dead computer

[saintj]

My computer just died. Is there any way to figure out what is bad.When I plug it in the fan for the power supply runs the fans for the CPU run. I just get a black screen and nothing else happens. I tried swapping the video card with a known good one and no change. If you have any ideas on how to isolate the problem please let me know. 300 Watt highpower ps. Gateway slot a AMD board 900 MHZ CPU. Kingston 128MB SDRAM. 3 sticks.

[Bovon]

Can you try another monitor?
Can you hear any hard drive activity even tho the screen is dark?
Are there any sounds (other than fans) coming from within the case?
Just because the fan blades are turning is not a 100% sure fire way of telling if the power supply is good or not..need to try another power supply if at all possible.
Have you had any lightning storms recently?
Look very closely at the motherboard with a flashlight..find all of the capacitors (round things about 3/8th's of an inch in diameter and about 3/4th's of an inch tall..some are a bit taller, others are a bit shorter) These capacitors will have what looks like an X on the aluminum top (this is a pressure release valve) The top and sides are supposed to be flat and straight..if you find any that are kind of bulging at the top or swelling at the sides, or see any that have some discoloration on top or underneath on the motherboard...this is an indication that your board is dead.

There have been thousands of motherboards that have died because the manufacturers bought trainloads of bad capacitors in `90, `91 and maybe some in `92

EDIT:
Pull all of the RAM out and try each stick one at a time...a dead/shorted RAM module will keep a board from working.

[Midknyte]

did you want this one in the technical support forum?

check the capacitors on the motherboard and make sure none are bulging or leaking.

reseat the ram and/or try one stick at a time.

ack. outgunned. yeah, what he said about the caps. :)

[dgherzka]

the same thing happened to me withan intel d865perl mobo. It worked when I moved the bios jumper to positions 2 and 3 on the mobo, booted, shut down, and then moved the jumper back to pins 1 and 2. Another thing to try is to disconnect any drives, pci cards, and peripherals connected to the computer. And lastly, try reseating the processor and ram. Were you overclocking? When you boot, do you hear any beeps?