HP P6210Y desktop wth dead motherboard
Someone called me because their computer was apparently dead. And it seems to be. It's an HP P6210Y desktop with the (Pegatron) Asus M2N78-LA motherboard.
It doesn't do much of anything. It won't boot up, it won't see my Ubuntu Linux CD, even getting into the BIOS took about 5 tries. Once there, it shows no hard drives or CD drives.
I blew all the dust out of the case. There was a LOT, these people have a horse farm and maybe the horses are playing WoW or something. The entire house was a dusty mess! I took out the RAM, SATA connector cables, power supply cables, and blew it all out again. Made sure everything was clean and put it all back together. No change.
The only thing the computer will do is boot to the BIOS screen with the F10, F11, F9, and ESC options, and sit there. Pressing the option keys does nothing.
I read a few articles on google, and it seems to be a common Nvidia northbridge failure. And suitable replacement motherboards can be found on newegg that will handle the PC2-6400 RAM, Athlon II 620 quad core, and have on board video. They said this computer is a year and a half old, so it probably is out of warranty.
BUT -- how do I know that ONLY the motherboard is bad? I don't want to have these people spend money on a motherboard, change it all out, and it still doesn't work for whatever reason.
It doesn't do much of anything. It won't boot up, it won't see my Ubuntu Linux CD, even getting into the BIOS took about 5 tries. Once there, it shows no hard drives or CD drives.
I blew all the dust out of the case. There was a LOT, these people have a horse farm and maybe the horses are playing WoW or something. The entire house was a dusty mess! I took out the RAM, SATA connector cables, power supply cables, and blew it all out again. Made sure everything was clean and put it all back together. No change.
The only thing the computer will do is boot to the BIOS screen with the F10, F11, F9, and ESC options, and sit there. Pressing the option keys does nothing.
I read a few articles on google, and it seems to be a common Nvidia northbridge failure. And suitable replacement motherboards can be found on newegg that will handle the PC2-6400 RAM, Athlon II 620 quad core, and have on board video. They said this computer is a year and a half old, so it probably is out of warranty.
BUT -- how do I know that ONLY the motherboard is bad? I don't want to have these people spend money on a motherboard, change it all out, and it still doesn't work for whatever reason.
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Only problem was when I had to get the CPU off the heat sink. It was stuck so hard it pulled the CPU out of the socket while it was still locked down. Then the first time I touched it with a screwdriver to work it loose from the heat sink, the CPU popped off and bent about 10 pins. Took about 10 minutes to get them straightened out!