I recently got this motherboard second hand as a replacement for my current lower end board. All the components I'm using work 100% but no matter what I do I can't seem to get any activity from the board. Not even the fans or power led show any signs of life, both the 24 pin and 8 pin CPU connectors have been reseated a couple of times, changed the CMOS battery and yet still no luck. Tried a couple of different GPU's but nothing, unfortunately I don't have a speaker for the board to hear any beeps or error codes.
Any ideas on what could have caused this or is it likely to just be a dead board?
Yeah the power switch is wired up for sure and I also tried bridging it with a piece of wire to eliminate any connection problems externally, but no luck sadly.
Connect just the naked board (WITHOUT a CPU, RAM, SATA drive, ...) to the power supply and try turning it on. The fan of the PSU should actually fire up - and if you would have a speaker connected it should give 1 short continuous beep ("Error initializing CPU").
If it doesn't power on with just the naked board hook up then the board is dead. If it powers on...
Slap in the CPU plus its heat-sink and power on. With a speaker it should give a different beep-code ... "RAM initialization failed"
If it doesn't turn on with the CPU being inserted ... CPU or pins of the CPU or dead board. If it still turns on ... plop in ONE DIMM into the 1st DIMM slot.
Not turning on? RAM or Chipset failure (Beep code would actually tell you what's up) Turning on? Plop in all your DIMMs and repeat (maybe take a close look at the contacts in the DIMM slot to rule out there's unnoticed damage).
If you got it powered up with CPU + all DIMMs ... slap in the graphics board (don't forget the PCIe power leads) and connect just the keyboard ... hook up the monitor and turn it on.
If it fires up then something may have went wrong as it was in your case (if it was in a case). Continue adding all the rest (SATA drives et al) and give it another go before slapping everything into the case. If it is dead at this stage ... GPU incompatible/dead? PSU too weak?
In case it doesn't even come to life "nakkid" or with just the CPU inserted then it is safe to assume the board is dead.
Then i´m affraid that you boagt a dead board unfortunatly. You could try some of the tips that @B.Jay posted above. But i´m affraid you are in bad luck.
Excellent trouble shooting guide @B.Jay. I'll have to sticky this for anyone who might need it.
To the OP, I'll say that I have a similar board. I have the UD5. Just know that that whole line of boards is a hit or miss. Some revisions have gotten a bad reputation and for good reason. Others are kick ass but act really weird in some ways (such as my UD5). Follow the trouble shooting guide above; it's the best place to start for now.
@Tek_Elf Thanks, but that's just the standard method any service tech would run through when dealing with a dead board (won't power-on on a known-good PSU). Don't tell me I'm that over-qualified just because I'm a tech since the last 26 years. I could tell you stories of things...
@VeyronBD: @Tek_Elf is right. There have been some 990FXA-UD3 where the VRM, providing the voltages for the CPU, died because of over-heating - mostly happened when the board was used with a CPU cooler that didn't blow down at the board therefore not cooling the VRM. If the board won't turn on no matter what you try chances are the VRM could be fried.
Another thought: Did you actually inspect BOTH sides of the board for scratches (broken trace(s) due to a deep scratch)? Not that the board somehow caught some damage during transport/shipping.
Yeah well that depends a bit on what exact revision of the ud3 board this is. The overheating vrm issues was mainaly present in the first few revisions of the board. revisions 4 and 5 of the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 should not have this issue anymore.
But yeah, its still very likely that his board might be dead. I´m personaly not a huge fan of Gigabyte AM3+ boards in general.
I tried running the board set up totally bare with just the power supply and nothing happened at all when trying to power it on. I've tried a few power supplies from my Corsair 750m main rig supply to some cheap one I've had for years, both didn't do a thing. So I'm pretty positive its a dead board.
The board itself is a revision 4 which is one of the reasons I went for it specifically, after hearing about the earlier models having heating issues, thankfully I got the board quite cheap.
Visually it looks fine, about what you'd expect for its age and doest have any scratches, grime or dust anywhere on the board.
I was somewhat considering reflowing the board but seeing as Its highly unlikely it would even fix an issue like this and even if it did I'm sure it wouldnt exactly be reliable so for now I'm just going to leave it. I can probably get something on ebay selling it for parts.
yeah it depends on what part is exaly defective. sometimes wenn caps are blown or mosfets burned you could replace them if you are handy. But its realy a though job. Especialy if the defective part is within the vrm cirquitry, then you need to be sure that all other parts in the cirquitry arent damaged and what not. Its probably not worth the time.
Check the back of the board, if you can find any traces of damage.
Thanks for the suggestions, unfortunately I'm pretty in-experienced when it comes to stuff like that, plus visually all of the traces front and back as well as the caps and mosfets are looking fine so I'd be totally lost lol.