Motherboard failure..

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..Houston we have a problem..

my motherboard (Asrock ConroeXfire-Esata2) seems to have died (less than a year old!).. while it always had an oddity whereby I couldn't get the front audio to work it's now packed up completely..

A week or so ago I booted the PC to be greeted by a POST failure of 3 beeps.. after a bit of jiggery pokery I thought I pinned this down to a bad DIMM.. I bought replacement DIMMs.. went to fit them today to be greeted by the same POST failure.. unfortunately I got this error no matter which of the 4 DIMMs I now have installed..

The mobo is going back to the retailer but it looks like you can no longer get this model.. which brings me to my real question..

Is there any way I'm going to be likely to replace the motherboard without a complete rebuild of the system? It has 2 HDDs.. one running XP Pro, the other running Vista Ultimate OEM.. both have password protected accounts which I use as my user account..

I suspect I'm going to have to try and recover what data I can and totally start from fresh? Including having to purchase a new license for Vista?

Help!

 

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If none of the hard drives are wiped then I can't see a problem its just a case of connecting all the hardware to the new mobo.

 

It might work, ive seen some systems require a clean instal because of the HAL, a repair install might help tho.

 

I hope it'll be ok.. the problem is I'm worried that I'm going to have to use a different mobo as a replacement (although I'll be looking for the same chipset)..

Will Vista need re-activating as well?

 

I always thought that chipsets and cpu types are detected at the start of boot, the OS just works no need to reconfigure not sure about Vista though.

 

I'm hoping that repeating the configuration I had on the new mobo will at least get me far enough in to get my data off the hard disks.. I've hunted for the same mobo everywhere but can only find them on Ebay.. (it's under warranty so I'm going to see what happens there first..)..

I guess I was thinking that as long as I connected the HDDs in the same config as the old mobo then I could safe-mode boot each O/S and sort out the mobo drivers from there?

 

I have installed new mobos for people before with their old hard drives I had no problems after I installed the mobo drivers, or nobody reported any problems to me.

EDIT: I always uninstalled all mobo drivers before installing the new mobo and drivers.

 

Hi there,

Don't worry about your XP and Vista installations. If you need to re-register it will ask you what you have done to the PC to activate the activation system again. I've done this before on XP and it asked 3 questions and activated fine. On someone else's I did I had to ring a free phone number for about 5 minutes and was given an activation code without any bother. Not done Vista but can't be too much different from XP. You shouldn't get any other problems and it should be easy enough to find a mobo that supports your other hardware.

 

That depends, he may not have a choice in the replacement, assuming they test it as faulty. If the hard disk controller chipset isn't identical there is a good chance with XP that it will BSOD the first time it attempts to boot. A windows repair can sometimes fix this, but it's by no means guaranteed.

 

Well.. it tested faulty.. one of my DIMMS died as well.. doh! They've offered to send it back to the manufacturer for repair but have warned me it'll take 28 days and I might just get a credit note back.. They've offered me a replacement which doesn't quite have the same chipset.. I'm assuming then I'm going to have problems with the XP install? I've been told the Vista will be ok (apart from having to re-register it!)

My original spec mobo:

- LGA 775 for Intel® Dual Core Core™ 2 Extreme / Core™ 2 Duo / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 / Celeron® D
- FSB 1066/800/533 MHz
- Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
- Supports Untied Overclocking Technology
- Supports EM64T CPU
Chipset - Northbridge: Intel® 945P/945G
- Southbridge: Intel® ICH7R
Memory - Dual Channel DDRII memory technology
- 4 x DDRII DIMM slots
- Supports DDRII 667/533 non-ECC, un-buffered memory
- Max. capacity of system memory: 4GB*

*Due to the chipset limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® XP, Windows® XP 64-bit, Windows® Vista™ and Windows® Vista™ 64-bit.
BIOS - 4Mb AMI BIOS
- AMI Legal BIOS
- Supports "Plug and Play"
- ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events
- Supports jumperfree
- SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support
Audio, Video and Networking
Graphics - n/a
Audio - 7.1 CH Windows® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)
LAN - PCIE x 1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
- Realtek RTL8111B
- Supports Wake-On-LAN
Expansion / Connectivity
Slots - Supports ATI™ CrossFire™
- 3 x PCI slots
- 1 x PCI Express x 16 slot
- 1 x AGI Express slot (PCI Express x 4)
- 1 x PCI Express x 1 slot
Connector - 4 x Serial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5 and Intel® Matrix Storage), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions
- 2 x eSerial ATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors (shared with 2 SATAII ports), support "Hot Plug" function
- 1 x ATA100 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)
- 1 x Floppy connector
- 1 x IR header
- 1 x Game header
- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header
- 2 x IEEE 1394 headers
- CPU/Chassis FAN connectors
- 20 pin ATX power connector
- 4 pin 12V power connector
- SLI/XFire power connector
- CD in header
- Front panel audio connector
- 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports)
Rear Panel I/O ASRock 8CH_eSATAII I/O
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
- 1 x COM Port
- 1 x Parallel Port (ECP/EPP Support)
- 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
- 2 x eSATAII Ports
- 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port
- HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker / Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Other Features / Miscellaneous
Hybrid Booster - CPU Frequency Stepless Control
- ASRock U-COP
- Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)
Support CD - Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version)
Accessories - Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
- Floppy/ATA 100 cables
- 4 x SATA data cables (optional)
- 2 x SATA 1 to 1 power cables (optional)
- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF cable (optional)
- 1 x USB+1394 bracket
Hardware Monitor - CPU Temperature Sensing
- Chassis Temperature Sensing
- CPU Overheat Shutdown to Protect CPU Life
- CPU Fan Tachometer
- Chassis Fan Tachometer
- CPU Quiet Fan
- Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore
Form Factor - ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 8.6-in, 30.5 cm x 21.8 cm
OS - Microsoft® Windows® 2000 / XP / XP 64-bit / Vista™ / Vista™ 64-bit compliant
Certifications - FCC, CE, WHQL

The replacement offered:

Chipset

• Intel® 975X Chipset
- Supports FSB 533/800/1066MHz.
- 2 PCI Express controllers in the MCH enable either 1 x 16 or 2 x 8 operation.
- Supports dual channel, DDR2 533/667/800.

• Intel® ICH7DH Chipset
- Hi-Speed USB (USB2.0) controller, 480Mb/sec, up to 8 ports.
- 4 SATAII ports with transfer rate up to 3Gb/s.
- 1 channel Ultra ATA 100 bus master IDE controller.
- PCI Master v2.3, I/O APIC.
- ACPI 2.0 compliant.
- Serial ATA RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1.
- Integrated AHCI controller.


Main Memory

• Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.8 Volt DDRII SDRAM
• Supports up to 8GB memory size.
• Supports dual channel DDRII memory architecture.
• Supports DDR2 533/667/800 memory interface.

MSI Reminds You...
• DDR2 800 can only achieve 800MHz with FSB 1066 Conroe CPU.
• The default setting for DD2 800 is DDR2 667, which can be adjusted manually.



Slots

• Two PCI Express x16 slot. (supports PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant)
- Supports into 2 x8 slot.
- Supports ATI® Crossfire™ technology.
• Two PCI Express x1 slots. (support PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant)
• Two 32-bit v2.3 master PCI bus slots.
- One orange slot which supports 2 masters for MSI special PCI function card (ex. wireless LAN and bluebooth combo card).
- Support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface.



On-Board IDE/SATA

• One Ultra DMA 66/100 IDE controllers integrated in ICH7DH and JMicron® JMB361.
- Supports PIO, Bus Master operation modes.
- Can connect up to four Ultra ATA drives.

• SATAII controller integrated in ICH7DH
- Up to 300MB/sec transfer speed.
- Can connect up to four SATAII devices.
- Supports AHCI controller with SATA RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1 (ICH7DH).

• JMicron® JMB361 chipest
- Supports RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD. (SATA 5 and IDE2)
MSI Reminds You...
• The RAID setup floppy disk is optional depending on the districts. You can download the files from the website to make the setup disk.
• To enhance IDE transfer speed, you may install JMicron IDE/SATA Driver. You may download the driver by clicking the "Driver" icon.




Audio

• Chip integrated by Realtek® AL882M
- Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 spec.


LAN

• Supports PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Intel 82573L


IEEE1394

• VIA® 6308P chipset
- Supports up to two 1394 ports. (Rear panel x1, pinheader x1)
- Transfer rate is up to 400Mbps.


Internal I/O Connectors

- ATX 24-Pin power connector
- ATX 4-pin VGA power connector
- 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
- CPU / System / NB FAN connectors
- CD-in connector
- Front panel audio connector
- Front panel connector
- 1 x D-Bracket 2 pinheader
- 1 x IEEE1394 connector support additional 1 ports
- 2 x USB 2.0 connector support additional 4 ports
- 1 x Floppy disk drive connector
- 5 x Serial ATAII connectors
- 2 x ATA133 HD connectors
MSI Reminds You...
• The floppy disk cable will be optional.


Back Panel I/O Ports

- 1 x Parallel port
- 1 x Serial port (COM 1)
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard
- 1 x PS/2 mouse

- 1 x Coaxial SPDIF out
- 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack (S/SPDIF out)
- 1 x IEEE1394 port
- 4 x USB 2.0 ports
- 1 x RJ45 LAN jack


BIOS

• The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and
expansion cards of the board automatically.
• The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface(DMI) function which records your
mainboard specifications.


Dimension

• 30.4cm(L) x 24.5cm(W) ATX Form Factor

Mounting

• 9 mounting holes.

 

It looks like this one is the replacement model from Asrock.. is it going to give me grief?

General
CPU - LGA 775 for Intel® Dual Core Core™ 2 Extreme / Core™ 2 Duo / Pentium® Dual Core / Celeron®, supporting Dual Core Wolfdale processors
- Compatible with all FSB1333*/1066/800/533MHz CPUs except Quad Core
- Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
- Supports Untied Overclocking Technology
- Supports EM64T CPU

*FSB1333-CPU will operate in overclocking mode. Under this situation, PCIE frequency will also be overclocked to 115MHz.
Chipset - Northbridge: Intel® 945P/945G
- Southbridge: Intel® ICH7R
Memory - Dual Channel DDRII memory technology
- 4 x DDRII DIMM slots
- Supports DDRII667/533 non-ECC, un-buffered memory
- Max. capacity of system memory: 4GB*

*Due to the chipset limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® XP, Windows® XP 64-bit, Windows® Vista™ and Windows® Vista™ 64-bit.
BIOS - 4Mb AMI BIOS
- AMI Legal BIOS
- Supports "Plug and Play"
- ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events
- Supports jumperfree
- SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support
Audio, Video and Networking
Graphics - n/a
Audio - 7.1 CH Windows® Vista™ Premium Level HD Audio (ALC888 Audio Codec)
LAN - PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
- Realtek RTL8111B
- Supports Wake-On-LAN
Expansion / Connectivity
Slots - Supports ATI™ CrossFire™
- 3 x PCI slots
- 1 x PCI Express x16 slot
- 1 x AGI Express slot (PCI Express x4)
- 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
Connector - 4 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5 and Intel® Matrix Storage), NCQ, AHCI and "Hot Plug" functions
- 2 x eSATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors (shared with 2 SATAII ports), support "Hot Plug" function
- 1 x ATA100 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)
- 1 x Floppy connector
- 1 x IR header
- 1x Game port header
- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header
- 2 x IEEE 1394 headers
- CPU/Chassis FAN connector
- 20 pin ATX power connector
- 4 pin 12V power connector
- SLI/XFire power connector
- CD in header
- Front panel audio connector
- 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports)
Rear Panel I/O ASRock 8CH_eSATAII I/O
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
- 1 x COM Port
- 1 x Parallel Port (ECP/EPP Support)
- 2 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
- 2 x eSATAII Ports
- 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port
- HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker / Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
Free Bundle: USB+1394 bracket, providing 2 additional USB 2.0 ports and 1 IEEE 1394 port
Other Features / Miscellaneous
Hybrid Booster - CPU Frequency Stepless Control
- ASRock U-COP
- Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)
Support CD - Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version)
Accessories - Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
- Floppy/ATA 100 cables
- 4 x SATA data cables (optional)
- 2 x SATA 1 to 1 power cables (optional)
- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF cable (optional)
- 1 x USB+1394 bracket
Hardware Monitor - CPU Temperature Sensing
- Chassis Temperature Sensing
- CPU Fan Tachometer
- Chassis Fan Tachometer
- CPU Quiet Fan
- Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore
Form Factor - ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 8.6-in, 30.5 cm x 21.8 cm
OS - Microsoft® Windows® 2000 / XP / XP 64-bit / Vista™ / Vista™ 64-bit compliant
Certifications - FCC, CE, WHQL

 

OK.. after a slightly less than successful purchase from E-bay (quoted a ConroeXfire-Esata2 board and in fact supplied a Conroe1333-eSata2 board) which is the replacement quoted above..

Is it likely to work (in the sense of trying to install my current XP and Vista set-up into it without too much hassle.. well rebulding!)?

Or shall I be loloking for a return and refund?

 

Vista should be far more tolerant of the new mobo than XP may be. Best thing to do is see what happens really. XP Repair should give you a good chance of using the old installation if it does blue screen the first time you try and boot it.

 

The main problem with XP is with SATA. If it is set to 'compatable' (or similar) then things are usualy OK. Otherwise you need to get XP to recognize the drivers.

Harry.

 

Hmm.. I think it's time to put the old girl back together and see what happens I guess.. the specs are pretty similar.. I'm banking on the recovery console for XP wheras Vista is a voyage of discovery!

For someone who works in IT I seem to attract more than my fair share of problems!

 

problems happen to us all mate, let us know how it goes.

 

Well.. I put in the new board (STILL can't get the front audio header to work.. didn't on the old board either).. and it actually.. it all went pretty smoothly.. XP had a bitch about the ATI card.. but a quick driver and Catalyst Control Centre reinstall and it was ok.. Vista had a bit of a wibble at first log on and then calmed down.. so fingers crossed.. so far so good!

Thanks for all the advice )