m8530f desktop PC with a m2n78-la mother board doesn't see my drives

[bomberbob]

I fixed one of these HP PCs by replacing the motherboard. I think I made a post about it, when I reset the BIOS to defaults it went to French. I had to set it back to english. It came from China.

You could probably use the existing heatsink and spring clip, you just need to attach a fan to it.

[charlyjack]

My m8530 would not start two weeks ago.  I mean nothing except the light on the back of the power supply was lit.  About 4-5 weeks ago crucial had a deal on RAM so I thought I would max out this machine @ 8 gig since after I put on the 3d monitor I liked having a lot of progs running.  The 750g HD in this machine has been running so well that I had planned to install another in this machine to mirror the main HD so that I could ease into any later failure.  It has been running 24/7 for two years almost straight so I thought I had a winner.  I had not got around to installing the RAM when this happened.  I elevate my computer and keep it fairly clean so I never thought about a potential overheating problem.   I figured the puny power supply was overworked and died so I ordered a Corsair 450w.  I just started putting the new power supply in and came upstairs from my basement to get ready for bed when on the spur I decided to do a little research and look what I found ie: this line of posts.  I will let everyone know if the power supply fixes this problem.  I bought this computer refurbed from tiger but it still cost a little over $500.00 and who can afford this kind of thing in this economy.  Well I will try not to jinx myself and have happy thoughts that a replacement power supply is my fix.  I might just go ahead and build one from scratch using the parts I have if it looks like the MoBo is ruined anyway.  It is pretty cramped in there and I do not use the personal media drive bay anyway.  I must say that until now this has been the best machine that I have ever owned.

[timf343]

And another one bites the dust.  Pavilion a6720y.  16 months, and conveniently out of warranty.  I bought a new HP machine to replace it while I tried to repair it.  Now I'm convinced the motherboard is bad and found this thread, I'm considering taking the new HP back to the store.  Support wanted $199 for a "bench repair".  I can put a new/different motherboard in it for $60, but then of course my restore DVDs won't work.

Angry and Frustrated,

Tim

[timf343]

I see the "experts" are going to join us today, I guess free of charge?  Hopefully one of them takes a look at this thread and has the power to effect some change.  I don't want to spend any more money on this machine, and I especially don't want to spend $199 on a bench repair.  Can we get a recall on these motherboards so everyone here can get their machine up and running again?

[timf343]

Popped off the heatsink on the nvidia chip, and sure enough, there are burn marks.  How can a stock PC overheat this bad?  No overclocking, no special ram, not even an extra hard drive.  This is pretty irritating.

If you happen across this thread BEFORE your PC dies, save yourself the trouble and put a $2 fan on top of the nvidia chip, you'll save yourself a lot of headaches.

[chasecreek]

Went online chat. They want 300 dollars to replace mobo plus 30 for new recovery disks. No admission of problem or discount for their faulty design. 

Anyone have better luck?

[charlyjack]

Does that mean that if we change out the motherboard we can set the new one up so that it is recognized in windows for $30.00 vice buying a brandnew copy of Windows?  I mean $300 + $30 is not worth it but $100 for another board + $30 seems worth it.  Plus you would not have the defective motherboard.

[timf343]

The tech support guy I talked to tried "everything he could" to try to find a way to replace this under some kind of warranty/defect/design flaw.  He admitted it was a design flaw, but conceded to that fact only after I told him I saw the burn marks.  He said they changed the design of their new computers, but ultimately said nothing could be done with my existing machine.

He did say that if you replace with another M2N78-LA motherboard, doing a BIOS flash would allow the motherboard to be recognized by the recovery disks.

There's someone on Ebay selling this board for about $95:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pegatron-M2N78-LA-Violet6-GL8E-Motherboard-AM3-HP-9100-/140494605071?pt=Motherbo...

I am personally also buying a cheap fan and figuring out a way to mount it on or near that chip so the PC doesn't die in another 16 months.

I guess in the scheme of it, if I'm at zero now on this PC, spending $100 for a working PC isn't a bad deal.

[timf343]

Actually, I just bought from this seller instead, since the shipping is direct from Hong Kong and promises just a few days versus a few weeks.  The price was only $1.00 more

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pegatron-M2N78-LA-HP-Violet6-GL8E-AM3-DDR3-573400-001-/280608383909?pt=Motherboa...

[sgtmike44]

I'm having the same problems with the MOBO on my HP p6142p.  I noticed the heat problem right away , especially when allowing the PC to cool down for several hours allowed me to run several tests before it got too hot and "froze" (how ironic a term is that?) after about 10 minutes.  Controller does not recognize either the the HDD or DVD in the BIOS except when cold no matter which SATA connector is used.  I noted how close the connectors are to the Nvidia chip especially when changing the plugs and burned my fingers on the stock heatsink.  

Has anyone tried simply disabling the chip in the BIOS (not sure how that can be done) and simply installing a new graphics card in the PCI-E x16 slot for video?  If so, please report on your results.  I was going to try removing the stock heatsink and installing this chipset cooler: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0325416 . I'm hoping that will work to avoid spending anymore cash on this now oversized paperweight.