CompTIA A_ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition - Michael Meyers [137]
Symptoms
Motherboard failures commonly fall into three types: catastrophic, component, and ethereal. With a catastrophic failure, the PC just won’t boot. This sort of problem happens to brand-new systems because of manufacturing defects—often called a burn-in failure—and to any system that gets a shock of electrostatic discharge. Burn-in failure is uncommon and usually happens in the first 30 days of use. Swap out the motherboard for a replacement and you should be fine. If you accidentally zap your motherboard when inserting a card or moving wires around, be chagrined. Change your daring ways and wear an anti-static wrist strap!
Component failure happens rarely and appears as flaky connections between a device and motherboard, or as intermittent problems. A hard drive plugged into a faulty controller on the motherboard, for example, might show up in CMOS autodetect but be inaccessible in Windows. Another example is a serial controller that worked fine for months until a big storm took out the external modem hooked to it, and doesn’t work anymore, even with a replacement modem.
The most difficult of the three types of symptoms to diagnose are those I call ethereal symptoms. Stuff just doesn’t work all of the time. The PC reboots itself. You get a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) in the midst of heavy computing, such as right before you smack the villain and rescue the damsel. What can cause such symptoms? If you answered any of the following, you win the prize:
Faulty component
Buggy device driver
Buggy application software
Slight corruption of the operating system
Power supply problems
Err…you get the picture.
What a nightmare scenario to troubleshoot! The Way of the Tech knows paths through such perils, though, so let’s turn to troubleshooting techniques now.
Techniques
To troubleshoot a potential motherboard failure requires time, patience, and organization. Some problems will certainly be quicker to solve than others. If the hard drive doesn’t work as expected, as in the previous example, check the settings on the drive. Try a different drive. Try the same drive with a different motherboard to verify that it’s a good drive. Like every other troubleshooting technique, all you try to do with motherboard testing is to isolate the problem by eliminating potential factors.
This three-part system—check, replace, verify good component—works for the simpler and the more complicated motherboard problems. You can even apply the same technique to ethereal-type problems that might be anything, but you should add one more verb: document. Take notes on the individual components you test so you don’t repeat efforts or waste time. Plus, taking notes can lead to the establishment of patterns. Being able to re-create a system crash by performing certain actions in a specific order can often lead you to the root of the problem. Document your actions. Motherboard testing is time-consuming enough without adding inefficiency.
Options
Once you determine that the motherboard has problems, you have several options for fixing the three types of failures. If you have a catastrophic failure, you must replace the motherboard. Even if it works somewhat, don’t mess around. The motherboard should provide bedrock stability for the system. If it’s even remotely buggy or problematic, get rid of it!
If you have a component failure, you can often replace the component with an add-on card that will be as good as or better than the failed device. Adaptec, for example, makes fine cards that can replace the built-in SATA ports on the motherboard