Pretty sure my motherboard is dying and in need of replacement. Its a 5+yo build so its AM4 socket. I looked and pondered for a bit about going with the AM5 socket, but replacing mobo, proc and DDR5 RAM all at once is more than I care to drop at this point in time. Which means I'm looking at a board thats likely to be abandoned in the not too distant future so there seems no point in dropping serious coin. My plan is to get an AM4 mobo about as cheap as I can find and hope to ride it for at least few more years before upgrading the whole core. Ive been perusing r/buildapcsales and a few other sites hoping for a black Friday sale, but I've also thought maybe a used board from someone upgrading could be an even more cost effective solution. Anyone have any recs on good sites to use for such things? Hell or have an am4 itx board they're looking to part with on the cheap?

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Posted by LSUnation78

Northshore

Member since Aug 2012

13376 posts

Posted on 11/24/23 at 1:10 pm to LSshoe

PC partpicker would be my go to for something like this.

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Posted by Ricardo

Member since Sep 2016

5724 posts

Posted on 11/24/23 at 1:30 pm to LSshoe

It's pretty rare for a motherboard to slowly die.

What gives you the impression that the motherboard is dying?

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Posted by LSshoe

Burrowing through a pile o MikePoop

Member since Jan 2008

4301 posts

Posted on 11/24/23 at 3:00 pm to Ricardo

System locks up, and is becoming more and more frequent. Multiple OS, windows and Linux, multiple reinstalls. Memchecks all pass on multiple passes. I guess it could be the CPU, but that seems less likely. Only happened a couple times but I've also had about half the USB ports just stop working till it was power cycled. I could certainly be wrong, but it just seems the most likely culprit.

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Posted by Ricardo

Member since Sep 2016

5724 posts

Posted on 11/24/23 at 3:09 pm to LSshoe

I've had issues like what you're describing, but that was years ago. Could be a bad peripheral. Some of the "high end" keyboards put a lot of demand on USB ports.

I'd be tempted to rule out:
overheating
bad peripherals (keyboard being the most likely culprit, but USB hubs or other devices that draw their power from the motherboard too.)
power supply issues
battery on motherboard
blown capacitor (not very common on modern motherboards but you'll sometimes see them. The capacitor looks like a little can. If it's bulging or leaking, you'll see it.)

That's all I can think of. Unless you have another cheap or older video card you can swap out. I doubt that's it, but it seems like your system is suffering from power issues.

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Posted by LSshoe

Burrowing through a pile o MikePoop

Member since Jan 2008

4301 posts

Posted on 11/24/23 at 3:27 pm to Ricardo

Checking the PSU is a good call. I think I still have a tester for that. Dont think its a heat thing. Issue has sometimes popped up shortly after boot or resume from suspend. Doubt its the video card as thats only a couple years old. Stripping down all the perhipherals is probably a good test too. Keyboard and mouse are nothing fancy, just the ones that come with HP desktops. I havent scoured the board for bulging capacitors but its probably a good idea too.

Biggest issue is that I cant reliably trigger it so it will be hard to tell if I've fixed it.

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