Possible motherboard issue?

[Caffeen]

Hi! So, tonight, my wife rebooted her computer, and after the normal diag/splash screen, instead of the Windows Loading animation, the computer became unresponsive.

I rebooted again and entered the BIOS, loaded default settings, etc, nothing.

I did notice that after 20-30 seconds in the BIOS, my keyboard would become less and less responsive (Taking several seconds between input and the cursor moving, for example.) before eventually ceasing to respond at all. It wasn't just an outright freeze, though, since the BIOS setup 'background' scrolling animation continued.

Attempted to boot into safe mode.. Becomes unresponsive by the time I actually reach the safe mode selection screen. Everything I attempt results in complete unresponsiveness.

I've cleared the CMOS. I've tried every combination of DIMMs with both sticks of memory. Unhooked both HDDs, video card, everything except for the keyboard. (And memory/CPU/PSU, obviously.)

Same exact thing. No matter what I do, it becomes rapidly unresponsive. Funny thing is, the PC speaker starts to make a "ticktickticktick" noise when I press any keys once it begins to become unresponsive. As if the keypress buffer is being overloaded, if that makes any sense. I don't know the terminology. =(

Motherboard's diagnostic LEDs read normal. The "Phase 2" power LED is off; the other three are on. I don't know if that relates to anything. =p Everything was working fine right up until she rebooted, then nothing.

Everything about this seems odd. I've never encountered anything like it before.

It's a Biostar TFORCE TA790GX A3+ motherboard, running winXP.

Thanks so much in advance for any advice!

[Steve R Jones]

Same exact thing. No matter what I do, it becomes rapidly unresponsive. Funny thing is, the PC speaker starts to make a "ticktickticktick" noise

Could that noise be a ClickClickClick from a failed hard drive?

How old are the parts?
If its not the hard drive - I'd suspect the power supply before I would the mobo.

[de_day]

I agree with Steve. I had almost the exact same symptoms once on one of my old HPs. A new PSU and all was well.

I guess it was kind of, browning out and not suppying enough voltage for the machine to function, but not quite dead either.

[Caffeen]

Thanks a lot for your replies, guys!

It can't be the hard drive, because it makes the noise even when neither hard drive is connected to anything. The parts are all less than a year old. I purchased/put the whole thing together early this year, either January or Feb.

So it's most likely that the PSU has gone bad? That's a relief. I hate replacing mobos. =)

Thanks again!

[Caffeen]

So, it looks like it wasn't the power supply. I replaced it with a brand new one, and it still has the exact same issue. Frustrating!

Any more ideas?