User:Tex/scratch page

Motherboard Testing

Tex 20:37, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

There are a multitude of items to check in motherboard testing. This is not for the faint of heart. Lose hope all yea who enter here. STEPS NOTES AND DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS Check For Visible Damage Check for blown capacitors. Do a careful visual check. Then do it again. This will save you wasted time further down the road. ANY domed capacitors warrant recycling the board. Check for damaged sockets or other damage to devices on the motherboard. If it is a socket 775 or socket xxxx check carefully for bent socket pins with a magnifying lens. If there ARE bent pins recycle the board. It's not worth time repairing the socket. Check for dark areas on the underside of the board where a device (surface mounted) may have over heated. Recycle the board if you find any. Broken or missing memory slot attachment arms are no reason to reject a board as long as the board passes all the other tests. Is it a DELL motherboard ? Remove the heatsink and, if it is of use on other types of motherboards, save it. Otherwise, recycle the heatsink. Remove the processor and save it for testing later if it qualifies (it is of the minimum speed and processor type). Remove the button battery and save it for testing later. Remove any jumpers and save them. Recycle the motherboard. DELLs require a special chassis and cannot be universally mounted in third party chassis's. Is it a BTX format motherboard, a multisocket server board, or have a non-standard ATX format? Remove the heatsink and, if it is of use on other types of motherboards, save it. Otherwise, recycle the heatsink. Remove the processor and save it for testing later if it qualifies (it is of the minimum speed and processor type). Remove the button battery and save it for testing later. Remove any jumpers and save them. Recycle the motherboard. Check for SATA ports Absence of any SATA ports is reason to recycle a motherboard. Reasons NOT to reject a motherboard on preliminary inspection Missing PS2 ports as long as there are USB ports available. Missing on-board sound (resolved with PCI based sound cards). Missing LAN ports (resolved with PCI based LAN cards) Missing on-board video (resolved by PCI, PCI-e, or AGP slots on the motherboard) Missing PCI slots - as long as there are PS2 or USB, video, and sound ports on the board. Broken or damaged Northbridge, Southbridge, or SUPERIO chip heatsinks can be replaced as can any on-board fans. Visual inspection passed - what now ? Place the motherboard on the test jig. Orient the motherboard so the external ports (printer, PS2, USB, etc.) are facing you Motherboards GENERALLY have a standardized layout as follows: Upper left quadrant contains the memory slots, main power connector, floppy connector, and either one to two IDE connectors (if any...) Upper right quadrant contains SATA connectors, SOUTHBRIDGE chip, RAID connector (if any), front panel header, USB header(s) Lower right quadrant contains AGP/PCIe video slots, PCI slots, button battery (this can actually be in this quadrant or the upper right), PCI extender slot, and audio header Lower left quadrant contains the CPU socket, CPU heatsink, the 12 volt power connector (4 pin Molex), and all the external connectors Perform another blown caps visual check This is a time saver, trust me... Does it already have a CPU installed ? This step is not a time waster. The CPU heatsink may be installed, but someone may have removed the CPU prior to submitting the motherboard for testing. If it DOES have a CPU installed, just test the board with the existing processor. If NO processor is in the CPU socket, then, duuuh - go get one. Look up the motherboard user manual for the appropriate CPU to use. A library of motherboard manuals is usually kept on the Advanced Testing research laptop. If the manual does not exist, perform an internet search to find one and save it to the appropriate folder on the laptop (this should be obvious when you open up the mobo folder). Start with either the slowest speed CPU we have in stock for this socket type, or one which is recommended in the user manual. If the motherboard eventually passes all tests, then try higher speed processors in the motherboard. This intent, here, is to provide the Freegeek store with a motherboard with the highest speed processor it can handle. This makes it more 'sellable'. Installing a processor in the CPU socket BE CAREFUL Processor pins are gold alloy and bend easily. Use the standard practice for inserting CPU's in the motherboard socket as recommended in the user manual. If you bend a pin or pins, you can use a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil and magnifying lens to right the bent pins. If you snap off any of the processor pins, recycle the processor. Each pin is required for proper functioning of the CPU. If you bend the pins on a processor that HAS no pins, then you are obviously from a different universe than the one we, at Freegeek, are used to. Don't expect help there. Installing THERMAL grease on a processor Use only enough thermal grease on the top surface of the processor to provide a thin film coating. Yes, I said TOP surface...putting grease on the pins of the processor generates a large quantity of laughter and endless chastisement from your co-workers. The thermal grease film provides a more efficient transfer of heat from the processor to the heatsink. Applying too much thermal grease defeats the purpose and, instead, becomes a thermal barrier that traps heat in the CPU causing premature failure.