Guru's Do you think my motherboard is my problem ?

[jaytone1]

I will try to make this short as possible.
I inherited a Dell 4600 which ran fine but had some issues. I installed a new SATA drive hard drive in place of the old small IDE hard drive.
Reinstalled WIndows Vista, drivers and all was well.

A day or two later, I smelled something burning, seems like it was coming from the power supply since I could smell it coming from the fan area of the power supply. I removed the power supply and installed another Dell supply that I had from an old machine. Pushed the on button and nothing. The green light on the m.b. would light up but thats it.
I tried two other power supplies that I know were good and both did the same thing, wouldnt start, but the green light on the m.b. would light up.
The only thing different I did (besides changing to a SATA h.d.) was that the SATA used a different power plug in than the 4 pin that the IDE drive uses, so I used an adapter that plugs one end into the 4 pin and the other end is a SATA power plug which I plugged into the SATA drive.

Things I tried
1. different power supplies.
2. on each of the power supplies I tried, I tried to jump the two power pins on the motherboard to see if it would start and that didnt work.

I really hate to throw out the Dell since it has a fast CPU, 2 gigs of ram, SATA H.D., Soundblaster Audigy card, Nvidia video card.

So, any suggestions on what to try or do you think my motherboard is bad ? What else could it be ? I can get one on EBay (refurbished) for about $60.00

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

Hrm. Since you tried different PSU's and tried to jump the power yourself with the pins, if it's not starting (but shows that it is powered via the LED on the board), it could be that the board has been shorted out. A bad PSU is certainly capable of doing this to all of your components (which is why it's really important to get a quality PSU, lest you risk your whole machine to destruction by a bad one).

Can you at least keep all the components from the board except the board itself (CPU, RAM, GPU, etc)?

Very best,

 

[Blain]

1. Do both Dell power supplies have identical pinout connetions in the ATX plug?
2. "I really hate to throw out the Dell since it has a fast CPU"
What type and speed is the processor?

 

[EQTitan]

Either PSU, undervoltage to the board, a bad capacitor on the board or a combo of both...

 

[Blain]

Post clear macro shots of the capacitors on the MB and we'll evaluate them for you.
The more and clearer shots the better.

 

[jaytone1]

I can keep all the components and transplanted if I get a new m.b.
The CPU is a P4 and I think it is a 2.8ghz.

The question about the pin out on the ATX plug being the same, I am not sure which plug you mean. Is it the square 4 pin plug that plugs into the m.b. or is it the long one that has a number of wires ?

I am not sure if I can get close up photos with the camera I have, but will try.