[XP] Dead Mobo?

[WickedHorse]

Ahhh, 6 years without major problems and now the beast absolutely wont start. Really, hit the power button...nothing. Repeated pushes may "occasionally" give me a short burst of power, maybe half a second...just enough to make the case fans turn a bit.

The LED on the Mobo is on but even shorting the pins for the power switch doesn't work either. This started when I went to shut the computer off and after being told Windows was shutting down, at the very moment you hear the relay cut power the computer went immediately into a startup. I ended up toggling the PSU button to shut it off. Ever since then, the thing just wont power up except for the half second burst of power.

So, I went and bought a new PSU...that didn't help since the same symptoms occured. Okay, maybe the CMOS battery pooped, bought another one. That didn't help either.

Whats up? Is the ATX connection bad enough that it's only letting a small voltage through for the Mobo LED but not enough to allow HD's, CPU fan, and everything else to spin up? I inspected the Mobo but couldn't spot a burnt trace or bad Resistor or Cap. I even disconnected everything except the PSU and CPU fan to see if some other hardware was causing the problem, but still nothing. This has me irritated, any ideas?

ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe
Athlon XP 3200+
2 Gb's Corsair DDR400

I guess since it is 6 years old I should just scrap it, but just in case I thought I would check here first. TIA !!

One more thing, the computer has always been turned on via the keyboard, NOT the power button, so I can't believe the power switch went bad since it hardly gets used.

(BTW, the specs below are for a different computer)

[SuperSparks]

As you've replaced the power supply, the other classic cause of that behaviour is that your mobo has died. Given it's age, you may well have been hit by the bad capacitor problem that plagued motherboards a while back

Leaking Capacitors:


Bulging Capacitors:

[Train]

[WickedHorse]

Gack!! I kinda figgered the Mobo bit it. Like I said, I scrutinized the board pretty good and didn't see anything out of the ordinary when it comes to bad caps and such. Oh well, that Asus board served me well with very little problems to speak of.

Damn, guess that means I hafta build another new rig now.....oww! Owwch!!! Leggo of My arm....my arm !!! Stop twisting !!

(Okay, going back to playing Dawn of War: Soulstorm...thanks for the replies Train!)

[lgbpop]

Before giving up entirely - just try resetting the BIOS at the jumper. That momentary startup/powerdown could have sent the BIOS into lalaland. If that's not it, R.I.P.

[WickedHorse]

Yeah, I reset them jumpers when I put the new battery in. Guess I could give it another shot...I will reply if it works.

[Philgo]

SuperSparks and Train, are you having a competition to see who has the biggest Bulge

[SuperSparks]

It looks like Train has me beaten hands down, as far as size goes