Mobo died? what now?

[drojman]

I was sitting here enjoying my pc.. went in other room.. came back 20 mins later, and it was turned off.
No power .. nothing.. if I unhook ps from mobo, and hook it back up.. fans and trouble shoot lites come on for a sec and then go back off. .no beeps .nothin.

Have a epox 8kha+ mobo, xp 1700+ chip, 1gb ram,

Unsure of what to do. should I get new mobo, or whole new setup?
Running a geforce 4 card already that can't use its full potential on this board. but I don't have a ton of cash to lay out either..

Suggestins would be appreciated. I used to rebuild every 6-9 mos, but have had this machine for about 18 mos.. so not up on all the best stuff to use. I am a gamer, and for the first time inyears found that I didn't need to upgrade all the time lol.

thanksin advance,

Drojman

ps.. I hope this is right forum for advice.. otherwise, please move to the right one thanks

[MitaDC]

have u tried reseating everything?? try that then see if it works. I had that happen b4 when I put a thermal probe under the CPU...just try everything b4 u go out and spend money on something that wasn't really broken.

[drojman]

That was a good idea.so I just did it..
everything in there nice and tight
DARN
And back to work tomorrow so no time to fix it for a few good thing I have a laptop

[PresterJohn]

another thing to check is the power supply. do you have another pc that you can swap that part out?

[cbuddha42]

any signs of damage to the caps on the board? tried taking the board out of the case and booting it with only a minimum attached?

[drojman]

Wife computer has a suitable ps, not sure about trying it as if there is something that would damage it I would hate to mess up her computer as well. :/

Caps on motherboard? unsure about that one.. havent taken it out of its case though

[PresterJohn]

Originally posted by drojman
Wife computer has a suitable ps, not sure about trying it as if there is something that would damage it I would hate to mess up her computer as well. :/

well it's going to be awful hard to isolate the problem unless you swap parts around. not much more to tell ya at this point...

[John Prophet]

first thing to do....open case...pull out all the pci cards...

try it like that.

Could just be a shorted modem.....thats what it sounds like.

Or one of the other cards.

If that doesnt do it, unplug the IDE cables and pull the power plugs out from the hard drives. Also may as well pull the floppy cable and floppy power chord.

Try it there.

If thats not it you are down to motherboard/cpu/vid card/ram/power supply.

I DOUBT that you would hurt her power supply by trying it...but do these other thing first.

Also you can check YOUR power supply somewhat by unplugging it from the motherboard...and then on that big block connecter..take a bent paper clip and connect the blk and green wires together by sticking the paper clip down into the connector....you'll see what I mean if you look at it. If you try that, make sure you have at least SOMETHING hooked to one of the power supply power plugs..like a hard drive r at least a fan....by shorting the green to black you are just telling it to power on. (there is no voltage there that can hurt you)

JP

[drojman]

Ok, thanks for those ideas, I will have to try them when I get home from work.
I didn't know that about the power supply leads either..
Hope it turns out to be something simple

[John Prophet]

yeah....power supplies are turned on the signals from the motherboard etc......so when you pull the main power supply plug you can simulate that "power on" signal by shorting the green and blk (any of the several blacks)

but most people do suggest to have a fan or hard drive or old cdrom on one of the power plugs to give the power supply some "load" to work against.