I've just come across a beauty on a system I've been asked to fix.
The first symptom was that the system would not post, and the cd drawer opened every time power was switched on. Everything else seemed to power up correctly. I disconnected everything possible from the mobo, but it still would not post. I tried a different processor, still no joy, and tried the memory in another machine - no fault with the memory.
The natural assumption was that the motherboard was faulty, so I got a new mobo. Plugged everything together. Machine would not post. Since I had not been 100% sure about the second processor I had tried, I had to dismantle my own machine to check out the processors, they both proved to be ok, so it looked like I had a dodgy motherboard.
I decided to give it one last try, just in case I had made a mistake. This time, nothing powered up at all. Disconnected everything from the psu except the mobo, still no power up. Just to make sure, I connected the psu from my own machine, and it powered up, but still would not post. Obviously, the power supply had gone and blown the new mobo too.
Got a new psu (from a different source) and exchanged the mobo (just told them it wouldn't post). Assembled everything again, applying power to just the mobo. Post successful. Connected the rest of the components - no power up! Disconnected them one by one, things started working when I disconnected the cdrom.
Replaced the cdrom with one I had lying about, powered up the system, went into the bios. Performed IDE detection - no hd detected. Removed the hd, and there's a very obvious blown chip. It's still under warranty so hopefully I can get it replaced.
I haven't found anything else that's gone (I think there's only the floppy drive left), but it looks like the power supply must have partially failed, and taken with it 2 motherboards, a cdrom drive and a hard drive.
Anyone else seen as bad a case as this?
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