B0rked? looking for some advice

[petrefax]

got into work today to find a home PC on my desk...finally tracked down its owner & all i could get from them is "its not working" so not much to go on regarding how it came to be not working

when the PC is started, the HSF / interior fans will briefly flicker then the machine is to all intents & purposes dead.

i've tried another PSU, which gave no noticeable improvement, i tried another CPU (seeing as i had one to hand) again, no noticeable improvement

i've checked all cards, RAM etc are properly seated...so what's next?

the slight flicker of response doesn't happen often, only occasionally. its as if a capacitor somewhere is gathering charge if you leave it alone for long enough because it'll flicker briefly when you first try it out, but the next few attempts will yield nothing until its been left alone for a while

any suggestions?

[Dougal]

Last time thaty happened to me it was a mobo problem. Check the BIOS jumper and batt.