Something got fried and I'm stuck

Last night (now more than 24 hours ago), we powered on the family desktop and a terrible stench of burning electronics came out of the PC.

I started by running a PSU tester and found the PSU was dead. Some Antec 500W PSU purchased in 2007. GOt a new Antec Eathpower 500W PSU and swapped it in.

Motherboard is Intel DP35DP, also purchased at the same time - this was a home-built PC.

With the new PSU, a small green led right above the 24-pin power plug lights up when I supply power to the system. However, when I click the PC on/off button, there is only the briefest flash of lights on the LED fans and they just move - then everything powers off. Until I unplug the PSU from the mains and wait some time, I cannot get any further response from anything. after a while, I can repeat the above.

I tried plugging a POST Code analyzer into the PCI slot, all that happened is that the red lights on it briefly flash - same as the fan LEDs. No status code is displayed.

A new motherboard of the same type (DP35DP) seems to sell for around $179 when I paid $119 for it in 2007. I'm reluctant to buy that and then find out the processor and/or memory is fried as well.

Is there any reliable way to test the processor without a motherboard? Can a PC repair center or something do any tests? Can they perhaps test the motherboard and memory?

Any advice? Anything else I can do? I really rather not spent the time and money right now to build a new PC.

TIA.

 

Its either motherboard, CPU or memory. I would suggest Motherboard is more likely but it could be CPU.

 

Oh great, let's not hedge our bets.

 

Hi Joe,

PSU has over current protection. Shuts it down. You have to unplug the AC to reset the circuit. Your indication is that there is a dead short on the Motherboard or something that is plugged into the ports. Remove all loads and see if it just stays on. That should tell you if it's MB or something else.

Good Luck, Jim

 

So I tried this. Removed the power and data connectors for the harddrives, the cards (graphics and wireless). Removed the memory and all the fan wires. unplugged (but did not remove) the CPU 4-pin power plug and CPU fan plug.


Not all at once. At some points I had the fans connected but little else. Then I saw that the LEDs would come on and the fans would spin a little longer than initially. I also could do this repeatedly, I did not have to remove power to be able to do this.

Then I removed the fans and I couldn't tell. put my PC POST analyzer in an IDE slot to see. It briefly comes up, shows 2 sets of zeroes before the power goes down. so more lights, a little status and then nada. regardless of whether I plug/unplug the CPU fan and power.

SO right now, with only the CPU and the Motherboard, I get a brief surge of power and I can do it repeatedly, but nothing else.

Anyone care to tell me whether there is useful information in this?

Thanks!