PC wont POST [RESOLVED]

[AlphA]

Hi,

Someone at work brought a "dead" PC in for me to have a look at. Specs as follows

Intel E5200
Intel motherboard- DP43TF
1X 2GB DDR2-800
Some entry level Nvidia card (with HDMI)
SATA HDD + SATA DVD/RW
Codegen 400W PSU

The PC is about 4 months old.

Anyway, the machine was unplugged over the weekend as the owner was away for the weekend. When plugged in after a few days of being disconnected....it powered up ,but a few seconds later, it just powered down. There was a soft "click" sound when it powered down (thats how it was described to me). Would'nt switch on thereafter.

When the machine was brought in, it was completely dead. No power up at all. There was a 500W Procase in the office, so I replaced the PSU with the procase. It powered up, no POST though. No beeps either.
Plugged in a screen to see whats happening. No POST, so no info on screen.

I tried moving the RAM into another bank. I get three beeps.....but still no POST. The board has 4 memory banks.....the one that the memory was originally in results in no beeps. Any other memory bank emits 3 beeps.

Things I have tried so far
1) New ATX power switch
2) Moving memory to another bank
3) Removed all PCI cards
4) Removed all optical/hard drives
5) Different PSU
6) Removed the battery (could'nt find the clear CMOS jumper and dont have the manual)

None of the above worked. I dont have ny DDR2 in the office, so I'll try replacing it with mine when I get home. Will also try to a different PCI-express card. Will also stick in another 450W PSU......just to make sure the ProCase is not dead either.

After that, I'm pretty much stuck. Any suggestions?

It seems the original (CodeGen) PSU is completely dead.......cos at least the ProCase powers it up. Is it possible that the Codegen had an internal fault and when it was powered up, it took some other components with it to the morgue?

Any advice on the matter would be appreciated.

[MadFrog]

Dead Motherboard? Check all the capacitors and see if any of them are swollen. The click sounds like it may have been an electric spark.

[AlphA]

Thanks for the response.
I checked the caps on the board. No obvious damage, no funny smell, and no swelling.

[MadFrog]

I have encounterd dead boards before with no visible damage, but just a word of advice, if the PSU broke, there is a big chance that your motherboard has been damaged as well. And if the motherboard died, replace the psu as well. I read somewhere that most damaged motherboards are due to faulty PSU's

[AlphA]

Thanks for trying to help MadFrog.

I brought the machine home, and tested with my wife's PSU (also a Codegen 400W) and everything is fine. Machine POSTed
first time and eveything works fine. Turns out the 500W ProCase we had at the office was faulty as well!

The PSU is still under warranty (bought it from Sybaritic in September). I have contacted Graeme to find out what the swapout
procedure is.

Thank goodness the board + CPU are ok.

Thanks again for trying to help.

[MadFrog]

Lucky.... Experienced the exact same problem last night.