Motherboard Failure?

[liger]

righto guys, problem.. help is needed.

we just had a major storm over here, fork lightning, strong winds. the works.

I noticed the storm was comming, so i shut down both the gaming PC and the server, turned off the battery backup system. and unpluged everything from the wall sockets.

after the storm had passed, plugged everything back in, server starts up fine. gaming PC loops itself.

turn on -> motherboard check -> loop -> loop -> restart.

i can not see the motherbaord screen ( i.e GIGABYTE welcome screen). so i am guessing either the power supply has somehow shit itself.. or the motherboard has finally packed it in. any help would be appreciated

intel core 2 quad Q6600 2.66GHz

GIGABYTE GA-EP45 - UD3L

Quadleadtek GTX 470

1 x WD green 1TB HDD ( boot drive)

seagate 1.5TB HDD ( secondary/storage)

Thermaltake Qfan toughpower 850W PSU

Kingston HyperX DDR2 RAM ( speed unknown. cant remember)

ah usual with tradition. something screws up over xmas period. (last yer the great HDD failure of 2010)

[Damit]

explain loop - as this will help

i assume by motherboard check, it's posting then restarts

try pulling everything out except power and see if you get a post fail - no ram - if so mobo should be good - then start putting everything back 1 at a time - starting with ram - see if it post and stays on - then GPU - then HDD - then anything else

if it doesnt post or fail post it could be either mobo or PSU

[liger]

just replaced the PSU with a backup i have ( 700W). and no change.

the loop is bascially restarting itself, i should of been more clearer. i cant get into the bios or boot menu because i cant get to the motherboard screen to press F12 / F9 to get bios/boot menu.

i'll try your suggestions tomorrow morning when i wake up thanks for the quick reply

Edited December 24, 2011 by liger

[R31Nismoid]

If pulling things out one by one does not work then do this:

Take out the battery on the mobo, flush (press power etc), and reinstall & try again with just CPU, RAM and a HDD/SSD. No GPU or other PCI items.

[liger]

yeah i didnt think to clear the CMOS. so i'll get stuck into it early tomorrow morning.

another motherboard is on order aswell as some new ram ( to suit DDR3 mobo). if i fix it before they arrive, i'll keep them as spares.

Edited December 24, 2011 by liger

[liger]

reset CMOS and tried to boot with 1 stick of RAM. the motherboard went past its self-test phase ( phase 1,2,3 LED's turned themselves off, before they would stay on).

so hooked up a HDD and GPU and i can now boot to windows. NFI what the problem was with it last night. probably that time of the month i imagine.