Motherboard fried?

Well, I have a nagging suspiscion that my motherboard is fried, although it happened without any changes to hardware, or power surges.

It was working fine, then my sister says that she installed an MSN patch (She might have gotten an e-mail virus and not owned up to it, it's hard to know). Anyhoo I get called from the computer, and it looks as if every setting has been reset, basically windows looks like it was just installed (Registry loss or something?) After deciding to put off reinstalling drivers till the morning, I woke up to find that the computer wouldn't boot. At all. I get no bios loading or ram counup, all I get is the power supply turning on and all the disks spinning up. I'm not getting any beeps from it either. The CPU is also at the correct multiplier settings.

All the cables were hooked in properly, and the screen is working fine. I swapped out the graphics card for an older one, and there was no change. Something odd is that the power button must be held down for 5-10 seconds before the computer goes off, which doesn't make much sense. So is my motherboard blown or is it something else?

Are you using an ATX power supply?

The 5-10 seconds are actually 4 seconds... ;)
This is a known method to do a complete powerdown of your ATX box.
Like on NT4, the auto shutdown does not work, therefor you have to hold the power off button for 4 long seconds or more. This is completly normal.

Check your RAM and AGP Video, if those are not properly fitted to their sockets you get the described prob.
If you have another power supply, change and see what it does.

soounds like what happened to me i was just going along fine compiled my program and the computer switched of i turned it on and nuthing happned the hd didnt spin up or nething so took the case of and their were burn marks on chips i didnt do nething so i was pissed and what makes it worse was it was my nix machine
in answer to your question its hard to tell without seeing it but try booting it up with only the video card and the harddrive pluged in c if it boots from their if not theirs a high chance that your motherbaord has fried and not a hrdware problem but i dont think its a hardware problem in the frist place but you know always good to look on the brightside of things
hope that
helps

I had the same problem when nothing would show... It could be that
a) You have a MBR (master boot record) virus, or
b) Your processor is fried... Try going to a lower stepping and boot up, or
c) Your RAM got fried...
I dont think its a Mother Board proble because your disks are spinning up... So try what RiOtEr said.. Boot it withminimal hardware :D Hope this helped out ;)

Won't boot or won't post?

Since you can't get into BIOS I'm assuming it's not posting.

You say you've swapped out the vid card already with the same response so I'm going to suggest stripping the board down to just vid, ram and cpu and pulling power on all but the hard drive.
If it still won't post go one step further and pull the vid card. This should get you a beep from the board IF the board is functional. You can also pull ram in search of a beep code from the board. The reason you do this is to eliminate that it's other hardware vs the board.
One last possibility is it is the CPU, if you have another to test with, I would do so after the other tests.

Couple of other possibilities:

Check the board for the clear cmos jumper and do so, worth a try.
Check all cables, possibly you have a bad cable but with no post I really doubt it.

Since it's working before you don't have to go to extremes on the testing like pulling it from the case and stripping it clean, and trying to power up that way, seeing if a mount was causing a short.

Good luck...I really hate it when a board goes bad. :(

TC

just to clear somthing up we arnt all lazy and read everyone elses posts we all posted at the same time hehe just thought u should now lol

Heh..that's funny, look at the times...I was in chat and was typing slow but when I started there were no replies yet.

Okay, the post doesn't seem to be working.
My comment about the power button being slow was due to the fact that it's usually instant, although I don't know how exactly ATX boards do their power distribution.
Underclocking the CPU hasn't helped, and I'm loathe to take out all the cards if it isn't going to do much. I might still give it a try though.

Look at it this way, it'll help determine exactly what needs to be replaced and if you have to replace the board you're going to have to pull the cards anyway. It doesn't work so something *has* to happen.

I feel for you though....hate pulling boards on my own systems. Much rather do it when I'm on the clock. :p

Yup, still getting the same problem with all the hardware removed, with and without videocard.

Sorry.. :(

it sounds to me like your ram could be dead in some capacity. what kind of ram do you have? If you have an open DIMM slot, move a card of it there. i had the same problem as you and the cause was a bad dimm slot.

I am having the same problem over here. It occured actually when I was in the middle of a linux install... It was going fine and then the install failed and i tried too reboot but nothing came up. Now when i boot my computer up I dont get anything on the screen or a beep. My harddrives spin and the power button doesnt work at all to power it down. I have too manually power it off via the power supply toggle.

I had just put in a brand new power supply as well caus the last one burnt out...heh and right after i put in the new one this happens.

My insticnt was too yup take out all my devices one by one and see where the problem was...well i got all the way too the ram and still no screen. So it's either the cpu or the mother board..the cpu is spinning fine so i'm assuming its the mother board..

hope someone has a solution.

dyode:
do you use ATX power supply? I havbe seen this happen to a friend... the power supply burnt out and fried the MBR too...

So probably your PowerSupply did a power surge when burning out causing ESD or electrical damage to your MBR...

thesecretfire:
You have a blank screen? does your numlock capslock and scoll lock lights on your keyboard light on? If they are similtanuos you have an ESD problem... disconnect any device and power on.
You have taken out everything and replaced video card? therefor only options are: MBR, RAM, RAM socket, CPU...

Ironically enough I just had this problem. T tried all that and then "borrowed" my dads processor and fired it up, instant boot!. I had IDENTICAL symptoms. I'm not saying its gauranteed but check it out, I have an ATX supply.

H'm reminds me of my old MB's BIOS getting flashed by the CIH virus/worm...

one hell of a way to spent 175Eu (350 Gilders @ the time) on a new MB...

VictorKaum: Yes i have an ATX power supply 300w . I just replaced an old one that burnt out and when i put this one in it ran fine and then I started too get these symptoms..i'm trying a new mb today.

I had the same problems once because my Jumper to clear the CMOS was on the wrong position. I suggest that you may check your Motherboard jumper specification. Maybe if you clear the CMOS manually, it'll change something. Also be sure that your computer sound speaker is connect because even if your video card, ram or cpu is broken, the post will tell you with sound. Last thing, check all your jumpers and if you want, try to check with another powersupply!