Fried?

A buddy of mine called me because his system wouldn't boot. He said the screen stayed black, he heard power, but nothing happening. I went over to see if I could help and here's what I found out. He has two CD-ROM drives, for whatever reason, and only one of them was hooked up. It was having problems so he decided to unhook it and hook up the other one. The only problem is that he did it while the computer was still on. He said he saw a pretty big spark when he was trying to attach the power lead to the CD-ROM drive. He then tried to reboot and nothing happened.

Like I said, there's no video, there is power (the fans are all spinning), but nothing happening. Hitting the reset button doesn't seem to do anything.

Clearly, he fried something, but is there any way of knowing what? I can go buy a new MB and find out it still doesn't work and have to go through replacing parts bit by bit until it works.

Strip the board of components and try booting up. Take note of the POST BEEP Error code you get. Reinstall component by component each time making note of each POST BEEP Error code you get. The complete absence a POST BEEP Error code with no components at all would indicate the system board at fault.

Thanks Calpitor. No beep codes. I guess that doesn't mean there couldn't be other bad components as well. But, I'll try a new board and see whatg happens.

Quote:

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Originally posted by sparky472
saw a pretty big spark when he was trying to attach the power lead

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Pity you didn't say he saw a bright spark - cause it would have been the only one in the room - LOL.

:D

After I fix this for him, I plan on never letting him live it down!

I missed that spark part the first time I read this....first thing have him try unplugging the power cord from the psu and let it sit for a few minutes then try booting again.....most power supplies have a built in circuit protection that will not reset itself with power going to the psu.....2nd if that does not work replace the psu before replacing anything else.

But there is power. The machine turns on and the fans and hard drive are spinning.

Yes, but you should try what Sarr said, most, ( if not all ) the fans run on 12 volts, and it could be he only damaged the 5 volt bus. In which case all would spin but the pc would not boot. Try unplugging the power supply from the wall and the mobo, let stand 15 min and plug both back up. If that doesn’t help try a psu first. Then you could go for the Mobo, mem, and cpu in that order.

Good luck.

Well, I went for the mobo first, and all is well. Thanks for all the input!