Best way to troubleshoot a mobo problem?

[Tekk]

Well Im actually at work right now and I have a customers computer here. Its been acting up (crashes here and there and doesn't even come on when you push the power button..well it sounds like it is on but the HDD light stays on and there isn't anything on the screen..it just stays black). Anyway, I had a similar "not starting" problem and it was fixed by switching the power-supply. I tried a good PS that we have here in the shop and it didn't fix the problem. I took out the sticks of RAM and swapped with some others, still no good. I tried unhooking EVERYTHING except the A: and the HDD and the vid. Still startup errors. Actually, I managed to boot off the 98 startup disk and tried to fdisk the HDD (customer wanted Win2k) but when the "Do you want to enable large disk support...." screen came up and I pressed enter to accept, it immediately went back to the command prompt. So continued the troubleshooting of the startup errors. I actually swapped HDDs for a different one which was a 20GB and it showed up in the BIOS but it only showed up as a 8GB. I updated the BIOS (its a supermicro P6SBA) and still nothing.

I also want to mention that the AmiBIOS that the motherboard had kept crashing when I was in it. I could access the mobo (when it actually started correctly) but after about 30 seconds it would just halt/freeze.

After all that testing of the different components and such I just decided that the motherboard is to blame. Unfortunately that is the one piece of hardware we dont have right now in the shop. But is there something that I might be missing? There never seems to be a definitive test that will tell you "HEY! Your mobo is broken!"

The Computer is a P3 500 w/ a SuperMicro P6SBA mobo. 2 128MB of Corsair PC100 RAM. A WD 20GB HDD. An HP CDRW and a Viper v770 32mb graphics card.

Just wanted to know if you guys think my method of testing is deep enough or if there are other things that anyone likes to do when troubleshooting their computer. thanks!!!

[Germ]

Sounds like the CMOS chip is freaking out.

[Daft_Ghosty]

humm if ya got a shop.. they don't have any motherboard testing cards?

but with Germ sounds like a bad CMOS.. maybe this board got zaped in a eletric storm.. and didn't die all the way..

best other bet is to get a MB testing card.. and see what it says..

[capybara]

the min boot config is: psu, ram, cpu, vid card, and mobo. if you try known good psu, ram, cpu and vid cards that leaves by default a bad mobo. yes?
so detach everything else, and start at the min boot config.

[Tekk]

Well we got the new motherboard in today and guess what...this time it doesn't even POST! Talk about a downer. Anyway, this time I tested to see if it would even recognize the fact that there was no RAM in the computer (ya know the beeps it gives) but it didn't even do that. I unplugged everything except the floppy and the only things I had in the mobo were a brand spankin new ATI PCI vid card and a 32MB stick of RAM.

First attempt without the RAM: no go. No beeps...no screen...no nothing.

Second attempt without the Vid card: no go. No beeps...no screen...no nothing.

Third attempt without floppy: Still absolutely nothing.

Now the computer does respond to the switch. The fans spin..the HDD would spin up (when I had it plugged in) but the POST tests would never occur and I couldn't even get a darn visual on the screen. Heck...the power LED didn't even worked no matter how many times I switched it (and yes it was plugged in correctly).

So...Im gonna try ANOTHER mobo now.The one I just tried was an Intel D815EPEA. This hopefully new functional one is an Asus.
Off I go

[Tekk]

Ok well come to find out it was a stupid floppy drive error. *sigh* Gotta love learning the long way eh

[eweruk]

Crazy! Thanks for the update on the issue.

[Tekk]

well here's another update...now when Im trying to install Win2k...it reads the drive as having 7124MB when in actuality it is a 20GB. WTF!!! Lord...can this machine do ANYTHING right...Im trying a new HDD right now.

Also, I tried to just format it when it said that it had 7124MB but it got to 100% and then said that it is unable to format the drive because it was damaged.

[Tekk]

Hey Ghosty how much are the mobo testing cards??? What exactly do they tell you? I work at a smaller shop so we dont have all the parts we should hehe..but how much would a tester be? Maybe I can convince my boss in a situation like this


UPDATE ON COMPUTER FROM HELL:

Well after trying the new HDD and getting the same problem, I decided I would try to do a workaround. I stuck the original HDD as a slave on an XP shop machine we have here and wanted to format it in the NTFS so I could skip that whole step in the setup. Well...the original HDD was just boggin XP. What I mean is XP just hated that drive (A Western Digital 20GB). It wouldn't even access it. For example, when I wanted to format it, I right clicked on it in the explorer and the hourglass came up but would stay up for about 30 sec- 1 min then it would disappear but no menu would pop up. Anyway, I swapped it with the new 40GB HDD to format that.

Well just for funs sake I decided to try the original HDD again in the computer from hell. So I do all the setup disks for Win2k and FINALLY get to the format screen and HEY!! The disk sizes are the same!!! (it says 19572 both times!! Instead of that damn 7124).

HOPEFULLY it will format correctly so I can finish and go home. *sigh* Talk about a bad day to work. Plus Im sick with larengitis so I cant yell at the damn thing

[cadetstimp]

Sounds like the ATA/EIDE controller on the mobo is bad (HDD light stays on)