On Wednesday 29 July 2009 13:02:28 Joseph Apuzzo wrote:
Yes the saga of my 2am mother board purchase ended at 6:34pm Tuesday July
28, 2009 when it was pronounced DOA.
Cause of death the nForce 710a north bridge burned up in a ball of hot
silicon, that is the tard design of having a nVidia 8200 GPU in the
north-bridge chip with NO cooling or fins finally made it give up.
An interesting side note: about two weeks ago the passive heatsink on the
northbridge on my motherboard let go from the motherboard. The reason
this
happened was that the holders for the heatsink were wire loops soldered
down
to the motherboard, and the solder joint let go so the holder came loose.
At
the same time the board was hitting the 75 deg C heat limit during kernel
compiles causing the board complain loudly and then shut down -- this was
a
good thing because it caused me to investigate the cause.
Unlike your story, this one has a happy ending -- after pulling the board
out
of the case I found the wire loop part that had let go, and soldered it
back
onto the motherboard using a soldering iron rated for ESD work. The box
is
running well again now. I guess I got lucky.
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en-us/t-series/introduction.php?S_ID=361#
Note: the picture in the above link of a "TF720 A2+ 6.x" motherboard seems
to
show a northbridge that has a heatsink (it has the name "Biostar"
imprinted on
it), held in place with spring-loaded plastic clips that grab the
motherboard
through holes. Was this heatsink missing on your board?
The 720a chip was running at 70c ( normal operating temperatures should
not
exceed 50c on that chip ), I was about to add a copper heat sink and fan
but it's dead now ( anyone want to buy a chipset cooler? $12 cheep! )
I guess you could think of this as a blessing in disguise. Now you get to
take time and research what's "right" for your needs.
So I've turned the page and need to get back on my feet ( need a PC to
complete my resurch for next month's talk ) here is what I'm thinking of
doing:
1) Salvage my 2600+ 65w 64bit Athlon CPU and 4GB of DDR2 memory along
with
power supply ( 550w ) case etc.
This is probably what I'd do too.
2) Get the following new MB and new Video card:
GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard( since
this board has the AMD 790x + SB750 chipset, the best one out currently )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387
I had a look to see if there was another alternative that had an AMD 790x
northbridge and SB750 southbridge without onboard video. I found one, but
you're going to laugh when you see the ONE customer review of it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138147
I tried to look for an ASUS board that fit, but most of their models ship
with
onboard video that shares 512M of main RAM.
If you're set on the AMD 790x northbridge + SB750 southbridge, you may
have
found the best option already. Just be sure to do a "burn-in" on it, as
several people complained of the motherboard being DOA or different
hardware
portions having latent failure within a couple of months.
SAPPHIRE 100255HDMI Radeon HD 4670 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0
x16
HDCP Ready Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102820
It's fine as long as you want something VERY loud and power hungry. :-/
Quoting a review: "The fan is, IMO, loud. Too loud, even at idle."
Apparently
it'll run Crysis on LOW detail settings at 10-15 FPS -- your T61p LAPTOP
does
better than that.
If it were me I'd want something FANLESS, like any of the following:
HIS H465PS512P Radeon HD 4650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
Ready; $53
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161274
same thing, with 1GB RAM, $92:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161272
POWERCOLOR SCS3 AX4650 512MD2-S3 Radeon HD 4650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI
Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready; $57
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131135
GIGABYTE GV-R485MC-1GI Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0
x16
HDCP Ready; $130
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125258
3) Then by Q2-Q4 2010 I will upgrade my CPU to a 4 core since this mother
board can easy support AM2+/AM3 versions
Only if you have the need for more speed.
So before making the 2am mistake again any suggestions, comments,
constructive discussion?
Done. ;-)
-- Chris
--
Chris Knadle
[email protected]
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