Dead Motherboard

[ger21]

Anyone ever fry a motherboard from static? I turned off my PC this morning, because our power company notified us that the power would be off for maintenance. when the power was back on, I walked over to my PC, and when I pushed the power button, I got a static shock - and a dead PC. I pulled and tested the power supply (good), and checked the case switch with a meter (also good).

I believe there was an LED on the motherboard that was always on, but there's nothing now. So I'm assuming dead motherboard, correct? I'm going to buy a replacement on Ebay later today. Hopefully the CPU is OK, because it looks like a socket 939 X2 goes for more on Ebay than a new one.

[Al_The_Man]

Sounds like it is not in standby if the LED is not lit, if it does not even come up with boot bios, it is probably the momentary start circuit has fried.
If it is the older in-between MB that has both PS AT & ATX connectors, you may be able to get it back with a the older style PS.
I believe these bypass the stand by on.
Al.

[ger21]

It's newer, it uses an ATX 2 power supply (24 pin). I powered up the power supply (Antec Neo 480) with a jumper wire, and all the pins on the connector had the correct voltages according to the manual, so I'm assuming the power supply is OK. But when it's in the PC, everything is dead, no power anywhere. The motherboard (MSI) is just over 2 years old, and has a 3rd year parts only warranty, but they want $35 to cover the return shipping. I don't think you can buy any Socket 939 motherboards anymore, so Ebay appears to be the best option. Sniper is set and ready.

[MazakMikeO]

I have done that before with a dvd player believe it or not. Just went to turn it on and zap, static shock. No buttons on the front panel or the display worked after that.

[ViperTX]

Did you check the battery?

[ger21]

Did you check the battery?

I pulled it out this morning, and it was fine (3.2V I think).

And then it gets wierd.

Yesterday, while testing the power supply, I had an idea. I plugged it back into the motherboard, and started it by jumpering the start pin with a paperclip. The fans on the motherboard spun, but nothing else. And it would only run while the clip was in.

But after putting the battery back in this morning, I had an idea. I started the power supply with the paper clip, and pushed the power button on the case, and it came to life. The bios had reset so I had some windows issues. Did a shut down and restart, changed the bios settings and back into XP and all looked fine. So then I shut it down. Pushed the power button and it seems to be back to normal, starting by itself without the paperclip. Very, very bizarre. But good. I'm a little mad that I paid $70 on Ebay for a replacement motherboard (with Athlon 64 3200), but I guess I have a decent PC for Mach3 use now.

Very, very strange that it wouldn't start on it's own at all yesterday, though.

[Al_The_Man]

It sounds a bit like you lost the BIOS setting completely, when you reset it today, you may have unknowingly loaded the defaults from flash ram to get it going.
I have never seen a hardware symptom like that though.
Al.

[ger21]

Last post on this (for now) Since I had pulled most of the wiring out, I pulled the power supply and cleaned everything out, and re ran the wiring and tied it all up neatly. Pushed the power button, and.... nothing. But I can "jump start" it and it will apparently work ok as long as I don't unplug the power supply. The LED on the motherboard is not working any more, so apparently I fried something, but fortunately it's still almost fully functional.