This is the story I got regarding what happened to my home computer yesterday.
As my wife & daughter were in our little “computer room” yesterday morning (wife using her computer – daughter using mine) apparently my computer just shut down for no reason (our computers run 24/7). My wife tried to power it back on but nothing happened so she just left it alone. A minute or so later she heard a little “pop” & that lovely smell of a burning power supply we are all familiar with so she turned off the power bar at this point. So I get home….install another power supply I had & power the computer back up. Everything starts up okay, the keyboard flashes the lights, mouse light comes on….then, while going through the POST it stops at the “press Del to enter setup” screen…press Del does nothing…almost like a dead keyboard….so I try another keyboard…still nothing…I unplug the keyboard & mouse then power back up hoping to at least get a “no keyboard” error…same thing….freezes at the “enter setup” screen. It displays the BIOS & version….identifies the CPU correctly…it just won’t go past this spot….don’t make it to detecting RAM…IDE devices….etc. No “beeps” like bad ram or anything (didn’t try pulling the RAM though).
The DVD & CD lights flash on reboot…I can hear the HDD engauge (no light or is too fast to see)….I’ve tried unplugging all IDE devices except the boot HDD & unplugged everything on the back except the mouse & keyboard.
I’m guessing the IDE controllers or something else on the motherboard is fried….does anyone see something stupid I may have overlooked before I go buy another motherboard?