Looking for replacement part that doesn't break as easy

[Phhase]

So my desktop is doing a thing where when I turn it on, it won't boot, has a black screen, and the GPU fans do a stutter-start thing. In short-is busted. The last time it happened, it was the motherboard that was the problem, and it got fixed when I replaced it. This happened again when the power went out unexpectedly and now I need another board. Again. Three months later. The board I was using is an ASUS TUF SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 Socket AM3+ DDR3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 AMD 990FX ATX Motherboard. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm looking for something ATX in size with room for 64gb RAM, a fair sized GPU and network card, and an am3+ processor socket, preferably in the 500$ range, new or used.

[snowblizz]

I would additionally consider getting a quality PSU. It should be protecting your mobo from being damaged when the power goes. I'm getting the general sense if the mobo is being killed the PSU is often the cause. Directly or indirectly.

[Phhase]

I would additionally consider getting a quality PSU. It should be protecting your mobo from being damaged when the power goes. I'm getting the general sense if the mobo is being killed the PSU is often the cause. Directly or indirectly.

Ah, that reminds me, I'm currently using a 550w power unit, which seems to have been sufficient so far.

[gomipile]

It sounds like your power company may be supplying dirty power. You might want to consider getting a true sine wave UPS at some point to protect your system from outages, surges, etc.

[tyckspoon]

Ah, that reminds me, I'm currently using a 550w power unit, which seems to have been sufficient so far.

The raw wattage is usually fairly irrelevant, assuming you have a decent quality supply that can provide something close to its actual nominal power (cheap ones.. won't.) Your system probably runs something closer to 300w unless you have a truly monstrous GPU (and if you do it probably caps out more in the realm of 500w and you probably should have a heftier PSU - they're generally happiest running around 80%ish of max load.) The quality of a PSU tends to show through more in how reliably it provides the power it claims it does, how well it handles issues with the incoming wall power (surges/dips/inconstant power levels/etc that don't rise to the level of an outage but nonetheless cause significant wear and tear to electrical components that are specced for a single constant level of supply) and how gracefully it fails/shuts down/responds when the wall power exceeds tolerances, such as the kinds of surges that apparently killed your last board.

..most reputable manufacturers make or put their badge on PSUs that are somewhere between Excellent to Good Enough, tho, so this is typically only a major concern if you really tried to skimp out on the PSU when building. Don't do that. It's a really bad place to decide to try to save money.

[Fat Rooster]

So my desktop is doing a thing where when I turn it on, it won't boot, has a black screen, and the GPU fans do a stutter-start thing. In short-is busted. The last time it happened, it was the motherboard that was the problem, and it got fixed when I replaced it. This happened again when the power went out unexpectedly and now I need another board. Again. Three months later. The board I was using is an ASUS TUF SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 Socket AM3+ DDR3 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 AMD 990FX ATX Motherboard. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm looking for something ATX in size with room for 64gb RAM, a fair sized GPU and network card, and an am3+ processor socket, preferably in the 500$ range, new or used.

As someone who burnt out 2 Mobos before realising my CPU was busted (cheap ebay purchase and I'm a slow learner), I would suggest not being too quick to blame it. Replacing a component fixing a problem does not mean that component caused it.

AM3+ is pretty old, suggesting a pretty old processor. For $500 you might be worth upgrading that at the same time, not least to eliminate it as a source of the problem. For $500 you could probably get a decent AM4 board, CPU, and DDR 4 memory. If the PSU was good quality to begin with, powerful enough, and relatively new, I wouldn't put it as my top suspect, but I might replace it anyway if it is a little older and you are spending $500 already on new equipment for it to power.

The meta-problem is that where the problem manifests is not necessarily the source of the problem, so a CPU bug or PSU that fries motherboards may not fry the component that actually caused the problem. If it happened when the power went out that suggests PSU, but a slightly faulty PSU may have caused a bigger fault in the CPU, which may manifest even if you replace the PSU. A new MOBO didn't solve the problem, which unfortunately means everything else is suspect as well as having to replace the MOBO. Any money you spend on it is at risk, because there you risk installing a component which will damage other components.

I've no experience of graphics cars or memory bricking systems (though you probably want to upgrade your memory anyway), but I'm informed it can happen. Unfortunately that suggests the network card could also do it. Do you need greater than 1GB networking? Most modern MOBOs will manage that, and maybe more. You are risking good money after bad for legacy components if you really want to keep the parts you have.

What is the graphics card, and how much memory do you need? What is the make, model, and year of the PSU? Is this a workstation you really need, or a gaming station that it would suck to have suck (but you could risk)? Personally I wouldn't scrap the GPU, but I would move it to my 'suspect' pile if I could afford it. For a workstation I would suggest everything being replaced, right down to the SSDs which I would network copy, just to be sure (the specs say it's age is showing anyway). For a middle class gaming rig, everything but the GPU and SSD (if the ram was same generation I would keep it, but we are considering gen 5 now). For a 'can't afford to risk it' gaming rig, probably everything except SSD unless the GPU is very recent, and then Ebay the components with a disclaimer. Let those who can afford the risk take the risk. I find it hard to place you in the spectrum, because your budget is relatively low for the machine, but you are asking for 64gig. Do you need 64 gig of ram? Those are entry workstation levels, way above general use, but a workstation shouldn't be running DDR3. Is it an ex-workstation? Is it being used as a workstation?

It sucks, but unfortunately the "nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure" approach is a little applicable. If you have reserves to gamble on it breaking further, or it is not actually the end of the world if it breaks, you can afford to gamble on your existing components. Given what you have said, here would be my rundown. SSD would probably have gotten corrupted before frying anything else, so it is probably ok. GPU is not low risk, but as a major chunk of the value of the system you don't want to chuck it at this point. CPU I'd put high risk, having seen it happen, and memory low, but if you have to replace the board anyway now would be a good time to update both of these. First thing I would switch out would be the PCU though, as it is often the cause of problems while being pretty resistant to damage in return. Sounds unlikely to work here, but worth a try at fixing it, and if it caused them it is the only way to avoid more problems in future. Further up from that, investing in a surge protector might be an idea if you get a lot of thunderstorms, as that might contribute.

[factotum]

The last time I had an issue where the fans would kick on turning the machine on and then just stop, it was the PSU at fault, not the motherboard. I would definitely recommend aiming some troubleshooting in that direction.

[Phhase]

The machine in question is a games/everything else machine, so it's fairly important (this laptop can't handle much). The processor I'm using is an AMD FD832EWMHKBOX FX-8320E Eight-Core Vishera Processor 3.2GHz Socket AM3+. As to power concerns, I am using a power strip, so it should be protected at least somewhat. Depending on the time of year, the processor can run somewhat hot, though. I have historically had the autoshutdown cutoff at 160F, has that been roasting things? The graphics card is a Nvidia EVGA geforce gtx 960. The RAM are BallistX brand 8gb sticks.

Also, no SSD, just a fat 2tb HDD (Been slow to upgrade, waiting for a good deal, also dunno how to convert to boot from disk).
How MUCH memory do I need? Well, strictly speaking, 16gb should be fine, but I had 32 of space and now I'd feel bad not using everything I have.

Generally, a bunch of firefox tabs, photoshop, other Adobe products, or some other random things are open. Games-wise Dark Souls 3 is about the high end of my fidelity.