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How did I damage my PC Chips M577 motherboard?

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First post, by Charlie Wilkes

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It is part of an old desktop computer I cobbled together from junk parts, years ago. It has an ISA sound card so it is good for DOS games.

I had it in a closet for years and got it out recently. I discovered the hard drive was failing so I replaced it with a CF card. When I put the cover back on the case and hit the power button, I got a long, steady beep from the Award BIOS - CPU failure. I opened the case again and saw that my IDE cable was not firmly seated. It was pulled up on one side.

I bought a new identical CPU on eBay for $15. The board posted normally, but the IDE socket no longer works. So I moved my CF card (undamaged) to IDE2, where it shares a cable with a CD drive.

I'm back to a functional system, minus one IDE channel. But I am curious: what did I do? How did I manage to kill my CPU and my IDE socket without (to the best of my knowledge) damaging any other components?

Reply 1 of 1, by tauro

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Charlie Wilkes wrote on 2023-10-24, 21:12:

I opened the case again and saw that my IDE cable was not firmly seated. It was pulled up on one side.

Charlie Wilkes wrote on 2023-10-24, 21:12:

The board posted normally, but the IDE socket no longer works.

Evidently you subjected your board to some undue stress there, perhaps somehow you shorted something... Check if all the pins are straight.

PCChips boards can be unreliable but I have never heard of them frying a CPU.

First I'd make sure your PSU is OK. Top priority. Get a quality PSU.

I would also remove that board, clean it, and inspect the capacitors. Even if they look fine, I would remove them, test them and see if they are in spec. See if you can smell or see signs of a short, something burnt.

If everything looks right then I'd reset the bios (remove the battery or short a jumper).

You can also check the CPU on a different board (with a different PSU) just to be sure if it's fried or not.

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