Is my motherboard hosed?

Factual Questions
1

I came home yesterday to find my computer in an odd state. All the system fans were on (two case fans, CPU, and power supply), the “powered on” LED on the motherboard was glowing green, but it wouldn’t turn on or off. It doesn’t POST, the hard drives never activate, and the two CD drives have no power to them. The only way to get the fans to turn off was to disconnect the power cord.

At this point, if the power supply is getting electricity, the fans are spinning. I’ve been using the power switch on the surge protector to test.

Troubleshooting steps so far:

  1. Replaced power supply (this was something I was putting off anyway). No change.
  2. Removed and re-seated video card, sound card, RAM, connector from power supply to motherboard. No change.
  3. Removed everything from the motherboard except video card, RAM, and CPU. No change.
  4. Removed everything. I had a bare motherboard sitting on the table, no cards, no cpu, nothing plugged into it except the connection to the power supply and the CPU fan (but not the CPU itself). Turning on the surge protector still caused the power supply fan and CPU fan to start up.

My best guess is that there’s a short somewhere that’s causing a signal to get to the power supply to “start up”, but the motherboard itself won’t POST. The only cause I can surmise is that there was a power outage/surge in my apartment (my microwave clock had reset) that screwed something up. My PC is plugged into a surge protector, though, and the computer was turned off in the morning when I left.

Going to go over the board checking for any blatant broken/burnt connections, but the odds are pretty slim on that. I’m also going to check the return policy of the store I bought the board, it’s only 2-3 weeks old. :frowning:

Any other suggestions? BIOS corruption, maybe (and how to reflash it when it won’t boot)? Any other suggested tests that might narrow things down?

2

I’d try clearing the CMOS. There should be a jumper for doing this. You move the jumper to the clear position for a few seconds and then back again. Check the documentation that came with the mobo or their online support and you may find a step by step for your particular board.

Good luck!

3

I’ll second clearing the CMOS. The best way to clear your CMOS is to disconnect power from the computer, and remove the battery on the motherboard. Keep it out for at least 10 minutes.

If this doesn’t work then its toast.

4

I’ll third clearing the CMOS and also suggest that if that doesn’t work you try replacing the battery on the motherboard itself.

Most likely one of those little flat disc batteries used in cameras (about the size of a nickel), replacement will cost you a few bucks at a good camera shop.

The battery will be someplace in plain sight on the motherboard, probably in a plastic surround with a little metal spring clip holding it down. I had to do a little fiddling with a small screwdriver and tweezers to take mine off.

5

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried clearing the CMOS by setting the “clear” jumper, and left the battery out for about 5 minutes. Still didn’t work.

I ended up just exchanging the busted board for a new one. I was inside the 30 day return period, although they said I had to do an exchange for an identical board. No big deal, that’s what I intended anyway. Maybe there was something that could be done with it, but I’ll let them deal with it.

Thanks for the suggestions, though, I appreciate the help.