Motherboard Problems

[Sarvis]

My roomates motherboard died at some point last night. That isn't the important part. The important part is that we wanted to make sure his processor was still good, so we put it in my machine. It booted up fine, but we had a lot of trouble getting the heat sink off afterwards. Now my motherboard won't boot. It gets power, and all the fans start spinning... but we don't even start to boot up, no bios, no memory check... nothing. :(

Anyone ever seen this? Is it fixable, or is my motherboard ruined?

[Nekler BlazingWolf]

disconnect the power cord, find the jumper to clear the bios and clear it
if you can't find the jumper, just pull the button cell battery out and leave it out for a few minutes.
reset the jumper/put the battery back in, plug the puter back in and it should boot. make sure you go into the bios and set the processor type and everything back to how it should be.

[Sarvis]

OK, we'll be using that as a last resort. It seems that a bad stick of ram could also cause this problem. The board actually posts if there is no cpu, but gives a "no cpu installed message." Accoarding to a forum on hardwareanalysis.com that could mean bad ram.

Of course, right after everyone says bad ram they say clear the cmos. ;)

Now, any chance you wanna take a crack at my roomates computer? His fans won't even come on, just the power light. I guess there's supposed to be another light that just comes on when you press the power switch, then goes off.. but that one isn't going on.

Thanks for the help. :)

[Nekler BlazingWolf]

If it were bad ram, then it still wouldn't post without the cpu as its still using the ram. Can always test that by using the ram from your room mates puter tho.

As for his computer.. I know some boards have a sensor on the cpu heatsink fan plug on the mainboard, and if the fan fails, it shuts the board down to keep from cooking the cpu. Might try plugging a known working fan into the header for the cpu fan and see if it powers up or not.
I'll assume you've also tried just unpluging the computer for a bit. Seems to fix a lotta things somehow.
If its not the fan sensor, then I'm not really sure. It wouldn't be the power supply since the power led is coming on. The other light you mentioned was prolly hard drive activity light, and since they prolly arn't getting power, there isn't gonna be any activity. ;)
Were there any storms, power outtages? Notice any odd sounds at the time the puter died?

Could also try unplugging the cables and stuff off the board, and then plugging everything back in to make sure they are hooked up properly and fully connected.

[Sarvis]

Well, from what I hear it checks the CPU before the RAM... so if you get the no cpu message it means you are at least starting to post. :)

I did get the message, however trying each ram stick on it's own didn't help. So maybe I still need to clear the CMOS, or maybe the RAM sockets got broken somehow. :(

Oh well, stuff to play with when I get home. If I can get a computer working I'll let you know how it turns out...

[rylan]

Clearing the cmos isn't a big deal, and tends to fix a lot of odd problems. As mentioned unplugging the power supply for a few minutes also can help icnase it was in short-protect mode for some reason.

As for your friend's computer, do you mean the power led comes on when he pushes the power button but nothing else happens? Or just the led on the motherboard that stays on all the time that means the power supply is plugged in. May sound silly, but it could be the power button died or the connector isn't making good contact with the motherboard.

[Sarvis]

Ok, nothing has worked for my computer so far. I'm assuming bad motherboard at this point. :(

My roomate was also clearing his cmos last night, but I didn't see him this morning to see how it went. Apparently I had it slightly wrong, his system starts to power up then just shuts down. It never finishes POST, but the fans start up and then just shut down after a second...

[Gerad]

GOOD ADVICE:

Never, EVER EVER put ANYTHING that came out of a fried computer into a working one to test it.

If you are that much in doubt, get a continuity tester and look up the technical pin spec's on the web, you can test a bad anything that way.

[Sarvis]

Of course, then I'd have to know what a continuity tester _is_. ;)

And it probably costs money, which we don't really have... :(

Though, in the future I'm probably going to heed the whole not letting him test things in my computer part.

[Nekler BlazingWolf]

sounds like the fan on the cpu heatsink either isn't working, or the fan thats plugged into the cpu heatsink fan header isn't working.
thats the only thing I would know that would shut it down without any kind of error message, then again. I'm not a certified computer tech :P

[rylan]

If it begins to start up and then shuts down, then its most likely the power supply going into a overload protect mode. Check to make sure none of the cpu pins are bent or anything making contact with stuff on the board that it shouldn't. I'd also reccomend removing the agp and any pci cards.. seen those shift and cause that problem before. Know what brand/wattage power supply it is?

[Guest]

GOOD ADVICE:

Never, EVER EVER put ANYTHING that came out of a fried computer into a working one to test it.

If you are that much in doubt, get a continuity tester and look up the technical pin spec's on the web, you can test a bad anything that way.

I'd reccomend against a continuity tester here.
Continuity tester might fry some sensitive parts easy.
Maybe a good high impedence vom here and there, but honestly there isn't much you're going to be able to test with it.
You could check for 5 and 12 volts from the PS, but not much else.

[Jasix Prowlingwolf]

1. take the machine out to the carpark.
2. plug it in with a long extention lead.
3. pour two buckets of cold water on the motherboard.
If it still doesn't works, repete steps 1 to 3.