I have now gone through 4 motherboards. Something about my rackmount case is cooking them! Help!!
When I assemble the bare bones systems outside the case, everything is peachy. It boots up, shuts down, posts, I can fiddle with the BIOS, etc.
As soon as I sick it in the case, and try to boot it up, the CPU fan spins a couple times and then everything goes dead. No post. I take the motherboard back out of the case but that doesn't change anything. Parts of the mobo still seems to function when the power is on. Ethernet lights blink a couple times when I plug a cable in. The green light on the ASUS board comes on, but when I try to power up, nothing. I've tried several different boards that are different makes and models. Same problem.
I've been trying to find out what is wrong, but each time I try something different and it doesn't work, I have to slap down another $200 for a new motherboard.
I find it hard to believe that a simple grounding problem would totally render the motherboard useless. Most people who talk of grounding problems usually say it works again once they remove it from the case. I also thought it might be a problem with the swap-bay back plane, but it's already been replaced once.
I've already ordered a new case, but has anybody ever heard of something like this? This is a totally new problem for me, and if the new case doesn't fix the problem I'm throwing the stupid thing in the lake!!
Are these boards a total loss? Is there anyway to revive them? What exactly is getting fried? I'm wondering if maybe an electrical current is clearing the ROM somehow. Would ordering a new ROM fix this?
This isn't much to go on, but given I cook the motherboard every time I try to figure out what is going on, I don't know much either!
