So... what's dead?

[zylaxice]

My fast aging unprotected self-built computer was recently hit by a power surge, and something went wrong. Absolutely nothing showed up on the monitor, I couldn't get to the BIOS or a splash screen or anything. My first though was the monitor, which I hooked up to another tower, and it is fine. My next thought was the HDD. I hooked that up to another computer, and it was indeed corrupted. I removed it and bought a brand new Seagate 120G drive. However, even with this new drive, I still can't get anything at all to show up on the monitor. When I hook up the monitor to my Radeon 9800 Pro (via VGA or DVI + adapter), it shows a green on light for a second, then goes back to the no signal/standby orange light. When I hook it up to the mobo directly, I get only the orange, no flash of green at all. My question is, how can I further test to find out exactly what's dead? I just want to isolate the problem so I can replace that specific part. Can anyone suggest any common problems or other tests I could do? I don't have any other computers wth AGP slots to test the graphics card, and I know my IDE cables are working properly.

Celeron D @ 2.8Ghz
9800 Pro 128 AGP
1.5G PC3200 DDR400
120G HDD, IDE 7200RPM
DFL 661GX-MLV Motherboard

Thank you in advance for any help, and I can provide more information if you need anything I forgot.

 

[Pain]

Put another video card in. If that's not it, it's probably the motherboard, but it could also be the cpu or the power supply or the ram. In other words, it could be anything, so you just have to start at the simple things and go from there.

Take everything out of the machine you don't need. Take all the ram out except one stick. If you can, test what ever you have in another machine. If you have another power supply, try it...or, put this PS in another machine and test it.

Obviously the hardest things to test from this machine without taking it completely apart is the MB and the CPU, everything you can move to another box and try it. So, that's what you do.

 

[shadowduck]

My fast aging unprotected self-built computer was recently hit by a power surge, and something went wrong. Absolutely nothing showed up on the monitor, I couldn't get to the BIOS or a splash screen or anything. My first though was the monitor, which I hooked up to another tower, and it is fine. My next thought was the HDD. I hooked that up to another computer, and it was indeed corrupted. I removed it and bought a brand new Seagate 120G drive. However, even with this new drive, I still can't get anything at all to show up on the monitor. When I hook up the monitor to my Radeon 9800 Pro (via VGA or DVI + adapter), it shows a green on light for a second, then goes back to the no signal/standby orange light. When I hook it up to the mobo directly, I get only the orange, no flash of green at all. My question is, how can I further test to find out exactly what's dead? I just want to isolate the problem so I can replace that specific part. Can anyone suggest any common problems or other tests I could do? I don't have any other computers wth AGP slots to test the graphics card, and I know my IDE cables are working properly.

Celeron D @ 2.8Ghz
9800 Pro 128 AGP
1.5G PC3200 DDR400
120G HDD, IDE 7200RPM
DFL 661GX-MLV Motherboard

Thank you in advance for any help, and I can provide more information if you need anything I forgot.

Do you have an internal speaker in your case? If so, take out all your RAM and see if the system starts beeping at you. If it doesnt, the motherboard is among the victums of your little incident. I would also take the PSU out of the case and have it tested at a local PC shop.

 

[zylaxice]

Thank you both for the incredibly quick response. Yes, I do have an internal speaker, and I can't get it to beep at me, no matter what I do, including taking out all the RAM. Does that then guarantee that my motherboard is damaged? Also, I have been thinking that it could not be the PSU because the fans on the video card and the one above the CPU do indeed spin up. Is that valid logic?

 

[Liam_Focus]

for a quick guess, that PSU may be causing it, PSU's do some crazy things.

 

[shadowduck]

Thank you both for the incredibly quick response. Yes, I do have an internal speaker, and I can't get it to beep at me, no matter what I do, including taking out all the RAM. Does that then guarantee that my motherboard is damaged? Also, I have been thinking that it could not be the PSU because the fans on the video card and the one above the CPU do indeed spin up. Is that valid logic?

Well, its PSU or motherboard. Dead CPU wont cause the motherboard not to beep. Take the PSU to a local computer joint and have it tested. They can tell you if its good in 30 seconds.

 

[sweetpants]

Thank you both for the incredibly quick response. Yes, I do have an internal speaker, and I can't get it to beep at me, no matter what I do, including taking out all the RAM. Does that then guarantee that my motherboard is damaged? Also, I have been thinking that it could not be the PSU because the fans on the video card and the one above the CPU do indeed spin up. Is that valid logic?

You can't rule out both are dead either... Best way to determine this is take them out and test in KG systems....

PSU in a good system validates PSU

Known Good PSU in this particular system doesn't validate anything, only narrows it down to possibly motherboard/memory stuff like that... (kinda see what I'm getting at?)

If we get a no post here at work, no fan = dead PSU, no memory beeps on a system board usually = bad motherboard...

 

[Plekto]

The chances that the motherboard is toast are about 110%. Surges do evil things with the capacitors - and that's just a start. Usually the caps are shot and/or the bios gone from a surge. The Northbridge also tends to die from excessive voltages(ie - any of the controller chips on the board and the caps are the usual weak spots).

A strong surge will definately blow up something on a motherboard or cripple it. But I've also seen CPUs fried and once only the video card was gone, so you never know until you actually atart pulling things apart. Now, OLD motherboards had socketed chips and often a new bios or memory controller swap was all you needed, but these days, it's all hard-soldered in place.

I would look at the board carefully for burnt or discolored areas and especially any of the caps and surface-mount components. If you see any, it's a safe bet that you need a new one.

 

[wun911]

Lets hope everythink is dead and you have to shop for new system....