How to know if Your motherboard is bad

When the motherboard of your computer fails, it can render your computer unusable. If your PC begins freezing out of the blue, fails to detect attached components, or doesn’t turn on at all for some reason. A motherboard can be one of many suspects. It’s possible for your motherboard to be failing or to be configured incorrectly if it displays certain telltale signs. This article will teach you how to know if Your motherboard is bad beyond remedy, and if not, the easy ways to fix it.

The motherboard may be failing or be configured poorly if you notice certain telltale signs. You may have a bad motherboard setting if, for instance, your system freezes and lags without any other plausible explanation. As an alternative, if your system does not even boot when connected to the power supply, then that could mean that the motherboard is defective.

You need to look out for visible signs of damage as they can indicate a defective part. Furthermore, if your motherboard has status indicator LED lights or a beep code speaker, you can use them to determine what the problem is.

Sometimes, despite the appearance of a bad motherboard, a misconfigured item or a bad connection between components could actually be to blame.

I will explain how to tell if your motherboard is having problems in the following paragraphs.

Page Contents

How to know if Your motherboard is bad: Warning signs

Having trouble with your motherboard may not be obvious right away, as we discussed in the introduction. There are numerous reasons why your system freezes and restarts randomly. The same symptoms can be experienced by a system failure, a corrupted driver, a bad RAM stick, or a hard drive failure.

If you fail to boot, you narrow down your options. All that’s needed for booting is a RAM stick and a functioning power supply. You can move on to other methods of testing your motherboard once you get that far.

Before proceeding, ask yourself what motherboard do you have if you bought a new gaming motherboard.

How to know if Your motherboard is bad: Troubleshooting

You may need to troubleshoot your system for a few hours or even all day depending on the MOBO brand. In terms of ease of software navigation and reliability, Asus, Gigabyte, ASRock, and MSI motherboards top the list. The board you choose has to be easy to use and adjust, or it will lead you in circles.

The first thing you should do is check to see if your computer is set to sleep. Although it sounds silly, the computer turns itself off based on a lot of assumptions. Windows versions, including 10 have a number of sleep mode issues.

It may be necessary to revert back to a previous date when your computer was not having problems. Afterward, you’ll need to consider restoring your PC if you haven’t done so in a while. In the absence of a restore point you can restore to, perform a full scan for viruses and malware.

A full system reset is your last resort. Ensure you have backed up everything on removable media and in the cloud. Nowadays, reinstalling programs isn’t as difficult or time-consuming as it used to be.

It didn’t work after a fresh install

I know you’re following along with me, but if you’re still having hard reboots and system crashes, keep trying! We ruled out software, which takes a long time to track down. Now it’s time to look at hardware.

Don’t see a boot screen? Go to the next section. Or get a tech to check it out.

Before anything else, make sure the power cable is connected. Ideally, you should check this first before you go through all the software troubleshooting. It’s grouped with all the other hardware checks so we can keep it organized.

Power fluctuations can happen if your power cord isn’t snug on your PSU or wall outlet. There would be frequent power outages, not necessarily followed by reboots.

Computer peripherals and drives

Windows may not boot properly if you have new peripherals, like an external hard drive, DVD drive, and even printers. The culprits of a broken boot screen are often smart cards and thumb drives. The new storage device may be the default boot device for your computer.

Attempt to boot the computer after disconnecting all recently connected peripherals. Did Windows start? When you turn on your computer or reboot it, you need to change the boot order in order to keep the USB drive connected.

It is simply a matter of going into the BIOS of your motherboard and changing your HDD to the first slot.

How to know if Your motherboard is bad – There are beeps and damage

If the screen doesn’t appear when you press the power button, there’s a good chance it’s the MOBO. There should be some beeps that alert you to the problem. A dead motherboard will not beep.

Your motherboard manual can tell you what your series of beeps mean, or you can have a repair technician figure it out for you. However, you can check all components to be sure they are seated correctly and check for damage.

A brown spot near a solder point and the faint smell of burnt plastic are signs of an untimely demise. In some cases, you can prevent damage from occurring, however, the failing component must be removed as soon as possible. Nine out of ten times, your problems will be caused by your recently installed hardware.

Read Also: How To Dispose Of Old Computers And Safely Get Rid Of It

Threats to Motherboards

Despite their ability to withstand abuse and neglect, Intel or AMD motherboards will fail if:

  • Your cooling system is terrible
  • Dust never gets cleaned up
  • There was a time when you dropped this case
  • A surge protector is not available
  • It is zapped by your own static electricity

After you’ve exhausted all troubleshooting options, call a professional. It’s pointless to spend days wondering what’s wrong with your computer.

It’s time to call for assistance

Don’t even think about getting a new computer, CFH. Let’s end this. Your motherboard can only be diagnosed by a professional computer shop.

Feel free to ask a second opinion if you’re unsure about anything.

Eventually, you’ll have to replace the motherboard, but at least you’ll be able to rule out everything else. If you spend a lot of time and money on your computer, peace of mind is a great upgrade.