PC Dead - Help Diagnose

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DavidG
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Jun 07, 2003 8:41 am

PC Dead - Help Diagnose

Post by DavidG » Sat Jul 14, 2007 4:24 am

Came home yesterday and the power was off to the house. When power came back on, the computer wouldn't. :cry:

I opened up the computer, no fryed smell.
When I power the computer on the fans spin for a second or two, then spin down. I hear the subwoofer pop, so it seems to be getting power. Unfortunately the MB doesn't have an LCD for post codes.

I swapped out the power supply, same behavior ... I tried clearing the CMOS, same behavior.

My guess is the motherboard, a Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra 9 nForce 4, got zapped when the power went out.


Any ideas?

andyb
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 3307
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2004 12:00 pm
Location: Essex, England

Post by andyb » Sat Jul 14, 2007 5:29 am

Your worst fears are almost certainly correct.

Firstly, are you sure that the other PSU you tried is fully functional.??? If it is then your mobo is probably fried, but there are a few things to try before writing it off.

Disconnect every power cable from the PSU except the TWO power cables going into the mobo, and the power cable to the Graphics card (if it needs one). Disconnect the data cables to all drives, and take out any other cards apart from the graphics card, CPU and RAM.

You will now be running on bare minimum, and as we have ruled out the PSU already it can only be the mobo, the CPU the RAM or the Graphics card.

If you have a spare graphics card (ideally an old PCI card) the try that in place of your current card, if its a no-go then there is a 99% chance its your mobo.

CPU's and RAM can get fried with a mobo but are exremely unlikely to be affected, and the graphics card is possible as some (or all) of its power will be routed through the motherboard, and what if any isnt will come straight from the PSU.

I would suggest buying an "Antec PSU Tester" if you want to test your PSU's, they are cheap, available and brilliant - not all fried PSU's smell, or make high pitched noises, and often their fans work, a PSU tester is the easiest sure fire way of telling.

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/99889

After all of that you can wave goodbye to your mobo.


Andy

DavidG
Posts: 33
Joined: Sat Jun 07, 2003 8:41 am

Post by DavidG » Sat Jul 14, 2007 3:01 pm

Well I replaced the MB and I'm back up. Thanks for confirming my fears.

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