Hey guys,

Well, the machine I built for E3 has died. It appears that it is the EVGA Classified MOBO. After troubleshooting the issue with EVGA and relying upon my own 15 years of computer building experience, I've concluded that the board has something broken on it.

It does not boot and all anymore and attempts to re-flash the bios has failed. There is still a possibility that it is the CPU or the RAM, but I have decided to try and replace the mobo first and see if I can get it up and running again. This is my ROF Beta test machine and having it down has prevented me from playing with the latest ROF 1.09 features etc. I just have not taken the time to convert my other system to run the Beta, so I've been effectively grounded for the past week, which sucks big time. So it's time to fix this sucker and get flying again. Except this time I want to make it more ROFesque. I figured some of you case monkeys might want to see how this goes.

It was top of the line a few months ago and cost me a pretty damn penny! Not happy at all that it died. Whatever ended up breaking will certainly be sent in for warranty replacement.

Here are the original specs.

- Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 Nehalem 3.2GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

- Xigmatek Dark Knight PWM CPU Cooler and Fan

- EVGA E759 CLASSIFIED LIMITED EDITION 3-Way SLI (x16) + PhysX w/ECP & NF200 1366 Intel X58 EATX Intel Motherboard

- CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory with Airflow Fan

- EVGA 017-P3-1294-AR GeForce GTX 295 1792MB 896 Bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

- Creative X-Fi Sound Card

- Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

- CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible Power Supply

- HP DVD 1170i DVD-RW Drive

- CoolerMaster Cosmos S Case

Some pics as it stands right now.





The plan is to replace the board E759MOBO with a new E760MOBO and also replace the craptacular Dark Knight CPU cooler with a Zalman 9900 CPU Cooler. Then paint the case something custom for ROF.

If it turns out to not be the MOBO that is bad I will have to dig deep and replace either the CPU or RAM that has died. God let it not be the CPU!

More soon...

Jason

Asus P6T Deluxe V2 is what I'm using. It been rock solid, I've been using Asus MoBos for years and never a problem.

Been playing ROF on max settings since day one of the beta too.

That's a damn shame but it's cooked badly Jase that's the truth of it. It's no use to anyone now I'm afraid. Look, I'll give you 50 bucks for it and that'll only just cover costs. I'll even pay the freight ! You'll be glad to rid yourself of this piece of junk trust me. It'll be doing me no favours I can assure you.

No need to thank me. I'm just naturally generous to those in need.

Hey Trouble,

Ya I here you. Asus is the only other brand of Mobo I will consider anymore, but I go with EVGA because their customer support is phenominal, their website is fantastic and they are located in SoCal so dealing with them is super easy. The fact that it appears their board failed is dissppointing, but until I get this re-build done I won't know for sure who I can blame. LOL.

I did not overclock this machine one bit and it was well kept for nearly 6 mos. so this failure is a bit baffling.

Jason

think it has to do with the rug it's standing on ;-)

So I installed the new Mobo and Fan. Guess what? Still won't boot. Actually, I did get it to boot after a couple tries and I thought it was fixed, but then suddenly after I turned it off and came back a few hours later it would not boot again. Now it won't post and keep going through attempt to post, but never does.

What do you think guys? RAM issue or CPU?

Remeber its a new MOBO almost identical to the last one and I did get it to boot about 6 times, then it's back to no Post. I'm baffled.

It's either another $400 bucks or $1000 bucks. What would you do? I don't have an endless supply of money.

I'm pretty sure I've eliminated all possibilities other than RAM or CPU.

Jason

Is there any beeps? I'm not really sure how you could check. Is the power supply good?

Scince I'm not an expert I'm afraid to give advice but did you look at the CPU when you swaped it over? was it discolored? perhaps you could try to boot up with out the memory in it or just put 1 stick in at a time.

It may need 2 to boot, 1 in each populated pair, but I don't know the specs on that MoBo.

I am sure, as a veteran system builder of as many years as I, you have done the basics and stripped
every external peripheral but the basics, yeah?

If it has onboard graphics and/or sound, yank the triple SLI, which I'd suspect, and the Creative card,
which I've been down on for years.

The DVD is extraneous to the effort as well.

I mean you've got plenty of Wattage, but maybe something is drawing from it big?

I am a firm believer in the basics...

Ok time to update this thread.

So, I ordered some new parts -

- EVGA E760 CLASSIFIED 3-Way SLI + PhysX 1366 Intel X58 EATX Intel Motherboard

- ZALMAN CNPS9900LED 120mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

- COOLER MASTER RA-1100-KWN1-GP Transparent Acrylic Side Window Panel

Here's the case with most of the guts removed. I love these Cosmos cases. The best on the market in my opinion.



Here'a a pic with the new board and fan installed. I mean really, can an Xbox or PS3 ever be as sexy as a nice PC set up?



I installed the new mobo and the new CPU cooler, replacing the E759 mobo and the Dark Knight CPU cooler. I kept the original RAM. I bought a new side panel to replace the stock one that comes on the Cosmos S case. The stock side panel has a huge fan built in. It's cool, but it interferes with the aftermarket CPU coolers. So, I bought the new side panel that has a window. A much cleaner look.

Unfortunately, once installed that did not solve the boot up problem as it appears that my RAM is bad. So I contacted Corsair and filed for an RMA, which was granted.



So, I couldn't wait, so I bought more RAM from NewEgg. Basically the same RAM, but a bit faster.

- CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Desktop Memory Model CMG6GX3M3A2000C8 - Retail54361118

I installed the new RAM and I got it to boot! Hooray I can fly ROF again! Just in time for 1.09 release!

Here's a pic of it running. The Zalman fan looks and sounds great.



Now, let's paint it to make it a little more interesting. These Cosmos cases lend themselves pretty easily to custom painjobs.

Jason

Looks great, i love Zalman`s copper coolers.