I tried using OCCT but I don't know what I'm doing. I can't seem to find any guide for the software either.
When I try to run it, it either runs for about a minute and then stops or just stops as soon as I click run with 'Stopped, user cancelled'.
I've attached what I get from OCCT anyway, I noticed that the +12V is all over the place and down to 4V some times, is this normal?

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Idealy you wouldn't be using software to check voltages as software goes based upon a motherboard sensor reading which can be wrong. I just tried that software and it reports my 12v at 2.6v LOL.

Grab a cheap Multimeter (can be found for like $15 or less in hobby shops and automotive stores), grab one of your Molex connectors (the four pin plug that's usually white from the PSU with one red, two blacks, and one yellow wire), set the multimeter for 12v DC, plug the red lead into the yellow plug end, and the black end into the black wire at the plug end. What voltage do you get at idle? What voltage do you get at load?

I still think most of your issues came up from you shorting the PSU out earlier and not particularly from a bad PSU or motherboard.

By the way... RAM, Northbridge/Southbridge and the such, they get hot, very hot, as long as they are getting good airflow and temps stay with in designed thresholds, things will be fine. I know of a few chipsets that get hot enough to cause burns (Older nForce chipsets) and they work just fine.


https://youtu.be/ac7YMUcMjbw?t=319

 

[porgorg]

Okay, so at idle I got 12.13 to 12.15 for 12V and 5.10 for 5V
At load using OCCT I got 12.12 for 12V and 5.08 for 5V
I got the same results using Prime 95 for load.
I ran the load tests for about thirty seconds to a minute.

I've attached what the multimeter was set at, based on the video really. The plugs were set to measure AC/DC voltage.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Looks like your PSU is just fine then.

 

[porgorg]

Tested the 3.3V and that was 3.33 and -12V was -12.36/-12.38

So really I'm back to square one again, just odd to me that I lost another RAM stick so quickly after getting it replaced if it wasn't the PSU at fault.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Highly unlikely it's the PSU...

You have stated, and shown the following:

-Corrupted BIOS
-Stated that wires on the PSU was shorted out??
-Stated that the second set of RAM is apparently already going bad.
-Stated that things are "too hot" but provided no resources on temperatures... Feeling hot is different to everyone, to me, damned near boiling is hot, but 20F less is cool, while to a baby, their skin would burn at 170F water.


As for the memory, the PSU has no direct contact with RAM, power flows through a memory controller, and power phases, then onto RAM, you would have far more issues than a bad RAM stick if the PSU was magically frying things, granted you are having issues that are similar to a bad PSU, but the voltages are good and stable under load and off load soo I suspect multiple things are happening at this point.

What fried the drives? Chances are, what ever shorted out, I have a feeling you was poking around inside the tower, and caused two wires to touch that shouldn't have, thus frying the drives.

What caused the corrupted BIOS? Anything from a bad CPU core, to corrupted firmware.

Take KNOWN good memory, install it, and run a stress test on the machine using Prime95 and use HWMonitor to watch temps, and keep a multimeter connected to the 12v lines and monitor the 12v power...

Also, it would be nice to know your systems full specs.

 

[porgorg]

I had to take the NH-D14 out so I could swap out RAM modules easily for tests, but I was also testing OSs on another 256GB SSD to see if it crashed. So I was swapping out drives quite a bit.
The instant startup/shutdown just happened when I attached the 128GB SSD again and all other components were in the case. I took everything out, placed it on a table and started from scratch. The bare minimum started up so I kept adding components until it was when I added the SSD that it shutdown. Stupidly I tried the HDD and it started up, so then added the SSD but it shutdown again. I then tried another ssd power cable and it started up. It was only then that I realised that neither drive appeared in the BIOS, or anywhere.

System specs:
CPU = E8400
Motherboard = GA EP45-DS3
RAM = 4x 2GB DDR2 Corsair XMS
PSU = Thermaltake XT 575W
GFX = Gainward 560ti
Cooler = NH-D14 / Intel stock
Storage = Crucial M4 128GB / 256GB SSD

Thanks, will update you on the tests.

 

[porgorg]

So Prime95's been running for five hours and had no errors.
It was running on Blend (test some of everything, lots of RAM tested). That was the default.
CPU temperatures got up to 70C (157F) and the cores got up to 72C (161F) and 74C (165F).
The 12V voltage was at 12.13 / 12.15.