Dead PCI bus?

[Foosinho]

It's a long story, but basically this past week my wife managed to reset the breaker for the computers while I was away (no, they aren't on UPS systems, and yes, I know...)

Most everything came up just fine, but the main desktop machine was completely on the fritz. My wife's ever-helpful phone tech call ("It's not working") was unable to lead me to a resolution working from 2000 miles away, other than determining that the SMB server was indeed up and running properly.

After getting home, I discovered that the network card was, as far as Windows was concerned, not there. Neither was the onboard network port. Nor any device attached to the PCI bus. More than slightly baffled (as Device Manager failed to complain at all), I fired up the most recent Ubuntu live cd, to the same result - the OS claiming that nothing on the PCI bus was actually there.

I've never seen anything quite like it, but it seems to me that there is some kind of hardware problem that is not reporting an error, but basically erases the PCI bus from existence. I've never heard of such a thing. The motherboard in question is a Abit NF7-S2 that is about 2 years old.

It seems to me that the only course of action available to me is to find an appropriate MB replacement (PC CHIPS M848A seems to be one of the few alternatives that should work with the existing RAM and processor, has enough PCI slots, and has the required on-board audio). Any insights, suggestions, or ideas?

[yimmy]

Have you looked at the motherboard physically?

Do any of the electrical contacts have any telltale traces of smouldering black stains around them as if too much power had coursed through them? One time I just looked at one of the ASICs on a motherboard and saw an unsightly black lump on it.

Either way, I think your best bet would be to cut your losses and save what you can. Do you think your DIMMs and CPU are undamaged?

[spejic]

Yeah, motherboard chips are not really user-replaceable. And while sometimes it is clear what blew, sometimes it isn't, and you could be replacing chips when the real culprit is some itty bitty surface mount thingie. Your time isn't worth what a new equivalent motherboard would cost.

[Foosinho]

Have you looked at the motherboard physically?
Only a cursory examination late last night. There was nothing obvious.

Either way, I think your best bet would be to cut your losses and save what you can. Do you think your DIMMs and CPU are undamaged?
It appears that everything else is working perfectly. I can use the computer - just not anything on the PCI bus. Clearly, I can't know if the cards themselves (other than the AGP video card) are working until I try them with another motherboard.

I guess it's time to splash out $50 on a new motherboard.

[IntheNet]

the OS claiming that nothing on the PCI bus was actually there...Foosinho...

Discussed on other software board here:
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t211794-pci-bus-dead.html
Two applications recommended to run:
"dumppci" or "pcidump".
"scans your system, listing all devices on each slot on each pci bus."

Good luck...

[Grouchy]

I had an Abit mobo once that refused to acknowledge an AGP slot existed, PCI video worked but AGP was dead. It just died one day. My current Soltek mobo sees USB 2.0 devices but not 1.1 devices...

Motherboards are picky little creatures.

My gut feeling is one of the bridge chips on the motherboard is hosed.

Have you tried the network card in a spare computer and tried the questionable motherboard without the network card (and or any other PCI cards)?

[Foosinho]

My gut feeling is one of the bridge chips on the motherboard is hosed.
Mine too.

Have you tried the network card in a spare computer
A what?

and tried the questionable motherboard without the network card (and or any other PCI cards)?
I haven't tried that.

I went ahead and ordered a new motherboard (PC CHIPS - one of the very few vendors still making a motherboard meeting the requisite requirements).

[Foosinho]

Sonofa... new motherboard showed up, so I yanked the old one (still can't identify any damage) and installed the new one, transferring everything over. Apply power, boot it up, and it spins up the CPU fan and spins it right back down in under one second.

I had this problem with a used PC CHIPS motherboard I got on EBay, so I assumed it was a problem with the board. However, this is a brand new board, which supports the CPU and RAM I installed (according to the specs).

Any ideas? The terrible PC CHIPS website is about useless. It basically says "try other memory, or another video card". As if I've got tons of that crap lying around unused. Grrr.

[yimmy]

Sonofa... new motherboard showed up, so I yanked the old one (still can't identify any damage) and installed the new one, transferring everything over. Apply power, boot it up, and it spins up the CPU fan and spins it right back down in under one second.

I had this problem with a used PC CHIPS motherboard I got on EBay, so I assumed it was a problem with the board. However, this is a brand new board, which supports the CPU and RAM I installed (according to the specs).

Any ideas? The terrible PC CHIPS website is about useless. It basically says "try other memory, or another video card". As if I've got tons of that crap lying around unused. Grrr.

One time I had a similiar problem and it turned out the CPU was the culprit. Once I replaced the CPU, I was able to see the motherboard BIOS on my monitor. Do you think your CPU has been fried?

[Foosinho]

Do you think your CPU has been fried?
I highly doubt it. I was super-careful (grounding strap, only handling by the edges, etc) when I moved the CPU from the old motherboard to the new.

[Grouchy]

Check to make sure the CPU fan is connected to the right fan header. I have an Abit board (KT7A-RAID I think) that would shut off if it didn't detect a fan on a particular header (could shut it off in the BIOS, if you could get to it, fine enganeerin).

Also when it shuts off do a finger test on the bridge chips and on your memory chips (ground yourself and put your finger right on the actual chip wafer). The happened one time on an old Soltek motherboard; it would spin up the immediately shut down and it turned out one of my SDRAMs was bad (very, very warm to the touch even after a second or two).

Maybe it was a component after all and not the motherboard.

Try removing everything until all you have is a motherboard, CPU, and keyboard. If nothing happens then maybe the CPU and/or mobo are bad. If you get some beep codes (count'em) then look up the BIOS beep codes on the Internet. Likely it will tell you there is no memory or video installed. Then start installing components until you figure out what is hosing everything.

[Foosinho]

I was able to tweak things until I *finally* got the thing to boot. Not entirely sure what did it.

Unfortunately, Windows craps out, probably because the hard drive controllers are different (moving a windows install from one machine to another has always been painful in my experience - I usually just migrated my hard drive when I built new machines in the past). So I'm trying to repair. We'll see if that works, if not, I'll have to reinstall. :(

[Grouchy]

So I'm trying to repair. We'll see if that works, if not, I'll have to reinstall. :(

My condolences.

That is one of the things I have hated about building my own machines over the years. I suffered through the early VIA chipsets, nForce BIOS pampering and all sorts of crap. Nowadays you have device drivers that don't quite move from one spot to another.

I know it's late but I'd try safe mode, deleting device drivers and hoping for the best.

Worst case scenario get another system disk, install, then copy what you can when you reattach the old drive.

[Foosinho]

Actually, unlike the FUBAR DVD driver problem I had earlier, "Repair Windows Installation" worked - at least, well enough to get me into a bootable system. Of course, there were a couple of chips on the motherboard the OS couldn't find drivers for, which is irritating but not impossible to fix for a guy like me. (I have no idea how an "average Joe" would be able to figure out how and where to look in the registry, where to look up the device codes on the internet, and then how to search for the requisite drivers.)