Checking the signs of a failing motherboard is sometimes tedious and complicated since this hardware component has many sub-components, such as RAM sockets, PCI-Express ports, USB
In this article, we are going to teach you how to check motherboard health for yourself if your motherboard has problems, so you can know if they have a solution or if you will inevitably have to change your motherboard.
You should be aware that when problems occur in hardware components such as the motherboard, sometimes it does not mean that we have to completely change it.
For example, a motherboard may have a broken PCI-Express socket, but the rest works well, and the same can happen with RAM sockets.
The same is the case with the other hardware components; having problems with RAM, for example, can be a sign that the module itself is bad but also that the problem comes from the socket on the motherboard.
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How To Check Motherboard Health
Now you can easily check the symptoms of motherboard failure with the help of these given steps, so read the complete article very carefully to know how to check motherboard health.
Check PCI-Express sockets
As we mentioned before, sometimes it is difficult to know if a problem with the graphics card comes from it or from the PCI-Express socket to which it is connected.
The first thing you should do in the process of how to check motherboard health is to update the graphics card drivers or reinstall them with a clean install to rule out software issues.
If you’re still having trouble, it’s worth replacing the PCI-Express socket graphics card to see if the same problem recurs.
If you stop having problems when changing the slot, then you will know that it is that slot that was in the one before that no longer works correctly, but if you continue having them then the problem could be with the graphics card.
As a last resort, you can also update the motherboard BIOS. If the problem persists then you will have to find a replacement.
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Check USB ports
In the same way, peripherals such as the mouse or keyboard can start to fail, and that they do so may be a symptom of the device itself or the USB ports to which we have them connected.
If this is your case, to start you should try to connect the peripheral in a different USB, and if possible from another «block» that is, do not connect it to the USB next door but it is better to look for a different one.
If you have USB 2.0 and 3.0 on the board, it is recommended to switch from one to the other to see if the problem is in the controller.
You can also go to Windows Device Manager (right-click on the Start button, Device Manager) and look under “Universal Serial Bus Drivers” to see if there is an exclamation mark on any of the ports. If so, right-click on it and hit Update Driver to see if that fixes it.
In fact, even if there is no exclamation point, you can still try updating the driver to make sure.
Another option is to uninstall all USB drivers and restart the PC. Upon startup, they will automatically install again, and sometimes that can “resurrect” a device.
Check the RAM sockets
If you have problems with RAM and the computer emits strange beeps when you turn it on, it slows down for no apparent reason or gives you blue screens.
Chances are you are having problems with RAM, and again, this does not mean that it is from the modules themselves. RAM but it could be from the motherboard sockets.
To check it, the ideal is that (with the PC turned off) you remove all the RAM modules and install only one of them.
If the problem persists, try the following socket and so on with all. If after trying all the problem persists, try to do the same operation but with a different RAM module.
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Video output Problems
The other thing to check about how to check motherboard health is video output.
If any of the video outputs of the motherboard (DVI, VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort …) does not work, remember that these are disabled by default when you have a dedicated graphics card installed.
So if you need to check them, the first thing you should do is uninstall the graphic card.
If you are having problems even without a dedicated graphic, then the first thing you should do is a test with other cables to rule out the problem coming from these, and even if possible, try a different monitor to rule out that this is also the one spoiled.
If the problem persists, go to the device manager and under “Monitors”, right-click on the name of your monitor (or “Generic PnP monitor”) and try to update its driver, or uninstall and restart it to install it.
Best diagnostic programs to check motherboard health
The motherboard is the place to which all or almost all the parts that make up a PC are connected, so we can access it to know in detail all the specifications and characteristics of a computer.
This will be very useful to us when carrying out some tasks such as updating the drivers, seeing which component should be updated first, facilitating some repairs and many more.
But the problem comes when we don’t know how to check motherboard health now we review the best information applications on the motherboard.
The Best Motherboard information apps
There are several tools to diagnose the motherboard and all the elements connected to it, in this post we are going to focus on free alternatives.
Although if you need something more advanced you can always choose a paid application, although we believe that it does not It will be the case for 99% of our readers.
Piriform Speccy
Piriform Speccy is one of the best tools that we can use to know all the details about a PC. This company is known for being the creator of Ccleaner and Recuva, two other great free tools.
Speccy is based on a very clear interface and perfectly organized by sections so that we will know at all times where to look for what interests us.
On the left are all the main sections, if we click on one of them we will see very detailed information on the right side of the application.
Speccy offers real-time information on the temperature of the CPU, motherboard, hard drives and graphics cards, something that will be very useful to know if the cooling is correct and if we need to change the thermal paste.
The application allows us to save the data of a PC to be able to consult them in the future, something very important to offer a good after-sales service to customers.
AIDA64
AIDA64 offers us a free version that will be more than enough for most users. It is a very complete tool that displays information in a very similar way to Speccy.
Its most interesting point is that the paid version includes several stress tests that we can use to check the signs of a bad motherboard, since it allows us to subject the CPU, GPU, and RAM to a huge workload, at the same time that it shows its operating temperature in real-time.
It also offers us the possibility of doing a performance test on the processor, as well as checking the cache and RAM latencies.
SysInspector
We continue with SysInspector, another free diagnostic tool, in this case belonging to the company ESET, creator of the NOD32 antivirus, one of the best available.
This application allows us to obtain information about active processes, the content of the system log, startup items, network connections and many other details.
This application can be used to identify which TCP and UDP connections are made by the programs, as well as to see if there are processes that are overloading the use of system resources, something that often happens with malware.
Its heuristic system assigns a color to each element that marks high-risk processes in red. This is an application very focused on detecting problems related to malicious processes and suspicious connections, so it will be the perfect complement for Speccy.
HWMONITOR
We continue with HWMONITOR, a tool that stands out for offering very accurate information about all the hardware in our system.
In this case, it specializes in displaying the temperature of each component, the operating voltage and the speed of the fans.
All this data is visible as soon as you open the application, so its use is very comfortable and intuitive. It is the ideal tool for fans of overclocking.
CPU-Z
CPU-Z is a classic application that can also help us to know the details of a computer’s motherboard as well as all the components that connect to it.
As its name suggests, it specializes in processor data, and even integrates a benchmark to know its performance. It will also give us useful information about the RAM and the characteristics of our motherboard.