€70?!?!? That's a LOT for a s478 board I think.
"Upgrading" to a new rig will cost only €170 to €220 more and gets your friend a quad core with 4gigs of DDR3 RAM

€70 for a 478 board? I dont know where you live but this is robbery! I found like 6 on the side of the road this summer only...
But, of course i live in quebec city, where people will throw anything in the trash. Still, you should not have to pay more than maybe 20-30 buck for a 478.

I met a computer recycler guy recently, he sells them for 5-10$, tested.

I know. I live in Spain. Spain is mostly pricey about everything. I guess that's a common tactic for forcing people into getting the latest hardware. In case I have some spare time tomorrow, I will check the heatsink more thoroughly just in case the system may resurrect but I highly doubt it. Most probably the mainboard and/or microprocessor is damaged. And besides, this is a good opportunity to get new decent hardware.

Reading this thread over... I cannot tell if you pulled the videocard out and started up the system and get a shutdown? Also I don't see if you tested different ram/videocard/cpu if you have any of those on hand.

More Questions-
Are there beep codes as the system is in POST? Will you get beeps if the RAM is pulled or videocard?

how do the caps look? Are they bulged at all?

What kind of PSU brand was in there originally? If it was generic/cheap? Sometimes the voltage going to the board is dirty and will damage components. When overclocking it makes things even worse with those cheap units.

Hi eL_PuSHeR, I found a cheaper replacement in Spanish eBay. It's an Asus P4P800-something motherboard, like your friend's one:

http://www.ebay.es/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI … em=120771686972

RogueTrip2012: Yes I tried with Videocard off, but it made no difference. I don't have any spare components to test.

Batracio: Nice find, but as I said before, I think it's a good time for getting new hardware.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

I know. I live in Spain. Spain is mostly pricey about everything. I guess that's a common tactic for forcing people into getting the latest hardware. In case I have some spare time tomorrow, I will check the heatsink more thoroughly just in case the system may resurrect but I highly doubt it. Most probably the mainboard and/or microprocessor is damaged. And besides, this is a good opportunity to get new decent hardware.

While you're at it, you can resell your old hardware for those inflated prices to make up part of the cost of the new build hehe 😉

My friend has already bought a new PC. I will ask her to keep the old hardware for myself. She doesn't need it. I will install her the Operating System for free though. 😎

About that damaged mobo, i expect it is going to be trashed, but its possibly a damaged mosfet transistor.
I like to fix electronic stuff, im just an amateur so im not sure about this, but considering the history and symptoms of the board, this is what i would check.

Maybe a simple fix for a skilled electronics repairman?

Probably.