AMD Socket A Mainboard got fried

[Udox]

I have an old (but trusty) PC which is a spare setup and is used a few times a week.

Its almost ten years old and has served me very well with just a couple of hardware changes (H/D, Ram and DVD player)

Last week after smelling smoke, I took the side off to see the (Gigabyte) mainboard smoking and emitting sparks - I think it has cremated itself

The CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 2000 (K6), socket A

I live near Pattaya and went into town today, to TukCom to see if it was possible to purchase another mainboard.

The only thing I came away with was several smiles and chuckles from the store owners

Am I wasting my time and money here

I am wondering if the CPU might have been damaged in the smoke and sparks session and would be terribly unhappy if I bought a new mainboard and then found the CPU fried as well

Any advice or tips? Will I ever find a Socket A mainboard? - or should I just accept the inevitable and bin the lot?

Common sense tells me to wait until a cheap old system comes my way and use whatever can be salvaged from the two of them.

I hate throwing anything away

[Satcommlee]

Very near Threpprasit Market is another small market where people sell second hand crap... (It's a hundred meters or so down towards the sea, on the same side)

I have seen many many ancient motherboards for sale there, it may be worth checking out if you are passing by.

if you could get the same motherboard then that may also save you having to reinstall.

But the culprit could be your power supply and the same could happen again to the next motherboard, so be cautious.

[RichCor]

Agree with Satommlee, sounds like your power supply is bad (if not dangerous). Smoke is one thing, seeing or hearing spark cross-overs is another.

If possible I suggest you have the other components (HDDs, Interface Cards, Memory, etc) tested as overvoltage from the supply could have damaged them.

[kkerry]

The problem with buying motherboards that old will be bad caps. You still see them in some of the second hand computer parts stores for a few hundred baht but by the time you get them fixed up... this link will give you an idea on what you can buy that will be a bit more suited to modern computing. http://www.oshicomputer.com/comset-hp-dc-5800-lcd-17-hp-mousekeyboard

I see computers at Tesco for less than ten thousand baht on clearance that would run rings around what you have been using but if you don't want to spend much then less than 5000 baht gets you something second hand that is still more practical then hanging on to a ten year old relic.

[NeverSure]

There are motherboard ghosts in Thailand that find and live only on motherboards. They are called spark and smoke ghosts. If they get real active, they manifest themselves as sparks and smoke. You are helpless against them and they have probably moved to your other computer.

You need a seance to rid your home of them.

Naw, either buy a good used computer, or buy a new one for 10k baht. You don't know what all got fried in this incident or what caused it, so at the least you need a motherboard and power supply, and then you might find that your CPU and RAM are fried...

[Udox]

Thanks for the replies. You guys affirmed what I already knew, but didn't want to admit

Ten years is a good innings for a PC and I shall submit it to the trash can where it belongs.

I too was worried about what else had been fried and would it happen again if I had changed the board.

Bought another one already, 12k for 3.6 ghz cpu and 20" LED screen.