8KTA3+ power/PS2 problems

[mb1rgw]

Apologies for crossposting this problem (it's also on amdmb) if that's contrary to netiquette...

The problem:

After a year of untroubled use, my system has started to regularly lock up, with a rapid continual beep-beep-beep on the mobo speaker. After waiting a while, it'll stop, but on any mouse activity it'll lock up and beep again.

I've tried all the latest drivers, the PCI latency patch, but to no avail. I noticed that when running USDM the 5V supply seemed to drop a little during the lockups, and come back up again after. So I bought a new 400W power supply and disconnected/removed several items (DVD drive, ZIP, modem, video capture card), tried 2 different video cards, swapped PS2 mouse and keyboard... but the problem is still there. The 5V rail still dips (from 4.98 to 4.85). And I've now noticed that the 12V supply *increases* to 12.3 at the time of the lockups.

I know these boards have had PS2 connector problems, so that's one possibility. But I don't have a USB mouse/keyboard to test that out.

Has anyone seen this? Any explanations?

Robin

The system (in its current state):

8KTA3+
1.2 Athlon
256Mb memory
new 80Gb IBM Deskstar 7200rpm HDD running off HPT RAID
Mirai CD-RW
GeForce4 Ti4200 64Mb
NIC
Santa Cruz soundcard
Logitech PS2 mouse/keyboard

[EPoX Tech]

This sounds very reminscent of a shorting issue in that particular region of the mainboard (top right of schematic).

[mb1rgw]

That sounds about right. Is there a simple solution?

[EPoX Tech]

Originally posted by mb1rgw
That sounds about right. Is there a simple solution?

Unfortunatlley I would believe it to be a shorting issue that has caused cumulative mainboard damage.

[mb1rgw]

Is there nothing I can do? The system was only 2 months out of guarantee when this started (I'm going to see if I can sweettalk Multivision, but I'm not holding out any hope). And it's not completely dead yet. Most days I can get maybe an hour's use before the problem starts up (and if I leave the system awhile I can get some more use out of it later on).

Seems to me it's likely a heat-induced problem (the case is open, but I'm going to try and direct a fan on that area of the board to try and keep it really cool). It's notable that the first time it appeared was during the only really hot spell of weather we've had this year.

In case it's still rectifiable, any ideas where I could go looking, or anything I could try?