Subj : USB port issue -follo To : Ky Moffet From : Barry Martin Date : Sun May 17 2020 09:15:00 Hi Ky! > KM> With the Asus P5B-Deluxe board (like mine where USB quit and > KM> voltage measured by the board was low) ... turns out it's a > KM> design problem with the southbridge wiring. Evidently it slowly > KM> cooks the relevant capacitors, and eventually, USB fails, tho the > KM> rest of the board keeps working. > Oh goodie! ASUSTek here, so the same company. (Some do sound similar > so checked.) OTTOMH I don't know what Northbridge and Southbridge do -- > one of those Black Box things. KM> Yeah... not thrilled with Asus, but a bunch of 'em have followed KM> me home, so.... Free/cheap is good! Not necessarily the best, which is why the 'good'! > In Northbridge/Southbridge chipset architecture designs, the Southbridge > is the chip that controls all of the computers I/O functions, such as > USB, audio, serial, the system BIOS, the ISA bus, the interrupt > controller and the IDE channels. In other words, all of the functions of > a processor except memory, PCI and AGP. > By that sounds like if the Southbridge goes one just has a bunch of parts > on a big printed circuit board. Any suggestions as to what to watch > for/starts to occur when the thing starts to fail? KM> USB quits? :) That sounds like a reasonable answer! KM> I suppose some "hard drive fails" might also be southbridge. So never assume what isn't working is due to what the obvious seems to be. > And as a FWIW I did finally replace the 'AMD-approved' heat sink and fan > assembly with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO; CPU now running a lot > cooler. Highest I've seen (per PSensor) is 112, maybe 118øF (44-48øC) KM> Yeah, the stock AMD heatsinks are junk. I replaced the stock KM> aluminum HSF on Westworld with an Adaptec-branded solid copper KM> HSF, and CPU temp dropped significantly. To me it would seem (ah! there's the problem!) AMD would want to approve an appropriate heatsink and fan. Could see two levels: Version A for 95W CPUs with up to four cores and Version B for 125W CPUs and up to eight cores so their CPU doesn't overheat and shut down -- seems like that would give AMD a bad reputation: "but I used what they told me to use!". KM> I have a second one and would like to replace the HSF on Double KM> Vision, but the socket is just a wee bit off shape and can't get KM> it to seat. And no longer matters, as 1) it's socket939 and tho KM> it desperately needs a CPU upgrade, they're too expensive, and 2) KM> I'd forgotten til I banged into it the other day, but this was KM> AMD's class of supposedly-x64 CPUs that won't reliably run a KM> 64bit OS (apparently does not actually do 64bit I/O). And I don't KM> know how far up the CPU chain the bug continued. (AMD had a KM> similar bug back in the K5/K6 era, where the 32bit CPU could not KM> do 32bit I/O. Windows would run, linux would not.) AMD seems to have a not-so-stellar reputation! OTOH Intel has also had a few screw-ups, notably the "2 + 2 = 5 for vary large values of 2" table error. KM> Westworld: Asus M2N68-AM Plus with Phenom II X4 840 KM> Double Vision: Asus A8N-SLI with Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice) KM> DV will run ReactOS, and sorta runs Mint (not well), but so far KM> have not gotten ANY other OS to run reliably. Bunch of us over on KM> LQ forum have had similar problems with same board and CPU KM> family, so.. it's a Thing. Just is going to be a pain. KM> Westworld's CPU is supposedly faster than any quadcore. In Real KM> Life it's about 40% slower. AMD does not impress, repeatedly. Apparently they have a very good Public Relations Department! > -- old heat sink and fan would get up to 180ø ==> could use the CD/DVD > tray to hold my mug and the CPU to warm up the water for my coffee and KM> Egads! What was 'funny' is I did not hear a fan revving up. Maybe on a scale of one to ten a three but I expect a slight change when doing something CPU-intensive. At 180øF I'd expect the fan to be in full-throttle Holy Mode. > tea! The 'USB sensitivity' is less but then it's May and the humidity > is more and seems that has always helped the problem. KM> Dunno why humidity would help; more humid the air, the more heat KM> it holds. The better it conducts to ground? Grounding seems to be fine here: UPS isn't giving me a warning light and tested with a circuit tester -- both sides ('wall outlet' and 'UPS out'). Could be a wiring quirk in the computer, could be a sensitivity in the AMD Southbridge..... > .. Prism: Where Light Rays Are Sent For Committing A Minor Refraction. KM> Ah, that explains it! Why it's so dark out?! ¯ ® ¯ Barry_Martin_3@ ® ¯ @Q.COM ® ¯ ® .... ANSI banned in prison computers: too many escape sequences! --- MultiMail/Win32 v0.47 þ wcECHO 4.2 ÷ ILink: The Safe BBS þ Bettendorf, IA --- QScan/PCB v1.20a / 01-0462 * Origin: ILink: CFBBS | cfbbs.no-ip.com | 856-933-7096 (454:1/1) .