unknown hardware issue

Hi all, have a mysterious problem with my pc that is totally bewildering, was wondering if someone might have a suggestion or two.

Two days ago I took a flight up north, in a small twin engine plane (i'll explain the relevance of this in a second) with my pc inside a cardboard box. Got to my destination, took the box out and tried to fire it up. Got to the windows login page, and the power shut down. Tried again, and the pc began to fire up, then shut down after a few seconds. This kept happening, once it got to the login screen again and then shutdown. Eventually i got nothing at all. Additionally, another guy, who came up here three weeks ago, had exactly the same problem - a perfectly working pc, bought it up on the plane, and had the same issue when he turned it on. By the way, both are am2 slot pcs.

Now both computers are in our workshop - having removed everything and trying to diagnose the problem, now the cpu fan turns on, and the system seems to be switching on, but with nothing coming up on the monitor. Its exactly the same with both mine and my friends.

I'm pretty sure that the power where we are staying is fine - i have other computers running off the same power without any problems, even off the same outlets.

Is it possible that something about flight - like air pressure, or condensation ( i noticed some condensation on my monitor when i took it out of the box) could damage the motherboard? Or maybe something that has damaged the cmos battery? I've really got no idea. The thing is, at first the system just about started up, which should mean that the m/b and cpu were at least okay when i first switched it on.

Finally, does anyone have a way to diagnose what the problem is - so i know what to replace. Could it be the cmos (i'm hoping this is the case).

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

could something have come loose? i was thinking cpu fan/heatsink could have, causing some overheating, but you say you're looking at it...anything might have come loose, check all the memory and make sure everything is seated properly