I think I fried a mobo and CPU

**tdavies** · March 28th, 2005, 03:59 PM

Hi, a friend recomended this forum for some help in these circumstances. Actually I have 2 problems but I will seek help with this one first. I was given a GA-5AX Rev5.2 mobo with K62 550 CPU fitted and told that the mobo was probobly faulty. I plugged in a cheap but working 235watt PSU, an old PCI graphics card and 32MB of fully tested SDR. The machine posted fine and I was jubulant. I had a p133 that I didnt know if it was working. I put it in the board and changed the jumpers and switches according to mobo manule. It again posted fine. I put the 550 back in, found a better HS/Fan than was on the CPU and struggled to get it on. I went for some dinner, came back, got the HS/fan on, forgot to change the jumpers/switches, powered up, no post, remembered I hadnt changed those important things like voltage, pulled the plug. Now I presumed I had fryed the K62 550, makes sense to me, it recieved 3.3v instead of 2.2(or whatever its supposed to be). So I thought I'd try the p133 back in the unit, changed the jumpers etc back and it still wouldnt post. As I went to remove the HS my left hand touched one of the capacitors that are bunched around (what I think is) a voltage regulator near the ps/2 ports and it was very hot (only one of them was hot). Far above what it should ever get to if things were working fine, so I fear I broke the board to.

What are your professional opions on this? could it just be the cap that is gone? My guess would be that the cpu is dead and the board as well. Is there any hope for the board, my soldering isnt bad and i've a copule of dead boards around that I might get an identicle working cap from, any help is appreciated. One last thing is that the mobo/cpu was given to me by an experienced tech, I was a tennant of his and when he saw all the pc gear I had he asked me if I wanted the stuff he was throwing out of his garage, being a horder I said yes but only 10 months later when I've moved house did I have the room to start testing all this old gear. So I know he was an experienced tech so it would be unusual for him to wrongly diagnose the mainboard fault, so perhaps it was dying anyway and the cpu is okay?? I thought that might be important.

**Cyphrr** · March 30th, 2005, 12:10 AM

Welcome to Windrivers tdavies.

One thing I am wondering is the voltage change with the processors. The P133 is a single core voltage CPU. The K62 550 is a dual voltage core processor, because of MMX technology. If you don’t switch between single, and dual core voltages, problems can be had. Basically it boils down to the fact that you experienced a hot component that is not good. Sure some run warm, even hot, but it’s not good. I am afraid that the mobo and or CPU, is gone.

**tdavies** · March 31st, 2005, 04:37 AM

thanks for reply, I guess I knew it was all over for the cpu, I had kinda hoped that I might resuce the board but I thought it would be gone. That cap was very hot. Ahh well, live n learn, or live and forget. So used to useing modern boards that you dont have jumpers on I killed the old board. If I'd been working on that board 3-4 years ago I wouldnt have killed it.