Normal operation and shut down Friday night. Saturday morning, computer
will not boot.

Gigabyte GA-81845GV MB. PSU and CPU fans both spin. amber LED on MB is
on. There are no MB Beeps. The HD Activity light on the case stays on
(cannot guarantee that this was wired correctly) The user (my dad) is
not a tinkerer, so its been months if not longer since the case was
opened.

I've unplugged the HD power and ribbon cables, memory and removed the
modem (the only add-in card) in an attempt to simplify the environment.
Negative. For giggles, I put in a working BIOS battery which did not
affect anything.

I found someone else that had seemingly identical issues, but there was
no (known) solution.
http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windo...herboard-.html

Thoughts?

Alan <alan@alankw.com> wrote

Still no beeps at all ?

There are a number of possibilitys and you just have to eliminate them one by one.

It can be a power supply failure, so not all the rails are being presented anymore.
Obvious thing to try is a different power supply.

It can be a motherboard gone bad, usually due to bad caps. These are the
usually blue or black plastic covered post like things sticking up vertically from
the motherboard. The tops should be flat, if any are bulging or have leaked,
thats the problem.

If a different power supply doesnt help, most likely the motherboard has
gone bad since you have tried the other possibility, unplugging everything.

Worth trying the motherboard loose on the desktop if it looks
like its gone bad and you are about to replace it. You can get
a short to case and that is the best test for a short to case.

Rod Speed wrote:
No beeps at all. I've another powersupply, but the MB connector is too
big. I'll see if I can find a 20pin connector one...

Alan <alan@alankw.com> wrote:
You can usually snap the extra 4 pins off the longer connector as a block of 4.

Rod Speed wrote:
on all pins and the other one has one that isnt wired at all. I also
dug up an old Dell at work that did have the right size connector, but
did not have the p4 connector. I have a Bestbuy 10 minutes away, I'll
open a box there and inspect, purchase and return if need be. Thank you
for your help.

Alan wrote:
Its not the power supply.... Sigh...

Alan wrote:
monitor. You didnt' say whether you put the memory back in but you
should. Also make sure the mouse and Keyboard are plugged in properly.
If the motherboard is working and you removed the memory you should get
a series of beeps warning that the memory is not plugged in so that
might suggest the motherboard for whatever reason is not functioning. If
that's the case there is nothing to do but replace it.