Is it the mobo or power supply????

[budz]

I'm fixing a relatives computer who told me that they had a power surge about a 1 1/2 weeks ago. The pc was attached to one of those back up battery surge protectors. After the power surge they noticed the alarm from that backup battery protector kept going off but stopped after awhile. Well a week ago I installed a brand new stick of kingston memory for them. The pc began acting odd by not being able to boot up at times.

I took out the brand new stick of memory, ran a test on their hard drive with the powermax utility from maxtor which tested ok. Then I kept getting a ERROR LOADING NO OS message. Anyway I am wondering if the motherboard was shorted somewhere because after taking out the primary ide and reinstalling it I didn't get the ERROR LOADING OS msg.

I reformatted the hard drive, put in the new stick of memory, reinstalled their windows 2000 pro, nortons systemworks, updated all the security patches for windows, etc. Everything was working fine last night and then this morning I get a blue screen of death saying to check video card adapter and the driver. I took the video card out and reinstalled it on the mobo. I am wondering if the power surge affected the motherboard or power supply. I'm leaning towards the motherboard being affected because I had a Shuttle mobo that died after a year. My IDE 1 died so I replaced my mobo with a ASUS. I would appreciate any comments or advice. Thanks in advance.

[redwudz]

That's strange about the battery backup surge protector. Maybe damaged? I would bypass it when testing the system, though. Probably nothing to do with the present problem, but you never know.

I would pull the PC battery and reset the BIOS. Maybe even upgrade it if a new one is available. Not much more you can do with a motherboard.

Since you reinstalled the OS, if the BIOS change doesn't help, then the MB replacement would be the next move, that is, if the power supply has been ruled out as a problem. PS's generally will fail in a power surge before passing it on the the MB, but the surge protector should have absorbed the surge anyway.

I've blown video cards before, they usually go completely dead, not even generate a BSOD. Sounds like software (Should have been ruled out by OS reinstall) or firmware (BIOS) or worst case, MB failure.

[budz]

Thanks for the reply redwuz. Now the pc doesn't boot up at all. I tried clearing CMOS and no power at all now. Luckily I have a extra antec power supply I can give to my cousin for a replacement. I'll be ordering a new Asus P4P800-SE mobo but will have the memory sticks, video card & cpu tested at a local pc shop. If all is well with those components then they won't have to be replaced. "crosses my fingers". Thanks again redwuz!

[jollyjohn]

G'day
I agree with redwudz. Bypass the battery backup to do your testing.
If it were the power supply gone bad expect lots of damage the longer it goes. I had a faulty PS,once, that took the Mobo and video card with it.
John

[budz]

G'day
I agree with redwudz. Bypass the battery backup to do your testing.
If it were the power supply gone bad expect lots of damage the longer it goes. I had a faulty PS,once, that took the Mobo and video card with it.
John

I'm pretty sure the power supply was damaged by that power surge and as time went by it ended up damaging the mobo and maybe the video card as well. I took the video card, 2 sticks of memory & cpu that still is attached to the mobo down to a shop to get tested. Hopefully the CPU, video card and memory are ok but I'm skeptical after getting the blue screen of death saying somethin about the video card adapter. The mobo & ps is dead as a nail. I've already emailed antec about the power supply if it's covered under their warranty but it probably isn't since their website says, "The following are not covered by the warranty: * Accident, abuse, misuse, neglect, fire, water, lightning, or other acts of nature,

Thanks for the reply jollyjohn!