Lightning Storm Damage

Discussion about Intel CPU Motherboards
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Kaos Kid
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Lightning Storm Damage

Post by Kaos Kid »

A good friend of mine just brought his computer over, he says it hasn't started since our area had bad electrical storms last month. He said that he had this plugged into the same power strip as his printer, monitor, cable modem, etc. but only the computer doesn't seem to be operating. I set him up with an old P4 computer to use (and he says all the other components previously mentioned are working) while I troubleshoot this one but his wife wants something at least as fast as what he had. I believe that the power surge actually came through the phone lines to his PCI addon card 56K data/fax dialup modem because he said that his phone lines blew out as well in his trailer and had to have the phone company replace all that including the master box. Since all my spare parts are AMD, I don't have another socket775 cpu to test his mobo with, nor a socket775 mobo to test his cpu with. The power surge did not damage his hdd, I hooked that up to my computer and was able to access it no problem, I'll just have to copy all his data over and do a fresh install unless I find that same mobo or at least one using the same chipset.

I did hook up a known good psu to his mobo and used my voltmeter to check it. The mobo would show a red light blink on and the cpu fan as well as the psu fan would spin for a second, then the light would go out and the fan would stop spinning, then start up and stop again indefinitely. While the known good psu is hooked up to it, it shows volts are way out of spec and actually go into the negative while it tries to spin up. Do you think it is safe to assume that the mobo is toast but the cpu is still good? Or if the mobo is still good but the cpu is toast? Or just that both are fried? I don't want to waste time and money trying to find a replacement mobo that can use his cpu, nor a cpu for the existing mobo if both are toast anyway, or he can get a faster mobo/cpu combo for the same amount or less anyway. I guess he really doesn't even have to stay with Intel if both need to be replaced I could go with an amd setup that is at least as fast as what he had.

Here are the specs to his computer, it looks like a crappy little off brand (systemax maybe?) that he bought directly off the internet because the only info I can find for it was on supportforyourpc.com. It doesn't even have a COA on the case so I will probably have to find an OS for him to use as well.
Intel No O/S S775 MATX BTO PC
Serial number:
Order number:
Ship Date: 7-24-2007


Your computer contains the following:
(1) Whitebox Branding
(1) Mini-Tower mATX Chassis
(1) Microsoft Windows XP Home System Builder
(1) Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 2.0GHz 2M Processor
(1) 1GB DDR2 800MHZ PC6400 Memory (1GB x 1) (I later put in 2x512MB so he could take advantage of dual-channel)
(1) Intel DQ965GFKR S775 mATX Motherboard w/Gigabit LAN
(1) 160GB 7200RPM 3G SATA II Hard Drive
(1) 350 Watt Power Supply
(1) 20X DVDRW Dual Layer Drive
(1) 20X Dual Layer DVD+/-R/RW Drive
(1) 56K V.92 PCI Data/Fax Modem
(1) 9-in-1 USB Card Reader
(1) 104 Keyboard Black PS/2
(1) PS/2 Scroll Mouse Black
Knowing all this, anybody have any suggestions on the best (cheapest) way to go for him? I provide labor for free, but he will have to buy any parts that he needs so I want to keep things cost-effective. Unless I can find a replacement that uses DDR2 he will have to buy memory as well. I will assume that the PCI modem is crap now since that is probably where the power surge came in and will be thrown away. I took it out to see if it was keeping the computer from booting but it made no difference, but saw no reason to reinstall it since I have a ton of them he can have if he needs one.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

Post by skier »

the Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L is a phenomenal mATX board
with Corsair DDR2 800 2x2GB

use the same CPU, overclock it a touch and its a rocking system again for just over $100
-Austin
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

Post by Kaos Kid »

Cool! I will check that one out and run it by him tonite when I see him (tonite is foosball nite, lol). I just have to hope that the only thing fried is the mobo, and he can reuse the cpu. Do you think from the symptoms I described that it is just the mobo and not the cpu?

This board will give him some upgradeability in the future so as long as the cpu is OK this could be a really cheap fix. I have a couple of spare 1GB sticks of Qimonda that I took out of my HTPC when I got the OCZ 2x2GB kits from my memory thread so he doesn't have to buy any more memory (knock on wood). Thanks Skier! I'm going to give him a few days to digest the info I can glean from this thread and probably get things going monday or tuesday.
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

Post by skier »

worst case scenario: cpu is fried and has to get another, newer C2D. I actually have the G31M-ES2L (I fried it via pencil mod attempt, yet to RMA), and have got some really nice overclocking on it with budget CPUs

also the ES2L is an energy saver board so that 350w PSU should handle it still just great
IMG_3272.JPG
superpi32-16m33.674-84DDC29B.jpg
i was not expecting 430MHz Bus on a C2Q with this board, hit 460MHz with an E6300 1.86GHz but the LAN and audio shut off at 441 lol consider also that i'm running 429MHz bus right now with that E6300 in my UD3R which was born and bred for clocking
-Austin
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775 System (Overclocking Platform): Q8400/Q8300/E8400/E7400/E7500 - GA-EP45-UD3R v1.1 - 4GB (2x2) OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1066 CL5 2.1v Corsair TX-750w
Gamer: Asrock Z77 Extreme4, i7 3770K @4.6GHz, ThermalTake Armor A90 modded, 2x4GB GSKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2133 CL9, Corsair HX-750w, MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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hmmmm that is very interesting. I had assumed that his E4400 2Ghz C2D was a weakling because I had worked on his computer before just to eliminate viruses and I wasn't particularly impressed with the speed and being an admitted AMD fanboy I never bothered to check it out. After googling I see that back in '07 when it came out it was considered a great little cpu and could overclock nicely with little to no voltage increase. Now I realize that it was the basic mobo it was in that actually limited its potential. He was talking about letting me get a new cpu for him but I'm thinking I will urge him to let me get him the board you endorse and try to reuse his cpu first, and try to tweak that cpu using the mobos oc'ing capabilities to get the clock speeds up and increase performance. If the cpu turns out to be unusable as well, then I can always get the cheapest C2D available and it will still be a massive upgrade compared to the whitebox he has been used to. Considering his wife mainly uses it to do office stuff and facebook, and he uses it to run fantasy leagues then that mobo with his current cpu tweaked should be more than adequate for his needs while keeping the costs for upgrade under $125 shipped. A win-win for both of us since he will get a better computer and I won't have to sit dealing with a slow machine everytime they get a virus and/or need to do a complete reinstall. Thanks for the great advice!
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

Post by skier »

hah np

on another note, the lightning storm last week here knocked out something in my main system, think my good ol TX750 is down for the count, really loud whining when i start my computer and no video at all anymore. been too busy rebuilding a mountainbike to tear apart the system
-Austin
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775 System (Overclocking Platform): Q8400/Q8300/E8400/E7400/E7500 - GA-EP45-UD3R v1.1 - 4GB (2x2) OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1066 CL5 2.1v Corsair TX-750w
Gamer: Asrock Z77 Extreme4, i7 3770K @4.6GHz, ThermalTake Armor A90 modded, 2x4GB GSKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2133 CL9, Corsair HX-750w, MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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Darn! He waited too long to give me an answer and now it is out of stock, so I'm still looking while he decides what he wants to do. I put it on auto-notify so hopefully they will get some more in.
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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Kaos Kid wrote:Darn! He waited too long to give me an answer and now it is out of stock, so I'm still looking while he decides what he wants to do. I put it on auto-notify so hopefully they will get some more in.
the GA-G31 is no longer listed on newegg at all so i think it's gone for good. almost all of the remaining LGA775 boards are DDR3, I only found 2 boards that use DDR2 that are even close to reliable
BIOSTAR T41 HD
MSI G41M4-F

and I REALLY hate suggesting low end MSI boards because my last AMD MSI board couldn't even keep a CPU at defaults without losing stability (was a 770 board)

so unless you want to go DDR3 those are your only real choices now as far as newegg is concerned

just looked at the G31M on newegg and is Deactivated. so its not coming back there

BUT
it's still available at tigerdirect for the lowest price from a reliable e-tailer of $54
-Austin
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775 System (Overclocking Platform): Q8400/Q8300/E8400/E7400/E7500 - GA-EP45-UD3R v1.1 - 4GB (2x2) OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1066 CL5 2.1v Corsair TX-750w
Gamer: Asrock Z77 Extreme4, i7 3770K @4.6GHz, ThermalTake Armor A90 modded, 2x4GB GSKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2133 CL9, Corsair HX-750w, MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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yep, I saw that today as well. Good price! I called and told him that so hopefully he gives me a final answer soon. Turns out he got the fried computer from TD, but I told him not to buy a pre-configured whitebox this time, order separate parts and I will assemble and he gets a lot more for the money. The way he's been on the fence about it I think he's going to have to order the part(s) himself and then I will install them for him, I'm not going to buy them just for him to back out, my wife will kill me, lol...oh well, I've had fun hitting the eshops for bargains builds anyway, even window shopping itself can be entertaining, sometimes when bored I will set an arbitrary price and then browse the shops to see what kind of basic box I can build for the bucks :)


PS as cheap as DDR3 is right now if he decides to go all in and let me build new and improved then will move him up to DDR3. The only bad thing about OCing that E4400 is I think he probably keeps it in a cubby in a desk so not great airflow, I probably wouldn't want to OC it to 3Ghz anyway, maybe just enough to give a performance boost but not raise temps too much. Again, I'm just speculating because he's flip-flopped a couple times now, and said he has to ask his wife first (kiss of death for getting anything a man wants, lol). It would be nice if he would make up his mind soon though, something tells me he'll drop it in my lap when I've already got a full plate then I'll have to double-time it to get it done fast (after waiting weeks for an answer :roll:)
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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just say he has a week to decide and after that you won't do it. no need to string you along and if he does then he doesnt deserve your service for free anyway
-Austin
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Gamer: Asrock Z77 Extreme4, i7 3770K @4.6GHz, ThermalTake Armor A90 modded, 2x4GB GSKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2133 CL9, Corsair HX-750w, MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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Naw, he's a true blue guy, I'll do it for him no matter what, just to have the fun of building something for him since I don't get to for myself. He's came through for me before, I was just rambling previously I would never turn him down for a favor. Hopefully I can sit him down on TD so he can get them ordered, then I know its a sure deal.

PS new avatar! :supz:
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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Kaos Kid wrote:Naw, he's a true blue guy, I'll do it for him no matter what, just to have the fun of building something for him since I don't get to for myself. He's came through for me before, I was just rambling previously I would never turn him down for a favor. Hopefully I can sit him down on TD so he can get them ordered, then I know its a sure deal.

PS new avatar! :supz:
reasonable.

and yes. though those aren't my exact skis, but they are the exact model & year (the Race tigers have looked different every year since release in '06), also notice they are Volkl which was the basis for my first ever built & modded PC
-Austin
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775 System (Overclocking Platform): Q8400/Q8300/E8400/E7400/E7500 - GA-EP45-UD3R v1.1 - 4GB (2x2) OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1066 CL5 2.1v Corsair TX-750w
Gamer: Asrock Z77 Extreme4, i7 3770K @4.6GHz, ThermalTake Armor A90 modded, 2x4GB GSKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2133 CL9, Corsair HX-750w, MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

Post by Kaos Kid »

Sweet! I don't ski myself but some around here do. There is a place called Hidden Valley on the outskirts of St Louis County that has snow machines and gets a fairly robust business, although the owner is in a spat with the local piddly city government over trying to annex him, tax him, and control his expansion. He threatened to close up shop completely if the greedy politicians don't leave him alone but a lot of folks have came out on his side, so I think he'll get his way.

Nice mod job (especially for your first!), I have never went that far I'm too lazy. I put them together then dust them every once in a great while, but have never modded much. My wife doesn't even want a computer to be visible, so dolling it up with mods would only be for my amusement. Tried lighting once but, like Bubba, the lights irritated me after awhile, too distracting when I'm trying to concentrate or sleep. I used to watercool years ago but lost interest, since I don't game anymore I don't need to squeeze out every last available frame rate.

Update: He's now officially been placed on the back burner, still hasn't set a time to order parts. I think he's scared that he will buy the mobo then still have to buy another cpu if his E4400 ends up bad. I think even if he gets a dual-core celeron 2.5Ghz for $50 or so to go with the GA-G31 he would still have a faster setup than he did and come in at budget (but I may be mistaken). Once his wife gets tired of facebooking and playing internet games on the old P4 I fixed up for them to use they'll come around, even an new O/S install doesn't speed one of those up much, lol. Thanks for the advice anyway Austin, hope you didn't consider it a waste of time (I don't because I learned something useful from it).

I did hook his psu and memory up to a known good mobo and it tested fine so far with my voltmeter, his memory is recognized (2x512MB, would have been no big loss anyway, lol) and his DVD drives seem to work as well so the only thing that was fubar'd was the mobo, it looks more and more like the surge going through his 56K fax modem maybe fried the PCI slots but didn't hurt anything else (knocks on wood). The real pisser is he didn't even need the 56K modem anymore, he has had cable internet for awhile now and shouldn't have even had it hooked up. I'm not going to install another one in there at all, that's just asking for the same kind of thing to happen again.
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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thats too bad about the ski area, around here is the same way, except there are fewer people in the local government to steal money from tax payers, and a shocking amount of people that don't pay their property taxes lol but anyway i've only ski'd about 5 times in the past 3 years, stopped racing and didnt have money for season passes, even to the small local mountains (only times i did go were free-days)

i'm not sure if you saw, but my second and last mod was rally inspired, but for the most part modding doesn't have much purpose these days with all the modern cases looking nasty to begin with, of the past 5 cases or so i've had the only modding i've done was cutting out fan grills and drilling holes in M/B trays for better wire management

no worries, my free time is either abundant or non-existent, but chatting is always nice ;)

-back on the topic of lightning damage, last storm actually took out my GTX 460 which doesnt seem to be able to get replaced either at least I have a sweet backup heatsink for high end nvidia cards :\
-Austin
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775 System (Overclocking Platform): Q8400/Q8300/E8400/E7400/E7500 - GA-EP45-UD3R v1.1 - 4GB (2x2) OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1066 CL5 2.1v Corsair TX-750w
Gamer: Asrock Z77 Extreme4, i7 3770K @4.6GHz, ThermalTake Armor A90 modded, 2x4GB GSKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2133 CL9, Corsair HX-750w, MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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Bummer! So you lost both your corsair 750w psu and the video card? That s**ks! Drop me a pm if you decide to raise cash by selling some spare equipment, I'll see if there is anything I can use.
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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Kaos Kid wrote:Bummer! So you lost both your corsair 750w psu and the video card? That s**ks! Drop me a pm if you decide to raise cash by selling some spare equipment, I'll see if there is anything I can use.
no, i thought it was the tx750 originally, but turned out to be the 460, which sucks because the 460 has about double the value, my tx750 is just about falling apart lol

i wont be selling anything until i get some money first, because i can still use my desktop, i'll just sell off what i can to help pay for another AMD setup, GA-990FX with hex or better and some DDR3 2000 CL9 and a new PSU but the only thing i can really sell is my EP45 and my DDR2 1066, nothing else i have is worth the postage
-Austin
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775 System (Overclocking Platform): Q8400/Q8300/E8400/E7400/E7500 - GA-EP45-UD3R v1.1 - 4GB (2x2) OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 1066 CL5 2.1v Corsair TX-750w
Gamer: Asrock Z77 Extreme4, i7 3770K @4.6GHz, ThermalTake Armor A90 modded, 2x4GB GSKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2133 CL9, Corsair HX-750w, MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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Hey, are you going to RMA that Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L? If you do and want to sell it cheap, let me know. I still have the E4400 CPU and it is the SLA3F (L2) which I hear is a good overclocker so if I can get a mobo cheap enough I may play around with it. I'd try to sell it (I see them for about $35 on up at fleabay), but I don't have a socket 775 board to test it with and I don't like selling parts that I can't guarantee will work.

Hey, anybody in St Louis have a 775 board I can borrow to test this cpu, or want to test it for me? :lol:
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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when I RMA (if i even can) i'll be using it as my backup board/system, wouldn't be worth getting rid of after putting the money to ship it to Gigabyte, also its just too good to let go of ;)

First thing i'll do once i get the G31 back will be to sell my UD3R on ebay
-Austin
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Gamer: Asrock Z77 Extreme4, i7 3770K @4.6GHz, ThermalTake Armor A90 modded, 2x4GB GSKILL RipjawsX DDR3 2133 CL9, Corsair HX-750w, MSI GTX660 Twin Frozr
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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I don't blame you, its hard to part with your favorite rigs, they're like children--well, children you love anyway :P

I'm just conflicted on whether this is even worth pursuing. Actually I'd love to find a reliable mini-itx 775 board and then I would swap it into my little boys' ICE CUBE Case, it currently has a long-in-the-tooth i845 chipset with 3.06Ghz cpu and AGP4x slot, a C2D in it would set him up nice for the next couple of years. My only problem with that is almost all mini-itx boards (of any flavor) I see for sale are ZOTAC and from reviews it appears that company is not very reliable.

I would probably order one of the G31s new (there appears to be a few available from nondescript companies I've never used before) if I was absolutely certain that the C2D was working properly, I'd hate to spend $50-60 to find out it was kaput.
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Re: Lightning Storm Damage

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Well, I found out today that the E4400 cpu is still fine, it was only the mobo that was damaged. I picked up a cheap ($25 lol) off-lease SFF HP from CL and although it had a 352 Cedarmill Celeron D it was compatible with C2Ds up to E6700. I added a GB of DDR2 and an HD4350, so although not a beast it will be a nice upgrade for when one of my kids are ready to move up from their old P4s. I got lucky!


PS even luckier, I did the BSEL mod and now it is an E6700Lite (only 2MB L2) running 1066fsb @ 2.66Ghz! I can't believe my good fortune that this old HP allowed me to get away with that :supz:
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