Power surge damage suspected

I received a Compaq computer, from the original owner, that stopped working after an electrical storm. It was plugged into a surge protector at the time, but apparently still sustained damage, since it stopped working immediately after the storm.

The computer has no hard drive or RAM in it. I'd like to determine whether the motherboard was damaged or was the damage limited to the power supply. Here's the status as far as hardware components are concerned:

• I have a spare hard drive I can put in it; I have not done that yet.

• I do not have any RAM to put in it. It uses PC2100 and my main desktop system uses PC2100. I could try pulling a memory module out of my main computer and installing it in the Compaq, but I don't know whether the memory it requires is exactly the same as my main computer, so it may not work.

• I obtained a used power supply from a local computer users' group and installed it.

If I press the power button, the CPU fan runs but the case fan does not run. Shouldn't the case fan run? Should I pull a memory module out of my main computer and put in this Compaq to see whether it will work? If I do so, am I risking damage to the memory module?

 

While nothing can stop a direct hit from lightning, that is rare, and usually it just sends big anomalies down the line. But a surge protector is like a motorcycle helmet - if it saved your pumpkin once, it did its job - time to get a new helmet. This is another reason all computers should be on a UPS. Batteries can absorb excess power with ease, and unless a direct hit, probably would have absorbed this one too.

Where does the case fan get its power? If plugged into the motherboard, that is not good. If it plugs directly into a PSU lead, then that is not good either and you need to test that PSU - either by swapping in a known good one, or getting that one tested.

You don't need a drive to start - but a speaker connected to the motherboard (if not integrated) would be good. If me, since I have "spare" RAM laying around, I would install 1 stick of RAM, CPU with heatsink fan (HSF) assembly, and the monitor (NO drives) and boot the computer. You should see on the monitor the initial stages of the boot process, then it will fail when it cannot find a boot drive. If you get that far, then you might want to install the drive. If you don't get that far, you have other problems with the base hardware.

Yes. Just by coming close to RAM you risk destroying it by ESD - a static shock so small, humans cannot detect it - more than enough to destroy sensitive devices, such as memory modules. If that motherboard has problems, you risk destroying everything connected to it. That's the nature of electronics repair.

 

Thanks for that well-written post. I totally agree about UPS. I use one at home.

Honestly, now I'm not absolutely sure the folks had a surge protector on that computer. They asked me to come over and look at the computer after the storm but this was a couple of years or so ago and my memory is not absolutely clear on this.

The fan is connected to the motherboard. I think I'll test it by connecting to another computer or I'll try a different fan in this computer and see whether it runs (off the motherboard).

Here are two points I've recalled about this computer since my original post.

1. After the storm and the demise of this computer, a son in the family pulled the hard drive and now has it installed in an external enclosure and uses it for backup; he's a college student.

• They pulled the 256MB memory module from this computer and put it in another computer, which was the same model, so that it would have 512MB.

So, these facts show that the hard drive and RAM in that computer were not destroyed.Sill, I'm reluctant to buy memory for this computer and risk losing my investment. Here's what I think I'll do:

• Test the fan, as previously mentioned.

• Take the computer the next meeting (May 5) of the Repair SIG (Special Interest Group) of a local computer users's group to which I belong. They have a lot of components pulled from older computers and may have some RAM that could be used for testing.

 

Sounds like a plan.