New Motherboard

Hi Guys,

My brothers computer has been freezing constantly even in safe mode and i think it may need a new motherboard.I have ran spybot malwarebytes and avg but turned nothing up.I then thought it may be running too hot so downloaded speedfan to check it but it is not running hot.I also thought it may be the graphics card but i put my one in his pc and it still froze.I also took out all network cards and sound card to run it on bare essentials and it still froze.I have looked at the motherboard and some of the capacitors are humped on top which i think may be the trouble.The pc has a pentium 4 cpu so new motherboard would have to suit this.Any help with this would be great and thanks a million.

regards,
Redriddick

From building a PC years back, the main attributes of a mother board are:
- form factor (shape), different ones fit in different cases
- socket type (determines CPU that can be used)
- chip set & bus speed
- memory type
I'd check on boards.ie or a more specialist forum.

Thanks for that Tiger.

If you pc does boot up - albeit slowly - it is unlikely you have a mother board issue.

Replacing the motherboard can be a costly and frustrating exercise - you will find you will probably need a new processor and new ram.

Things to try before you go down that route.
* Check the RAM - take it out and put it in again - has it been damaged ?
* Format the hard drive and Reinstall windows.

redriddick said:

I have looked at the motherboard and some of the capacitors are humped on top which i think may be the trouble.

Click to expand...

That would be causing the problem and I'd be interested to know if it's a Dell Optiplex GX270. He might be able to get the motherboard refurbished but it may be time to consider a new PC.