Static Electricity, Busted Computer Help~

[JTBNDY]

Heres the story. Had a friend go to turn on her computer, and as she was hitting the power button, she claims to have been shocked by static electricity.

Pushing in the power button seems to send power to the computer, mobo gets power, computer sounds like it boots up, even the temp dial in the front glows and appears to be fine.... however, nothing ever displays on the monitor.

So far, what I have done is checked that the monitor is fine, so it has to be something with the computer.

I have replaced the motherboard, RAM, and videocard (because I don't know whats wrong) and the same thing still occurs. Powerup but nothing on the screen.

My only guess now is that it is the power supply. Which isn't too hard to replace, but just wondering what else I can do to check whats working and whats not working.

Thanks~~

 

[Nitestick]

could be the power supply but my thoughts are that it is a grounding issue with the motherboard circuits contacting the case. that would explain your friends shock

 

[JTBNDY]

So if its not the powersupply then the case? I figured that if its not the powersupply, it would have to be the CPU...

Would the mobo not being grounded correctly cause the computer the powerup but not display anything though?

I'm really at a loss to what to do at this point.

 

[jeremy]

its highly unlikely the cpu , mobos have protection circuits that prevents the cpu from getting fried ,even if the psu fries everything else usally the cpu survives

resetting the cmos might do the trick 2 ways (if #1 didnt work then try #2)
1) with the jumper , theres a jumper near the battery while the pc is powered off put it to pins 2-3 for about 10 seconds (or pins 1-2 if its alredy on 2-3,its not same on every mobo) and then put it back the way it was and power up

2) disconnect the power cord from the psu and get the battery out for 30 minutes then put it back (back exactly the way it was,DO NOT put it on the other side) then connect the power cord and power up

eitherway if it will work get into the bios and load optimized/performance/setup defaults , save & exit

if resetting the cmos wont help then the psu is likely at fault , but if you wanna be 100% sure ,measure its voltages using a digital multimeter and report back with the voltages, see these guides
http://www.driverheaven.net/guides/testingPSU/
http://www.ochardware.com/articles/psuvolt/psuvolt.html

 

[Nitestick]

yes that is a possible symptom of a motherboard shorting against a case but it is hard to tell because obviously the symptoms of something thats shorting out can be erratic. i have seen issues like this that come down to a shorting motherboard before, also quite a lot involving front usb ports

 

[JTBNDY]

its highly unlikely the cpu , mobos have protection circuits that prevents the cpu from getting fried ,even if the psu fries everything else usally the cpu survives

resetting the cmos might do the trick 2 ways (if #1 didnt work then try #2)
1) with the jumper , theres a jumper near the battery while the pc is powered off put it to pins 2-3 for about 10 seconds (or pins 1-2 if its alredy on 2-3,its not same on every mobo) and then put it back the way it was and power up

2) disconnect the power cord from the psu and get the battery out for 30 minutes then put it back (back exactly the way it was,DO NOT put it on the other side) then connect the power cord and power up

eitherway if it will work get into the bios and load optimized/performance/setup defaults , save & exit

if resetting the cmos wont help then the psu is likely at fault , but if you wanna be 100% sure ,measure its voltages using a digital multimeter and report back with the voltages, see these guides
http://www.driverheaven.net/guides/testingPSU/
http://www.ochardware.com/articles/psuvolt/psuvolt.html

Could you maybe go into more detail about resetting the CMOS, never done anthing like that before.

It is a brand new mobo though, and I'm not sure if that makes a difference since absolutely nothing has been written to it.

 

[jeremy]

my bad i forgot about the *new* for a moment , so you didnt connect the 4pin plug to the mobo or the psu is faulty

 

[Nitestick]

there is a thread stickied at the top of this sub-forum on resetting cmos

edit: http://techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=88668