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ASUS P4C800 Deluxe Problems & Solutions - Page 3 - Tech Support Forum

Hello everyone, this is my first time posting into this forum. I came across this topic from a Google search while trying to find out why my co-workers and myself have been having so many problems with the Asus P4C800 Deluxe model motherboard as we have had an excellent track record with Asus in the past. However, since we moved to this platform, we have had stacks of motherboards that will run for a while and then fail to post, refuse to install, and so on.

Now we are using 300W and 350W power supplies and stock P4 CPU fans. Not to mention that some of the mounting brackets for the CPU fans needed to be tightened as the were so loose they were falling off of the board. However, I think we have discovered that the source of our problems is not from the CPU heatsink being too tight, but rather a mistake on Asus' part during manufacturing.

I do not know what compelled my co-worker to do this, but he took one of the supposedly "dead" boards and removed the CPU heatsink mounting bracket to get a good look at the circuitry. There, located beneath the bracket on the underside of the board, he found the problem. There is a small glob of solder located beneath where the bracket sits that, when pressure from the bracket is applied, shorts the motherboard. Upon cleaning the glob from the contact and resoldering it, the board now runs perfectly fine with the 350W power supply we have testing.

This is not a one-time thing, either. Every motherboard we have looked at since has had this same glob that was not cleaned in manufacturing. There are 2 other contact points near it that have been cleaned, but this particular one seems to be the source of all the boards that refuse to post. We have even been in contact with representatives of Asus and they have informed us that the mounting bracket design has been changed to get around this.

I suggest that everyone having a problem take a look at the board for yourself and see if you have it as well. If you're not comfortable with a soldering iron, please do not try and fix it yourself, but still take a look. I also suggest that anyone visiting other forums for such information spread what we have learned and see how far this issue pans out. It could just be a bad batch that we received from our vendor, but it could also be present on all of the P4C800s.

Thank you all for your time and I will post again if we find out any other problems. Have a good day and good luck.
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-MB out.
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe Problems & Solutions - Page 3 - Tech Support Forum