[ale] Dead Motherboard?

[Greg Clifton]

Carputer? How are you powering the system, inverter to AC power supply or
12V DC supply? Maybe you had a power surge when you unplugged and zapped
something. The CMOS can be VERY static sensitive, so that the BIOS can get
mucked up without actually being destroyed. You have already stripped
everything and tested with a known good power supply, so the problem has to
be confined to the motherboard components or CPU or RAM, correct? Not likely
that the CPU or RAM crapped just from a power cycle. Does your power supply
turn on at all? Does the fan spin, just "twitch" or do nothing? Your USB
drive is probably running off the 5V standby power which is always present
when AC is fed to the power supply (perhaps you have noticed that you can
charge USB devices w/o turning the 'puter on. But if you have a dead short
crowbar shutdown of the power, you shouldn't have standby power either.

I recommend you use the jumper setting to clear the BIOS or even better,
remove the battery for an hour or so (with no power plugged to the
motherboard). That should unscramble your BIOS and put it back in the
default or failsafe state reviving your board.

One final note, NEVER scrimp on the power supply. No truer saying about
computers than GIGO, esp. with regards to the power input!

Regards,
Greg Clifton

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 10:11 PM, Omar Chanouha <ofosho at gatech.edu> wrote:

> I put a carputer together using an intel D945GCLF2D motherboard. I
> installed it and everything worked. Then I unplugged it to the
> faceplate on, but when I plugged it back in the screen wouldn't
> display anything. So I took it to my bench, unplugged everything from
> it, and hooked it to a reliable power supply. Again, nothing. I don't
> get any BIOS beeps, nor any LED activity.  If peripherals are
> attached, they do get power, i.e. the dvd tray opens, which is
> connected via usb. It is so wierd b/c I didn't change anything that
> would affect the mobo, nor did I reverse the polarity. Could it be
> memory? I don't think so because the mobo guide says it gives
> beeps/messages for memory erros. Is the mobo dead? Are there any
> possible explanations as to why this happened, so I don't do it again?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -O
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