How do I test the motherboard for problems?

I believe my motherboard is acting up but I don't know how to test it, How do I test the motherboard for problems?

Anyone got any ideas?

What is it doing?

Motherboards can be tricky. You might just have to start unplugging components one-by-one.

For instance try removing one ram stick, and then the other, and then switching which slots the ram goes into. If you still have the problem it's not ram.

Try unplugging unnecessary drives from the SATA ports, or switching the SATA ports they're plugged into. If there's still a problem then it's not a drive.

If your motherboard has on board video, unplug the GPU and then plug your monitor into the motherboard. If there's still a problem then it's not the GPU.

If you have some excess power cables coming from your power supply, see if you can swap those around to make sure none of the individual wires are dead or acting up. If there's still a problem then it's not the power supply.

At that point you can probably determine it's a motherboard issue. It's the most time consuming part to check manually since everything else plugs into it. Luckily it's not too difficult to go through the steps I mentioned above.

What's the make and model of your mobo? Is your computer getting past the bios? Can you get into Windows? Are your fans spinning? Is your PC beeping when it starts? A few more details would be helpful.

I did run a test on the RAM (Which was easy to find) and the RAM is bad so that'll need replacing.

Yes I can get into Windows, my motherboard has failed before and it didn't do any of that stuff. The PC is shutting off and restarting at random.

If the memory test failed, then try taking one stick out a time and then run your computer for awhile. Then restart it while alternating RAM sticks and then see if you can find a bad one. If the issue keeps on happening, you could also have a problem with your PSU if it's randomly restarting. Are you getting blue screens of death or memory dump crashes just before the computer restarts? Most of the time, you'll get one of those screens which can help in finding out if the PSU or memory is at fault.

And if you can find out the model of your mobo, I can check to see if it has a tick light, or some other troubleshooting feature that can help out. Is this one that you built on your own, or did it come prebuilt?

Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P . It's pre built, I do get the blue screens of death.

Sounds like you're on the right track then with the memory being the possible culprit. Motherboards can be a bit tricky to troubleshoot so I'm hoping you find the memory is the issue. However, take a look at the capacitors up near the CPU socket and see if any of them look like they're swelling up. And if possible, check the temps in your computer while it's idle. A program like Speccy can help you check the different reported temps for the various parts of your computer. If the motherboard is running hot while it's idle, that may be a clue if the mobo is going bad. Also, you can try disabling the auto restart on error option in your system so you can take a snapshot of the BSOD and then use Google to hunt down the issue via the code in the BSOD.

Right click "My Computer", Properties, Advanced system settings, "Settings" under Startup and Recovery, then uncheck the "Automatically resart" box. Alternatively, you could check your dump files to see if there's anything listed in there for you or perhaps in the Event Viewer.

I'd check the dump files from blue screens, but ye mobo can be tricky

What I found as well in windows 10 even though motherboard drivers are installed. Go to device manager system devices right click and press update driver software on each. Like I said even though I had motherboard latest drivers installed and windows updates when I did this on some it found newer drivers and updated them. Might worth a try.

When I first looked in mine after update I noticed

Xeon Processor E3 - 1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor DRAM controller - 0150

After updating driver software on a certain device it then gave me

Xeon Processor E3 - 1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port- 0151

So all devices might not be installed properly.

My CPU though is a I7 Ivy 3770k I still don't no why it showing as Xeon?.

Thanks.

Make sure you click Search Automatically for updated driver software as this will search internet for latest drivers.

If the RAM fails on memtest, don't hesitate to return it.

Most RAM sticks (if not all) have life time warranty.