Surefire way to confirm my Motherboard is dead

[Shaitan00]

So - a few days ago my PC just died (while using it windows froze, I hit RESET and it wouldn't come back up) - no matter how many times I tried the motherboard would power up for 1-2 seconds after pressing power then automatically shut off.

I assume the issue was Power Supply related so today I went out and bought a new one, well now at least the machine powers up and stays powered up but nothing happens... all the lights/fans go on but nothing appears on my monitor. So I took out my RAM and tried again and still nothing (dead silent) but everything powers on fine.

Now I assume my Motherboard must be dead as well (cause without RAM shouldn't it at least BEEP a few times at me?). Anyways before buying a replacement motherboard I was wondering if anyone knew of another test(s) that I could perform to be 100% sure it is my motherboard and not, for example, maybe my video card, etc....
Thanks,

 

[Deinonych]

Could be the processor. If you have another processor for the same socket (that you know is working), you could swap it into the socket to see if your system fires up.

 

[Puffnstuff]

How about posting some system specs for us to see. Also did you double check to make sure you plugged everything back in? Did you make sure you didn't unplug something else?

 

[Shaitan00]

Deinonych: Thanks - I thought that if the CPU was dead the Mobo would BEEP on startup or something. I'll give that a try ...

Puffnstuff: MSI M610 motherboard, P4 2.7, 2x256megs ram, Asus Readeon 9200SE, 500W power supply... am I forgetting anything?
What could I have not plugged in? I assume that if both power cables are plugged in (20-pin and 12v 4-pin) and the motherboard powers up (CPU, Case, Chipset fans are all running) but nothing happens ... then I remove the RAM and still nothing (no beeps or anything) was a good indication that it was dead... I was just curious to know if there was another possiblity (such as, if the CPU or Video Card died could that prevent the Mobo from BEEPing on errors or something like that).

 

[grooge]

check the capacitors on the MB. are they flat and clean on the top? Or rounded with some brownish stuff on the top?

 

[alizee]

grooge is right, do check the caps, that's right in the era of the expanding caps.

Also, just pull everything off of it, see if it does the same thing, vdieo card, and PCI cards, RAM, and CPU and unplug the HDDs and ODDs. Then put things back one at a time, starting with CPU, then RAM, the vdieo card, then PCI cards one at a time.

If you have a friend with a 478 motherboard or CPU that you know is working, try your components with those. (those components would be called Known Good, so when you ask people on forums or a munufacturor you can say "I tested the motherboard with a known good CPU and it still didn't work...")