First post, by artiemog
- Rank
- Newbie
Hi all, looking for some assistance...My go-to old PC is one my dad built around 1998 with a Celeron 300A slot 1 CPU and an Abit BH6 motherboard. Unfortunately, it seems like at least one of these components recently took some damage.
On Saturday, I went to turn on the computer after not using it for a few weeks, but nothing seemed to happen when I pushed the power button. After checking everything, it appears that the power supply (a TOPOWER TOP-300SSA, date code 7.98) has failed. I took it out, attempted a paper clip start, and checked the voltage rails, and I got 0 V everywhere, so I hoped that meant everything else would be okay. I purchased and installed a new power supply, but unfortunately the machine still won't POST or give any error beeps. The fans all spin up and the case power light comes on, so the motherboard is apparently at least getting 5 and 12 volts, but the machine does not make any progress toward booting after that.
I took out all the RAM and PCI cards to try to get it to at least give me error beeps, but there was no change. I also attempted to reseat the CPU in the hope that maybe I had just bumped it or something when I was swapping the power supply, but it seems like part of the CPU card is missing somehow? There are no retention clip levers where they should be on the corners, nor is there any black plastic housing on the side opposite the fan; I can see the backside of the circuit board that the processor itself is on. I was unable to pull the card free because of this, but I did wiggle it and try to make sure it was at least seated snugly. No change, unfortunately.
I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to go from here. I'm handy with a soldering iron and comfortable trying to repair the motherboard, but I have no idea where to even begin troubleshooting, and I can't see any obvious signs of damage or even any unhappy capacitors (although I haven't taken the board out of the case yet to check the back side). I think I have another slot 1 CPU somewhere, so I'm going to look for it this week, but I have no idea if that one works or not either, and I'll still have to figure out how to get the original one out without (further) breaking anything. There's also the possibility that if the motherboard is damaged, it'll just kill the second CPU too. (And it's TBD whether or not anything else that was connected to the computer was killed as well)
If I at least knew that there had been overvoltage on one of the power rails, that would give me somewhere to start checking traces and components downstream of the motherboard power input, but to be honest I'm a bit flummoxed by this failure mode. All I can figure is that there was a brief spike at the moment the PSU died, and now it just can't even start up anymore so I can't repeat the condition.
I'd really like to get this machine working again, as it has a lot of both functional and sentimental value to me. I'm not ready to give up yet, but I'm not sure what would be best to try from here. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions?
Thanks!