Testing Dead MOBO's

[Railman5]

Kids just reported that pc won't start.

I tried to start pc and nothing. so switched the psu supply off and on at the psu and wham bam a big flash.

oh dear I thought, thats the psu fried.

tried a known psu in the machine and absolute zip.

is there any method if checking that the motherboard is goosed. This is the second motherboard in this pc case in 2 1/2 years.

motherboards are/were MSI KT4v and KT6v or something like that.

I have ordered yet another mobo and a 600watt psu

anybody any ideas to check mobos working or not?

I am now getting quite a collection to e-bay but not if they are dead!

thanks

Edited September 5, 2005 by Railman5

[Technoguy]

well if ur mobo is blown up there mite be some black marks on the side of ur mobo.well u can also check by trying different PS and also whether all ur onboard peripherals r workin or not

[wizardofwindows]

time to get the younging a xbox or a different tower grounding problem?

[Railman5]

Hmmmmm

You may be onto something there timeless.

Could I ground the MOBO to the tower case with a bit of earthing shield - like in a eklectrical house installation?

any other ideas to how one might check if a mobo works or not, some sort of bare bones test rig?

what would be good?

any help appreciated

[Railman5]

Ok.

If I set up a working PSU to the suspect motherboard what else should I connect to check that the MOBO works OK.

Don't wanna install everything just to test MOBO working or not.

so what minimum I can get away with

[rikgale]

Take the mobo out of the box and place on a non conducting surface...

remove everything apart from the CPU, RAM and Video card. Attach a known good PSU, a monitor and maybe a keyboard. Fired it up, you will either have to use the switch from the case or you can use a screwdriver to short the pins which send the power on signal. (If unsure use the front pannel switch from your case)

Power it up and pray. If it's dead you'll see zip. IF there is something left then it will post and you should see this on the monitor and it should then try and boot, where it will fail due to there being no HD.

I think that you will probably be out of luck and you'll have a fried mobo, I did similar a few months back. If this is the case you then have to figure out if the RAM, CPU, Gfx card, HD's, CD-ROMs that were attached are still in working order and go from there. Borrow another mobo to test these parts. And use a good, branded PSU, the last thing you want is your friends mobo going BANG!!

[Railman5]

rikgale.

thanks for the useful advice.

Don't hold out much hope then.

lets hope that its only the mobo and psu gone for a burton. else its getting to be a new system

and I do like tinkering

[rikgale]

Was it a branded PSU (i.e. enermax, tagan, or one of the other quality/expensive types). If it was you might have a slightly greater chance of a live mobo, but not much. Sorry to be the carrier of bad news. I hope for your sake, and that of your bank balance that it still works.

Let us know how you get on

[Railman5]

it was a JEANTECH from PC World. Cost me an arm and a leg 'cos I needed it now!

I ordered a 600w psu from E_Buyer but did some research and found I had bought a load of C$%p!

So I reordered a Antec Truepower 380watt psu.

this is supposed to have enough guts to pump out enought amps on the +12v rail.

should receive the items today so eagerly await to see whats fried and whats OK.

let you know the results when its all rebuilt.

[rikgale]

"it was from PC world", kinda says it all really!! You must have been very despirate.

If you search about on these fourms there was a long thread a little while back about quailty PSU's. Antec are good.

[rendrag]

I've used antec, enermax, and vantec with glowing success. Thermaltakes are good as well, though no personal experience.

[Railman5]

well expected to receive my antec psu this last friday but delivery didn't happen over the weekend soooo I had to use e-buyers 600w psu - honest to god - what a joke 17amp on the +12v rail WTF.

So I had no choice but to try this with the new mobo.

carefully rebuilt and wha ho it works again.

bit of trouble in the mobo recognising the usb2 ports tried everything

in the end I formatted the c and reinstalled win2k (been meaning to do this anyway for a while now - so perfect excuse)and everything worked a treat even the usb2 ports recognised OK.

Just heard that mt antec PSU arrived this morning but can't install it till weekend. believe that its about twice weight of e-buyers psu. as long as you are aware of the capabilities of these cheap psu's then its OK!

Now I have to test my psu's with a gadget called ATX tester cost about £tenner all in inc p+P. could be worth it to eliminate a specific problem.

then I'll build up a little test bed for the 'fried' mobo's to see if they are goosed or what.

B)