Is my Motherboard Toast

Hi all,
Mac mini Core Solo / 1GB RAM / OS 10.4.6 fully software updated save the last security update.
All functioning well for a few weeks, then put the mini to sleep for a few hours. Got the dreaded couldn't wake from sleep. Black screen all that. Hard shutdown performed via power button. Power on, hmm - power light indicator solid, CD spins up for 3 seconds spins down, monitor black with monitor light blinking. No power to the mouse, so presumably no power to the keyboard.
That last point seems backed up by not being able to perform any keyboard troubleshoot combo. So no PRAM zap, Single user more, verbose mode, safe mode or open firmware.
Tried PMU set, nothing.
So I fear that the mobo is gone. Will call Applecare shortly, but wanted to know if anyone has seen this before.
Thought it might be the HD bumming out from me powering off in a write sequence, but I don't see why that would impede power to keyboard, and I'd get the flashing question mark.
Any thoughts welcomed.

That's not necessarily true. The hard drive and/or optical drive could be spinning up just because they've been powered on. The logic board could have a had a fault that didn't involve the power. Since the video "card" is integrated with the Mac mini's logic board, by definition, a "video card" failure would be a logic board failure too.
-Doug

Similar Messages

Is my motherboard toast?!?! serious sound problem

I have a K9N2 platinum motherboard. I play games like counter strike source, and battlefield 2 on my computer. For a long time I have been using a soundblaster x-fi sound card. for the past few months whenever I play a game, after about 15-45 minutes of playing my sound would cut out, the game would freeze/lag up momentarily, then continue with no sound. If I exited the game, 3/4's of the time I would still have sound at my desktop, and again if I restarted the game. SO this whole time I've been figuring that my soundcard was the culprit, and it was nearing its end. so recently I switched to the onboard sound of my mobo :/ which seemed to work fine until.... THE SAME THING HAPPENED! so now i'm left to assume only that something is going wrong with the motherboard to cause this. Also, a lot of the time when the sound cuts out, there is a very sharp, loud popping sound right before I lose sound.
what is a boy to do? I love this mobo, and will probably just end up dealing with it for a long time before I invest any time/money into fixing it.
Specs:
MSI K9N2 Platinum nForce SLI, AM2+
AMD64 6000+ 3.1Ghz
4gb DDR2 800
PNY 9800 gt 1gb

Quote from: Gristle on 03-March-10, 04:09:10
I have a K9N2 platinum motherboard. I play games like counter strike source, and battlefield 2 on my computer. For a long time I have been using a soundblaster x-fi sound card. for the past few months whenever I play a game, after about 15-45 minutes of playing my sound would cut out, the game would freeze/lag up momentarily, then continue with no sound. If I exited the game, 3/4's of the time I would still have sound at my desktop, and again if I restarted the game. SO this whole time I've been figuring that my soundcard was the culprit, and it was nearing its end. so recently I switched to the onboard sound of my mobo :/ which seemed to work fine until.... THE SAME THING HAPPENED! so now i'm left to assume only that something is going wrong with the motherboard to cause this. Also, a lot of the time when the sound cuts out, there is a very sharp, loud popping sound right before I lose sound.
what is a boy to do? I love this mobo, and will probably just end up dealing with it for a long time before I invest any time/money into fixing it.
Specs:
MSI K9N2 Platinum nForce SLI, AM2+
AMD64 6000+ 3.1Ghz
4gb DDR2 800
PNY 9800 gt 1gb
What if you use onboard sound instead?

My laptop motherboard burnt and I can't find international assistance.

I bought two HP Pavilion tx1030la Notebook PC in Chile. I lived and worked there.
Then I moved back to Brazil.
1 and 1/2 year later one of them had its motherboard toasted. The second one, less used, already lost the wireless and the screen goes blank very often. It will burn soon.
From day 1, both were extremely hot at the vents, but since both were like this, I figured it should be some design flaw.
I couldn't expect to lose 2 expensive laptops, with touchscreen, voice recognition, handwriting recognition, fingerprint recognition, full multimedia package, TL50 Processor AMD Turion 64X2, 120GB hard disk Enhanced IDE 5400 RPM SATA, 1024 MB RAM 667Mhz DDR2, DVD+-RW with Lightscribe, Windows Vista, Graphics NVidia and so on.
Now I know I am not alone out there. It happened with a whole bunch of other people and it follows the same steps: too hot, screen going blank, problems turning on and then death by heat. And sometimes, in the process, losing the wireless function.
Now I know it wasn't a design flaw. It is an engineering flaw.
But what's boiling for me? Well, besides having lost 2 new laptops... I am in an HP assistance limbo. I've been tossed into oblivion, only because I live in a different country than the country of purchase.
So, because I moved from one country to another, HP is diregarding the problem, as if it did not exist. HP US does not respond. HP Chile does not respond. HP Brazil said, over the phone, that laptops bought abroad won't be serviced in Brazil, but wouldn't put this into writing.
In my frustrated contact attempts with HP assistance I had just a few simple questions:
1) Is 1 and ½ years the expected life span of an HP Laptop?
2) Is it a flaw in the project that they get so hot? (now I know this problem is big, with many customers around the globe suffering from the same problem.)
3) What can I do to prevent the second one from burning too? (in a vain effort to stretch the life of the second one, I updated the bios and increased the RAM to max specs)
4) What can HP do to help me with my burned laptop?
So, anyone out there can shed a light into this? I will be grateful.

While I hope GarenT can assist you, I did want to mention that the heat issue is not - to my knowledge - a problem with one particular notebook, but more a problem with notebooks in general. You have all the same stuff that you put in a desktop in a much smaller amount of space, often used on laps and in warm environments for long periods of time. To keep your other notebook from having heat-related issues, please make sure to ALWAYS use a cooling pad with it, preferably with a gap between the bottom of your notebook and the fans from the cooling pad, with the fans on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My posts are my opinions and experiences from working in the tech industry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 error

Came home the other day to my screen repeating the following over and over again:
For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
Copyright (c) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
Tried to reload Windows XP and had no avail what so ever, this the error i recieve:
Set up did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer.
Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected
to your computer, and that any disk related hardware configuration is
correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or
setup program.
Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3.
Is my motherboard toast? Any suggestions welcome. Hate to see my machine go, after 5 years of great service.

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
It means the hard drive was not found by the BIOS. (PXE indicates an attempt to boot from a network - lower on the list.)
So it's the hard disk that's toast.
-Jerry

Computer keeps getting folder with a question mark (?) I changed the HD and the SATA cable, now what?

The problem started when my computer was having problems reading the HD by slowing down and freezing. The Apple Genius told me the computer needed a new HD, and that it would cost $228 to replace it through them. I opted out and purchased a Hd myself and installed it. Everything was good for about two months until one day the screen went black and I smelled something burning on my Mac, yes like fire. Upon inspection I found the burning smell came from the middle of the SATA cable and that it shorted. I ordered a new cable from Hong Kong that took 22 days to get here. It still does not read the HD. I tried a SATA cable from a 2011 MacBook that still works (had to stretch it a little but still connected) I also tried the previous HD that was in there and two other HD from 2 different MacBooks that are still functional. Nothing worked. Is my motherboard toast as a result of the SATA cable dying? The computer reads an external drive, however, and can boot into time machine. The cable, btw had been receiving physical damage from the case when the MacBook lost its little black feet. This is where it fried as the section that had marks from the case melted the plastic right underneath.

Prep your new drive:
Drive Preparation
1. Boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs,) then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
After formatting has completed quit DU and return to the installer. Install OS X.

Slow boot to win98 startup disk using K7N2-L

Hey,
I am building a system using the K7N2-L motherboard and I am having some trouble with it. For one thing it won't boot to the win98 CD from the CD rom and it takes a good 5-10 minutes to start the machine using a startup disk.
I am using a XP 2200+ processor and a Western Digital 120GB Special Edition Drive with 256Gb of Crucial Ram.
Is the motherboard toast is it just me? ?(
Cheers,
Topper.

Cheers Chaps,
Yep, I had it jumpered as master and as soon as I stripped the jumper off everything was as right as rain. You've never seen the win98 setup programs speed past 7 minutes so quickly! I love my MSI board.
Horse.

BIOS corruption after reflow...what now?

First off, I apologise if I'm posting in the wing area. I'm not a techie, so I also apologise before hand if I use the wing terminology. Here's my deal. I got the good ole black screen with error code 1. I looked up what's going on. Being the mechanical type, I figured I could handle doing a reflow of the graphics cards. I took it all apart, heated both of the cards to 360° and let them cool. I put some arctic silver on the heat sink and put everything back together, expecting it to fire right up. It didn't. What I've got now is the black screen with the caps and number locks flashing twice. SO, I tried the hard reset but that's not working. Not knowing anything about how computers run, I don't know what to do now. I think I connected everything correctly while reassembling the computer, but could I have put it back together wrong? Is my issue most likely that my motherboard toast? Thanks in advance, Jeremy

You may have damaged the MoBo with your fix, it's really hard to say, what you did is like calling half of Newyorks' fire department to put out a camp fire.
Despite what the error code says, those codes are a general guide and what ever trouble shooting steps you take, you should have started off with the least invasive _ like checking your memory.
Do that now.
Do a hard reset first (again), unplug the adapter and remove the battery _ hold down the power button for 1 minuter.
Remove one stick of RAM and leave one in the bottom slot.
Plug in the adapter only (leave the battery out) and boot up.
If no go try the other stick of memory and the bottom slot.
If it boots up then the other memory stick is bad (obviously)
Shut down and install the battery.
If it still does not boot, you may need a new MoBo _ only so much can be done here on a forum.
If you take it to a reputable repair shop (not Geek Squad), it will probably cost more to fix then what it's worth.
I also recommend to try the memory out of the broken laptop in a healthy machine just to rule that out 100%.
If you want help shopping for a new MoBo, the I need you full model number off the bottom of the laptop.
Don't give me the serial number.
Also, when you removed the memory, there is a part number there underneath ending in 001.
That is the MoBo's part number, give that to me.

T60p will not power up

my t60p 8744j2u will not power on. battery light flashes when ac plugged in. is my motherboard toast? if so I'd like to upgrade to the best configuration to run autocad. any suggestions on a new motherboard? Graphics card? CPU? When it was running the fan made the loudest noise. Could that have caused overheating to kill it?

S65 wrote:
Hi,
The first time user here.
I have the same problem with my T61 6460 DWU. I followed the above instruction. Nothing appeared.
What should I do? Please help.
Thank you very much!
K.
Huh...T61 with nVidia graphics...I'm fairly certain that you'll need a new motherboard or a replacement laptop altogether.
Good luck.
Cheers,
George
In daily use: R60F, R500F, T61, T410
Collecting dust: T60
Enjoying retirement: A31p, T42p,
Non-ThinkPads: Panasonic CF-31 & CF-52, HP 8760W
Starting Thursday, 08/14/2014 I'll be away from the forums until further notice. Please do NOT send private messages since I won't be able to read them. Thank you.

Bios Recovery HP G60 Laptop

Hey when i try to update my bios when it is on the middle process then it goes not responding i read many site how to recover the bios and they all said i must use crisis recovery disk but i dont have a usb floppy can i use bootable disk

hello I have a 6910P, that got messed up when I upgraded the memory to 4gb, its was running fine, then I plugged my wall charger in, and it stated your charger is not the right power
or something to that effect, then it shut down.
I have read a few threads, that stated it was a bios issue,
but the issue is that I cant get into the bios to upgrade it, and or reset the settings
i have removed the cmos battery
I have also tried this
Just so nobody else has to go through this hell I finally got it working fo me on my HP G60-235DX.
I downloaded the latest Bios (360BF65.FD)
Made two copies and renamed them to 3612.FD and 3612.BIN (Not sure which is exactly right)
Copied that to a small (256MB) SD Card (Any 2Gig and below would probably work)
Placed the SD in the laptop
Removed Battery and AC from the laptop
Pressed and held both WIN and B Key
Inserted AC, waited 4 seconds and pressed power, released WIN+B right after pressing power.
Give it a minute and it will start to beep very annoyingly, nothing will be on screen.
It powers down when its done and that's it.
my machine refuses to boot to the bios, I only have a 4Gb usb drive formatted to FAT, is this drive just too large or something?
also I know the unit still works as the cpu fans turns on as soon as I insert the battery, and the hd light on the front is also on. the cpu fan just stays, and then turns off... over and over again.
I also bought a brand new oem hp charger, and also put back the original 1GB ram stick
is my motherboard toast, or do I need to find a super small flash drive, or buy the darn usb floppy drive
thanks for any help

6910P bios recover usb flash drive issue

hello I have a 6910P, that got messed up when I upgraded the memory to 4gb, its was running fine, then I plugged my wall charger in, and it stated your charger is not the right power
or something to that effect, then it shut down.
I have read a few threads, that stated it was a bios issue,
but the issue is that I cant get into the bios to upgrade it, and or reset the settings
i have removed the cmos battery
I have also tried this
Just so nobody else has to go through this hell I finally got it working fo me on my HP G60-235DX.
I downloaded the latest Bios (360BF65.FD)
Made two copies and renamed them to 3612.FD and 3612.BIN (Not sure which is exactly right)
Copied that to a small (256MB) SD Card (Any 2Gig and below would probably work)
Placed the SD in the laptop
Removed Battery and AC from the laptop
Pressed and held both WIN and B Key
Inserted AC, waited 4 seconds and pressed power, released WIN+B right after pressing power.
Give it a minute and it will start to beep very annoyingly, nothing will be on screen.
It powers down when its done and that's it.
my machine refuses to boot to the bios, I only have a 4Gb usb drive formatted to FAT, is this drive just too large or something?
also I know the unit still works as the cpu fans turns on as soon as I insert the battery, and the hd light on the front is also on. the cpu fan just stays, and then turns off... over and over again.
I also bought a brand new oem hp charger, and also put back the original 1GB ram stick
is my motherboard toast, or do I need to find a super small flash drive, or buy the darn usb floppy drive
thanks for any help

Looks like some high quality brand
google link
edit: bullshit, this seems to have nothing to do with the brand I guess...
Last edited by hokasch (2010-05-10 17:51:36)

Replacement Motherboard for Dual 1ghz MDD G4

My original motherboard for my G4 is toast.
What replacement Motherboards are compatible with my dual 1ghz
mdd G4?
The white sticker on board reads: 630T3984/630-4256
Thanks
Eric

Ouch, I was hoping it wouldn't be one of those.
I think it has to be the same. My info comes from an Apple document discussing CPU upgrades.
Wait ... quoted -
Before Replacing the Processor
Important:
Apple has determined a compatibility issue between the processor and certain
fabrication levels of the logic board on some Power Mac Server G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors)
and Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors) products. Before ordering a replacement
processor for those models, follow these steps:
1. Open the computer and check the fabrication number that is printed on the logic
board. The fabrication number is easily visible at the edge of the board near PCI card
slot 5.
2. If the logic board fabrication number is 820-1308, 820-1440, or 820-1445, do
not
order the processor module. Instead, you must replace both the logic board and the
processor by ordering the combined module: Module Set, Logic and Processor (Apple
part number 661-3654).
Replacement Warning:
When ordering this combined module set, a returned logic
board must match one of the three fabrication numbers (820-1308, 820-1440, or 820-
1445). If the logic board does not match one of these fabrication numbers, it will be
rejected.
3. If the logic board fabrication number is any other number (
not
820-1308, 820-1440, or
820-1445), order only the multiprocessor module (Apple part number 661-2730).
So make of it what you will. If your email address is in your profile, I'll email the whole document - it's a bible for MDD owners - shows you how to remove and replace everything, with photos. It's only 3.3MB.

Motherboard is not detecting my soundcard Please he

ok heres what happened, i was flashed my motherboard bios because i was told it would fix a tempereture reading problem(temps where way to high)anyways after i rebooted i noticed i didnt have any sound.As i was reinstalling my drivers i got an error message saying my soundcard wasnt detected.Does anyone know what i can do? I have a SB Audigy 2.thanks

If, "... I was flashed my motherboard bios..." means you updated your bios then you need to check that onboard audio has been disabled in the bios (as enabled is the default). The other thing that your adviser should have warned you about is that playing around with the bios is risky.
If this does not work check that the soundcard is getting power by looking to see if there is a red light in the optical out port. If this is the case the card is possibly toast and you need to buy a new one.
I have experienced this by inserting a microphone in the headset jack and received the same message but in that case the card worked again after a few days of non use.

Toast 9.0.4 causes forced shut down

Regarding Mac Pro quad 2.66 - - I am having a conflict between 10.5.6 and Toast 9.0.4 where sometimes (especially after waking from sleep) Toast will not quit or force quit. Restart will not work when this occurs, nor will Shut Down. Holding the button in is the only way to shut off the computer.
Where would I look for conflict reports, log reports about this???

Apple Authorized Service Provider has changed out the motherboard and all is now well. So far every computer purchased from Apple (last 5 anyway) have had catastrophic problems. G4, 3 iMacs, Mac Pro and my Cinema Display!!! All have gone in for major repairs atleast once. White 20" iMac 3 times, Mac Pro twice, 24" imac returned out-right, now our new 20" aluminum iMac is going in this week for a video board problem, not to mention the horrible screen appearance even when it is working... Geez!!!!!!
Oh, and my G3 tower had to have a new ATI 128 pro video card after just 1 year!!!
I did have a Power PC 7600 AV for over 8 years with no problems at all.

G5 Freeze - new motherboard, still freezing

Hi.
A few months ago my PPC G5 started freezing while I was working. After a lot of tests, with updating OSX, and new RAM, Apple decided the problem was in the motherboard. I bought a new one, and after a looooong time waiting for the board to arrive and them to install it, Apple gave my machine back.
After a week working perfectly, when I used FinalCut Pro to encode a video, BANG! freezes again, and keep freezing even when using TextEdit or lighter applications. Sent back to Apple, and after some weeks they said "you need a new motherboard, but it is our fault, we'll substitute it for you".
Almost a month later, I went there to pick my computer. We tested enconding video in FinalCut togheter with Photoshop instalation and video convertin on Quicktime. Worked very well.
4 days later, the first freeze, and again I cannot work anymore. If I open GMail, this thing goes down. I'm using IStat Widged to monitor hardware, and it freezes even with no memory or processor hard activity.
Does anyone has some clue? Apple doesn't.
Luiz

The hatter,
Will try to be more specific:
I have two identical computers here, PPC G5 Dual 2.0 with 2.5 RAM, same storage devices, same display and same instaled softwares: FinalCutPro, DVDStudioPro, Adobe Photoshop CS2.
One year ago, one computer started reading 1GB RAM instead of 2.5. I restarted it and it came back okay, no more problems. In March it started freezing, but just once in a while. I reinstaled OSX, updated it and keep freezing.
I called Apple here, they said by phone: "maybe it is the memory, try to take it out and put again, maybe is the position in the slots". I did and no more freezes that day. But just that day, so I send it to them to test.
Took some weeks for me to get an answer, and came: "motherboard is the problem, we tested with another processor and it is fine". After a long time the board arrived (I'm in Brazil!), and Apple called me: "came and get it, your computer is okay".
Like I said, in a few days it started freezing again and I sent it to Apple: "wow, the problem is the motherboard again, the one we instaled is not working properly, we need a new one but you don't need to pay for it, was our fault". More waiting for the new motherboard to arrive. Apple called me: "we put your machine to be tested with our hardware test software. It is running since yesterday and it is fine. But if you want come here and we can test together". I went there and installed FinalCutPro with then, so we encoded a video while compressing another one and doing more things at the same time. Worked fine. It was Thursday.
On Monday I took a VIDEO_TS folder of a 8GB DVD I did here and put on Toast to burn in a 4.3GB DVD. This compression process is one of the freezers in the past. It worked fine. Next day I opened HandShake to make a video from a DVD. More than 5 freezes in one hour. I restarted the process 6 times. Since that, more freezes all the time.
I really dont know the tests the made, and the two computers are in the same room here, with the same conditions, same kind of use and same age, and behind 1000VA...
Sometimes I think this machine is placed over a indian graveyard like in Poltergeist movie.
But I'll talt to Apple phone like DaddyPayCheck said, and after that I'll came here again and tell you all about the solution.
Thanks The Hatter.

P67 Motherboards Warranty

Hello everybody I'm new to these forums, so sorry if this post is in the wrong place.
When Intel have sorted out the SATA II problem with the H67/P67 chipsets I plan on building a P67 based system. I've done a lot of reading up on which parts I need to buy and have narrowed my motherboard choice down to three, one of which is the P67A-GD65. The build quality of this board looks really good.
Whilst reading up on the parts needed, I noticed that some companies don't have a UK based RMA department, and if anything goes wrong, UK end users would need to send the faulty goods to the Netherlands or the US.
Could somebody please explain how the MSI RMA process works, or if something goes wrong do I just contact the reseller, even if it is in the second year of the warranty period.
Any help would be much appreciated

Quote from: Stu on 23-February-11, 02:52:01
In the UK, as in the rest of the EU, if your item develops a fault or needs repair/replacement, you have to return it to your store/retailer/reseller, who will either replace the item under warranty, or return it to MSI for repairs/replacement.
They may have done in the past, but MSI UK no longer offers a direct RMA service to end-users, apart from for notebooks and all-in-one systems.
I'm a bit concerned about this, because just the other day in fact, a coworker came by and had a P67 55 series board with him. He won it in a raffle at some electronics convention or something to that effect. So as you can imagine, he has absolutely no idea what retailer/etailer it came from.
There we are, giving it a once over and then installing it. Sure enough, it has one of the dreaded blinking cursor errors that are synonymous with faulty P67 boards. We went through all the known P67 checklists and it's safe to say the board is toasted.
I had this idea and took the serial number then called MSI support to see if they could trace it to the dealer that sold it. They said they could only advise which distributor carried it. So then we speak to the distributor who say that they cannot give out the details of the retailer because they(the distributor) do not speak to end users(private users) which is a trade level policy.
So, if the distributor cannot advise who the dealer was, and MSI won't cover this, he's out of luck, and I suppose the sentiment is that because it was free he can't complain?
I've worked distribution, the 'two year' warranty is a loophole at best. It's tied up by all kinds of red tape and directive beuracracy. In the end, it's down to whether the dealer/distributor etc. wants to go out of pocket and extend and honour beyond their normal DOA period. If they don't and you want to press the matter, then you'll wind up in a county court trying to win a case.
I don't see why it's become so difficult these days to get manufacturers to stand behind their products literally, and not just figuratively. MSI built the product, it's faulty. The serial proves it's a legitimate, non imported, non gray product for distribution and sale in the UK. It's as simple as that.
Surely manufacturers understand that gifts are common, and you can't expect people to go playing detective to try and figure out where something came from. Ebay anyone?

Is my Motherboard Toast

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