[Novalug] Dead Computer Diagnosis

[Ed T. Toton III]

Thus spake Peter Larsen:

> Since there's no POST beep it sounds like the BIOS doesn't get loaded. 
> So test/replace the PSU first. If the PSU work, it may be the mobo or 
> CPU. Usually mobo failures are results of overload, and you'll see "burn 
> marks" on it. CPU failures happens too, but you should get bios beeps 
> for that. If it was the disk you would be told that either it couldn't 
> find the disk, or that there were errors on it.

Yes, I'd try an alternate PSU if you have one on hand. A multimeter can 
certainly give you a quick idea of whether you're getting the right 
voltages, but it won't show intermittant issues or unclean signal.

It's still possible that a peripheral can be causing it, such as the disk 
or video adapter. You can try disconnecting all peripherals, and even try 
an alternate video card if you have one. But more likely it's the 
motherboard. Generally you think of the MOBO as being pretty reliable, but 
you'd be surprised how suddenly they can fail due to bad capacitors.


------------------------------------------------------------------
  Ed T. Toton III -- http://necrobones.com/ - http://ed.toton.org/
------------------------------------------------------------------
"We can restore liberty by taking government out of our bedrooms,
  our bloodstreams, our bladders, our brains, our businesses and
  our back-pockets."
 		-- Gatewood Galbraith, 1995