Dead Motherboard?

[Ant]

Well, I've been given the glorious task of fixing a friend's friend's computer!

The machine is a 4 year old Packard Bell... Unfortuantely I can't find any info on the motherboard, but it is running a Duron 700 with 256 MB pc-100 RAM.

When it is powered up, the power, hd, and cd-rom LEDs light up and the fans spin, but thats it. No signal to the monitor, can't hear any activity from the HD, and no beeps from the motherboard.

I don't have any spare mobo's lying around so I can't change it to see... I have unplugged everything and still get the same response, no beeps or anything. I have also tried a different PSU, without any luck....

It did start up once throughout all my playing around, but it died again, 5 minutes after booting.

Does this sound like a dead motherboard to you? Is this enough info to guess that?

cheers
Ant

[GreenPiggy]

Stick your finger on the heatsink to see if the autotemp is kicking in.

[Ant]

Stick your finger on the heatsink to see if the autotemp is kicking in.

Phew, quick reply! thanks!

What am i looking (or should I say feeling) for? Heatsink feels cool to the touch...

[GreenPiggy]

I don't think it is that tbh. Normally i would say knackered BIOS but the one time it booted would seem to suggest otherwise.
Have you tried clearing the BIOS? If you don't know where the jumper is then just yank the battery out for half an hour.

[Flash]

Also make sure the motherboard isnt shorting out, a loose screw could have dropped behind the board and is shorting it. Packard bell dont have the best internal builder in the industry they are sone on an assembly line hence a possibilty of loose screws.

Also I would suggest the bios as above as it looks a classic case scenario of this.

So there we go 2 things to check.


Oh I know the fans and lights work but test the PSU also.

[guybrush]

I know it sounds obvious but have you tried taking out the atx cable and reseating it? I vaguely remember that fixing a few problems for me on older machines.

[Ant]

Thanks for the suggestions! I did reset the bios with the jumpers, but I may just leave the battery out for a while just incase! I did try another psu, which I know works, so I doubt its that...

I will check and see if its shorting out somewhere, thats something I hadn't thought of! It isn't the best built system to be honest.

Thanks people!