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.
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NOTES AND DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Check for SATA ports |
- Absence of any SATA ports is reason to recycle a motherboard.
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| 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.
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| Visual inspection passed - what now ? |
- Place the motherboard on the test jig.
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| Affix sticker |
Initial a 'Tested by' sticker and stick it to the device in a way that it will be easily removable later. Try sticking it to your jeans or shirt first, it makes the sticker a little less sticky. Once you are done testing devices make sure to place them in the box to go to the store.
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