[PLUG] Hardware puzzle of the day - desktop won't boot

[Matt McKenzie]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 6:27 AM, David Fleck <david.fleck at mchsi.com> wrote:

> Seeking advice/opinions on the following situation:
>
> 6-year old homebuilt PC, ASUS motherboard, Athlon CPU, OpenSuSE 10.1 (not
> that I think that part is relevant.)
>
> About a week ago, I came downstairs and discovered the machine was off.
> It was on when I left it the previous evening.
>
> I pushded the button, and the fans whirred up. No other activity - no
> POST, no HDD noise or lights.
>
> I thought that maybe the power supply was bad, so I removed it and put it
> into a spare machine (that didn't have a power supply). That machine
> booted normally.
>
> I put the power supply back into the sick machine, and unplugged all the
> drives.  Same result - fans whir, no POST or HDD activity.
>
> I removed the memory.  Same result - fans whir, no POST or HDD activity.
>
> So now I am thinking it's the motherboard, and I order one of the only two
> mobo's Newegg offers that still supports 462(A) socket processors, the PC
> Chips M848A.  Wait for it to arrive....
>
> It arrived yesterday. So I carefully disassembled my sick PC, put in the
> new mobo, reassembled it, turned it on... and no change. Fans spin, no
> POST, no HDD activity.
>
> Take out the memory, disconnect the drives, restart - same behavior.
>
> Swap in a pouer supply from my wife's machine - same behavior.
>
> Remove the CPU - same behavior.
>
> So I'm at a loss for what to do next (aside from "buy a new computer").
>
> I suppose it's possible that my old mobo is bad, AND the new one is also -
> or that the CPU has died, or that the old mobo is bad, and I damaged the
> CPU in moving it from one machine to the other.
>
> How can I test these various possibilities? Are there other possibilities
> that I am overlooking?
>
> (A further note - the HD is fine; I moved the hard drive to the spare PC,
> put the power supply back in, and it booted up fine, which is how I'm
> typing this e-mail. Unfortunately, the spare machine doesn't support my
> graphics card.)
>
> All comments welcome, thanks in advance-
>
> --
> David Fleck
> david.fleck at mchsi.com
>
>
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> PLUG at lists.pdxlinux.org
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>


Well from what I can see, the only thing in common before and after the mobo
swap is the CPU (you already tried removing RAM).
It is possible the CPU is dead or died during swap.  However I will say my
limited previous experience with PC Chips mobos is negative, so I wouldn't
rule out both mobos being dead either.

My experience with PC Chips was with a previous job, Linux rackmount servers
reseller, we normally used a certain range of motherboard brands, but for
the entry level machines we had to switch to a new one, and chose PC Chips.
They worked for a while but tended to have a higher failure rate, or other
defects, than other low end mobos.  The higher end machines used Tyan mobos
mainly.

So I would see if you can try another mobo with your CPU (preferably another
brand), or if not, return the PC Chips to NewEgg, they have good customer
service.


-- 
----------
Matt M.
LinuxKnight