bad mobo or powersupply?

[soulm4tter]

I have a system that acts very strange (Abit BX6-2 250W generic PS). It reboots, fails to boot, fails to POST, freezes and generally acts freaky.

I pulled out all components but video card, RAM and CPU and replaced each of those one by one with components that werk fine in my other system. And it still has the same behavior. Next i take all the original components and put them in another case (with an Abit BE6 250W generic PS) and it has no problems whatsoever.

So it seams all the components involved here have no problems and i've narrowed it down to either the mobo or PSU. I'm gettin perturbed with the troubleshooting process and its gonna be a pain to swap mobos and/or PSU. I don't think the mobo is shorting out on the case either cause it doesn't flex much and all the screws are well centered on the eyelets. What should i try next?

Original Components:

128MB Micron PC100
PIII 750 Slot1
TNT2 Ultra
SB Ensoniq
IBM 22GXP

Components tried:

128MB Corsair PC100
PIII 500
GeForce2 GTS
SB Live Value
IBM 75GXP

 

[Jiggz]

Switching PSU involves only four mounting screws. The only thing hard about this act is the disconnect and reconnect of all the power connectors to the peripherals. It sure involves less work than switching mobo. Switch PSU and if the problem goes away it's a PSU problem. If it stayed then it's the mobo. But don't jump over the conclusion yet. Uninstall the mobo clean it and test it out of the case ensuring proper grounding. If it works then re-install. It could just be dust build up or lack of grounding.

 

[KB]

Make sure the power cord from the wall is plugged in firmly to the power supply and that the motherboard is not touching the case. Personnally I think it is a Power supply problem as you suspected.