Static Electricity and Motherboards.

[PurpleFnords]

I have an old motherboard that is effectively dead, but sometimes POSTs. It usually resets after it reaches the boot-strap stage, when it works at all. As im not wealthy, and sometimes enjoy frustrating myself for hours, I would really like to attempt to bring this mobo back from the dead somehow. It has been stored in antistatic bags, and never overclocked,etc...If it helps the make and model is a gigabyte GA-7VT600 (K7 Triton series), for which i have 'known good' RAM and an ATX PSU or two.

Presuming that the fault is being caused by temporary static , is there some kind of way that I could drain all the static charge that is currently still residing on the pcb and in the ICs ? (yes hopefully the chips have not sustained permanent damage)

For example if I were to use a good source of earth, is there some way I can enhance the draining of the static by attaching to a particular part of the power circuitry in the regulator stage of the motherboard?

Some of the electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard look very slightly swollen, so may be some of those from the worldwide bad capacitor plague To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
I do have a digital multimeter handy, so is there some kind of way I can measure the capacitance without desoldering the caps from the PCB, and avoiding electrical interaction from the other components ?

I have considered using the bootblock method and a floppy to update the Bios, but cant see how reflashing the eeprom is going to make any difference to stability, as it used to work fine with the existing one. In fact I feel certain that the problem is in the power regulation stage.

Sure I could just buy a new or secondhand motherboard, but that wouldnt be half as frustrating and fun to attempt to recover ;) So I want suggestions, however creative they may be!

(Chip replacement is not an option, as I dont have Surface Mount soldering gear.)

[schmidt]

First suggestion, replace the ROM battery :)

[Ytterbium]

I've never managed to kill something by static discharges. I have with uncareful screw driver handling however *slips and scratches it*

Make sure that your motherboard don't have contact with any conductive surface. Put it on a wooden table or something when testing it.

You mention the capacitors. I've never encountered a board with swollen caps being stable. So they're deformed which means they're broken and the symptoms clearly shows it. The solution is to take tor solder gun, remove them and replace them with same spec fresh ones.

The ROM battery has nothing to do with this. It only makes the the memory to memorize the settings. A computer is still functional without battery. It's like a BIOS reset everytime the computer is switched off though.

/ Former Macgyver at a PC repair shop.

[walfin]

maybe you should just go try and replace the bios chip, draining static charge won't help if the motherboard was permanently damaged by static. maybe you can try a different power supply cuz some old motherboards work better with power supplies with a certain power rating better than others (don't ask me why. prior experience). if all else fails you might just have to accept the fact that the chips were permanently damaged beyond repair.

[PurpleFnords]

schmidt - Ive tried that already, but thanks for your input.

Ytterbium - System builds in the past took me forever because i was so careful when clicking the cpu heatsink into place, not to let the screwdriver slip. ;) Its incredible how much tension is present in some of the not too well thought out locking clip designs. I always put PCBs on either wood,glass,cardboard or sometimes an antistatic bag (do antistatic bags have dielectric properties I wonder? Im feeling stupid now) and use an earthed anti-static strap most of the time. (I agree its hard to kill motherboards with static, though would disagree about DIMMS and single ICs, so I think its better to be safe than paying the bill)
I would replace the caps, but want to exhaust all other "quick fixes" first. And if the caps are faulty, then I guess that running the system with them in this state may have caused power fluctuations to damage the chipset/CPU as well?

Walfin - Where I live the cost of sourcing and postage of the exact replacement chip would end up being more than just buying a new low quality mobo, with a one year RTB warranty.

(Rant for all who may care) IMHO 'Hyena' make the worlds lowest quality switch mode PSUs. They really are shockingly bad. :p

[Ytterbium]

Ytterbium - System builds in the past took me forever because i was so careful when clicking the cpu heatsink into place, not to let the screwdriver slip. ;) Its incredible how much tension is present in some of the not too well thought out locking clip designs.Yes it can be quite a force. Sometimes it seems it will snap any minute, as it's bent like a banana.
I always put PCBs on either wood,glass,cardboard or sometimes an antistatic bag (do antistatic bags have dielectric properties I wonder? Im feeling stupid now) and use an earthed anti-static strap most of the time. (I agree its hard to kill motherboards with static, though would disagree about DIMMS and single ICs, so I think its better to be safe than paying the bill)I would guess anti static bags have some conductivity or something which can't hold electric charge to minimize electrostatic build up. So isolated points can't discharge suddently when a circuit pass by.

I would replace the caps, but want to exhaust all other "quick fixes" first. And if the caps are faulty, then I guess that running the system with them in this state may have caused power fluctuations to damage the chipset/CPU as well?It can by other things messing it up. Such as grapic cards, memory sticks or PSU.
This was what I did all day to locate a problem to fix it, at my work. However if there's something else messing with you. The computer manages to boot and load an OS. It wont be stable because of the caps.
The caps won't destroy any CPU or such, it seems unlikely. If there's a spike the caps will pop before anything else does.
There were a thunder storm or some spike on the net, don't remember. It came three computers to us on the very same day. I took the PSU and they all rattled. It had been a cap firework in them. All of them were the same unknown crap brand. Nothing else was broken though.

So replace the caps, remember to mount them the right way or they'll blow.

Edit: Charge a smaller electrolytic capacitor and toss it to your friend. Heads up!

[burazekun]

Alright, I dont mean to put any negative reinforcement on the idea out there but I beleive that there is a high chance that this is not "static" damage. But I also know that you cant "drain" a static charge from a component that was damaged. Static is a disapating force that comes and goes with additions of +'s and -'s of ionized gasses or masses transfering over to balance out the electrons that flow between atoms.

I personally give computers 5 years to live before hardware faults occur, this is also generally wrong as problems will start to occur way before then, within the first two years. Of course with newer technology it is looking like 7-9 years.

However older hardware was more susceptible to stresses in the enviroment and in the system. Like micro surges through the powersuply could cause damage, and frequently did, to devices like ram and CPU's. It wasn't till 2006 that I noticed ram was starting to offer lifetime warentee's for DDR2 hardware and that they weren't failing nearly as frequently.

The fact that the motherboard does not boot, I would have to say. (Try another CPU). If it does not post with a new one, then it's the motherboard. Back in that time, I would have to say either or could be damaged from a power surge.

[Jaxx]

Are you using the same hard drive?

Try a different one or even one that has no operating system in it at all. Sometimes an OS can really mess things up in the boot stages (I've had a few viruses)

If not, try another reliable power supply. Sometimes those can go wonky too. If it was/is the RAM, CPU or video card that is giving the grief usually the motherboard will chirp a few times (depending on what died)

But if it truly is static electricity, you might as well throw the whole board out. I've taken a few EE courses and static electricity will kill all those logic chips (or making them paralyzed, dying only when you really need them to work. Like on a final lab test.)

[PurpleFnords]

Are you using the same hard drive?

Try a different one or even one that has no operating system in it at all. Sometimes an OS can really mess things up in the boot stages (I've had a few viruses)

If not, try another reliable power supply. Sometimes those can go wonky too. If it was/is the RAM, CPU or video card that is giving the grief usually the motherboard will chirp a few times (depending on what died)

But if it truly is static electricity, you might as well throw the whole board out. I've taken a few EE courses and static electricity will kill all those logic chips (or making them paralyzed, dying only when you really need them to work. Like on a final lab test.)

Jaxx - Good suggestion but I eliminated that possibility, when the board first started playing up, buy booting from a CD-drive only, with all other IDE connectors removed. Ive tried other PSUs also, to no avail.

So is the permanent damage that occurs to the chips caused by the static melting or bridging the microscopic conductive tracks on the silicon wafer? Or is it caused by burning/altering of the electro-chemical properties of the actual microscopic componentry? Just wondering...

burazekun - I guess i was hoping for some method to balance the ratio of electrons and protons within the integrated circuitry back to their optimal state. As for the board, well i would love to try another cpu, and will try to obtain one. (I dont have any spare ones lying around of that socket type in my personal junk collection anyway)

[HackerX]

So is the permanent damage that occurs to the chips caused by the static melting or bridging the microscopic conductive tracks on the silicon wafer? Or is it caused by burning/altering of the electro-chemical properties of the actual microscopic componentry? Just wondering...


Both, typically. Once the magic smoke comes out you can't really put it back in.


burazekun - I guess i was hoping for some method to balance the ratio of electrons and protons within the integrated circuitry back to their optimal state.

Say what...?

Static electricity (assuming that was the cause) is a temporary thing, but it's effect is pretty permanent.

I'd personally use the MB as frisbee, or leave it on a highway for shits and giggles. You'd get better results and have more fun.

[Jaxx]

Jaxx - Good suggestion but I eliminated that possibility, when the board first started playing up, buy booting from a CD-drive only, with all other IDE connectors removed. Ive tried other PSUs also, to no avail.

So is the permanent damage that occurs to the chips caused by the static melting or bridging the microscopic conductive tracks on the silicon wafer? Or is it caused by burning/altering of the electro-chemical properties of the actual microscopic componentry? Just wondering...

burazekun - I guess i was hoping for some method to balance the ratio of electrons and protons within the integrated circuitry back to their optimal state. As for the board, well i would love to try another cpu, and will try to obtain one. (I dont have any spare ones lying around of that socket type in my personal junk collection anyway)


Given that all silicon chips are really just transistors, I'd have to go with burning/melting the microscopic conductive tracks within each chip. Transistors themselves can be little bastards when they might have been zapped with static electricity, let alone a few or even hundreds of thousands or even millions of them.