My Computer broke but now it's fixed.

[Zakamiro]

What up dome dizzles. Mah shit broke.

My 80 GB IDE drive has a recent history of randomly quitting every so often, but after a small readjustment of the IDE cable, works fine. X$ So anyway, I thought this time I would make an especially good readjustment and take out my video card (it's seriously that long) and make sure the ribbon was well seated. OK, done. I plug in my video card, screw it back in, and i turn on my computer... and guess what!

BLACK SCREEN'd.

No video output whatsoever.

So I take my other AGP 4x/8x card, put it in, still nothing. I grab my 7800GS and bike over to my friends house (at 11 pm, I pissed off his grandma) and put my card in... Works fine. Now knowing it's not my video card that's the problem, what could make my computer fuck up like this? I'm strongly thinking it is the motherboard. One reason I this this is because I had forgotten to pull out my power cable from my power supply or at least turn the power supply off. X[[[[[[[[[ Stupid, I know. But hopefully it's something fixable. I'd hate to have to use a fourth motherboard.

Help would be great, not only in trying to fix it but searchnig for a replacement.

I need something socket 478, with 4 DDR DIMM slots, and at least 3 PCI slots and 1 AGP 8x slot. SATAII is a big plus.

thanks

[Spectere]

That sucks, dude.   Sadly, I think your motherboard is the most likely suspect.  Before going any further, try jumping the CMOS reset jumper.  I've had a system refuse to boot until I did that before.

As far as getting a replacement board, I did a quick check (as I'm sure you did) and Newegg is a bit lacking on socket 478 stuff.  All I could find are MicroATX boards with a max of 2 DDR DIMM slots.  TigerDirect didn't even have that.  If it is the mobo you might have to see if you can send it back to the manufacturer for repair if you can't find any other sites.  Springing for an upgrade would be hella expensive because you'd have to pretty much replace everything (PCI-E video card, DDR2 RAM, new processor...le sigh).

[Bobbias]

Yeah, it's pretty terrible when your mobo goes, because it pretty much renders your comp toast. Especially now, when they're coming out with new socket formats and such so quickly.

[Malwyn]

LGA775 processors aren't that expensive. You could grab one hella cheap celeron D or even a low-end core 2 duo, and motherboards with agp and pci-e do exist. I considered getting one to ease the upgrade process but in the end just went all out with case, motherboard, ram, hdd, video card and processor and ended up paying less than $600 in total.

Colin Farrell is hot.

[Zakamiro]

I at least want to get a replacement motherboard. This way, I can actually use this computer for a server or something when I do upgrade, instead of just having 4 sticks of DDR400 memory, a good AGP card, a socket 478 CPU and crap just on the side. I think I'll buy another ASUS P4P800 SE, which I currently own two of (the one that just broke and the one just before). I'm going to call ASUS tech support and tell them that "it just broke". Maybe I can RMA it, maybe not. Anyway, if a fix isn't available, I will definitely be buying a replacement. Something to hold me over until I get my new *UP*grade. maybe quadcore and an 8800GTX. haha, who knows. Anyway, yeah.

[Spectere]

Trying to RMA it would be your best bet, methinks.  Another option, if that fails, is to try to get a socket 478 mobo off eBay.  Here's a P4P800 SE here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ASUS-P4P800-SE-Socket-478-Intel-P4-AGP-DDR-Motherboard_W0QQitemZ130154024046QQihZ003QQcategoryZ80158QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The only problem with that option is that they tend to be overpriced (some going up to $130-140, with $20-30 shipping).  The P4P800 is a damn fine mobo, but considering socket 478 is quite dead now it's a shame to have to pay so much for it, even for a high-end board.

A P4P8X might be a cheaper alternative for you.  That's the board that I have and I have yet to have any problems with it.  The only problem with it is that apparently the only way it supports P4s with 800MHz FSBs is by overclocking the bus (I have one of the crappier 533MHz FSB P4s with disabled hyperthreading, so I don't have to worry about such things).  From what I understand it's stable at that rate but if you go that route you may not be able to overclock your system to the level that you have now (your setup was a P4 3.2 processor running at 3.8, right?).

[Ulti]

maybe quadcore and an 8800GTX.

I can vouch for how much this rules. Or at least a GTS <_<

Sucks though, I had a faulty RAM slot on my mobo that made the entire system go berserk, it took me several hours to figure out what was wrong with it. Luckily all I had to do was move around the cards, though. It ended up working out.

[Zakamiro]

ok, I fixed it. one of my memory sticks wasnt in all the way. LOL. ok srs. thanks guyz. XD

[Bobbias]

Ok.. How is that even possible.. I thought ram was built so it couldn't be be put in the wrong way...

[Spectere]

Woo, that's good to hear.

It's so easy to overlook simple stuff like that.  Damn computers.

[Bobbias]

I still want to know how it could possibly be in wrong.. Unless it just wasn't in far enough or something.

[Spectere]

He mentioned that it wasn't in far enough.  It probably didn't quite click in the slot; rather easy to do.

[Zakamiro]

I must have pushed down on the lever thing and it pushed it up.  You can insert a memory stick halfway.. XD

I'm surprised it took it so well, like, without damaging my memory or anything.

[Bobbias]

Ahh, that was what I was thinking about. That's really the only way to not put in memory right, lol.

[Spectere]

I'm surprised it took it so well, like, without damaging my memory or anything.

Indeed -- otherwise you would have had a not-so-good real-life situation that your avatar could have applied to.