> > A Gentoo desktop of mine won't turn on anymore. I was hoping it was > > the power supply but I've installed a new one which doesn't fix the > > problem. Is there a sure way to know if the motherboard needs > > replacement or if I have two dead power supplies? > > Hi there, > > I work on PCs for a living, mostly peoples' home computers, and in > the case of a "dead pc" the cause is nearly as often something else > as it is a dead PSU. > > Causes such as a duff CD-ROM drive or a damaged USB connector are > surprising but not uncommon, so reset the BIOS (using the method > described by Volker) and if that doesn't work unplug as much as > possible from the motherboard - you'll surely need the CPU & RAM for > it to post, but you may wish to swap out the RAM at some point in > your diagnostics - and unplug most everything else. That means > drives, PCI cards, USB devices, stuff connected to the USB & serial > headers, graphics card if possible. Also don't connect the power > supply to any of the drives, or anything else that you're not > currently using. > > I've seen cheap power supplies take out the motherboard when they go. > Sorry if you find that to be the case.
I removed everything from the motherboard and even tried another CPU that used to run on that same motherboard. No luck. I can't test the power supply in my P3 router because the CPU power plug is different. I should have said before that every couple times I try to turn it on, the CPU fan spins about 2% of a full rotation and some of the LEDs along the back light up for a second. Would you guys say it is most likely the motherboard at this point? - Grant -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
