Hi all. My dad brought his PC around, said he had a big power surge or cut, and since then his PC wont work... Ive got it here and it will power on but not post. Anyway a capacitor actually blew up and fell out of the PSU, so I replaced the PSU thinking it might be a power issue... no good. I tested the video card and ram in my own machine and that worked fine. Only thing really left was the motherboard and CPU. I have a P4 3.2GHz Northwood so no other mobo to test my dads on etc.
I removed stuff like video and ram to check for beeping fault codes etc but nothing at all.
I guessed it was the motherboard as no LEDs came on properly on the front of the case anymore, the HD one came on for a short while but no power one. The motherboard is a ECS (Elitegroup KT600A) and CPU is an AMD Athlon 2500+ (barton I think) - Socket 462 (socket A).
Anyway I got a cheap ass ASRock K7S41GX as I was convinced it was the motherboard. This one has onboard video too... all the LEDs are fine, all the fans spin up, the HD, floppy and CDRW power up fine.
Anyways, put it all together and again no post. Cleared the BIOS on both aswell when testing but no luck. Tried my own RAM and no good, tried the RAM and Video outta my dads in mine again and they worked fine, put them back in my dads - no good.
Inspecting the CPU, it *looks* fine... but what do you guys think? Proper stumped now and hes moaning about spending money so if the CPU is dead it could mean swapping to a different platform really due to how rare they are now grr.
Cheers!
Yep sounds like cpu to me, you can still find s/hand socket As but they go for as much as 939s if not more, so Id go for a 939 mobo and chip
My brother had the same sort of problem last year when his PSU blew, turned out it didnt really matter as it was cheaper to buy new than faff on with finding out if it was the CPU or the MoBo. TBH it could be either or both.
Last time I upgraded fully from tekheads they sent me a new MoBo and CPU, it wouldnt boot at all and ended up being the CPU was faulty. Replaced it without quibble tho :)
/stops kissing Sams butt
Disconnect the mains then pop the BIOS battery out, leave the PC for 10 minutes (Go make a brew), then try powering the system back up again without putting the BIOS Battery back in.
Using the jumper to clear the BIOS doesnt work, because ive had exactly this fault with SiS Chipsets in the past, and its usually a dodgy BIOS Battery.
I Loath SIS chipsets
Ill try that mate cheers.
Yeah I am thinking it might be better him having a dirt cheap mobo and cpu on a different platform as socket A stuff is getting expensive now!! and its a ballache trying get this stuff to work lol.
Cheers guys :)
Quick update, tried as suggested but no luck there... think it might be new CPU time so gonna try pick one up cheap and see what happens. The old man has done a good job of killing this one lol