Dead PC - help please !

Hi All

The header says it all,really !
Saturday night - pc was running fine, Sunday morning it was sat there with both front-panel lights full on (hdd & ?power?) - and completely unresponsive to any stimuli (keyboard, mouse, front panel on-off switch.

Could only turn it off by pulling the mains lead.
Put mains lead back in, front panel switch turned it back on again - but only to the same state as before. No drives spinning, front panel lights hard on, two red leds on the motherboard, fans spinning, no post......

PC was branded i-Friend - sent their support a couple of emails and phoned their helpline - no response - wonder if they've gone bust ?

Spec-wise it's a EVE2 C2714R - micro-atx motherboard, Celeron 1.7, fair bit of ram. Nothing fancy by today's standards - but a lot better than the pII it replaced !

Further diagnosis showed that one of the power supply fans was seized solid - so, on a wild hope <g>, I purchased and installed a new PSU. (The machine has had two replacement PSUs under guarantee before - so I though there might be something in this theory...

Now the new PSU is very nice, but it doesn't change the symptoms one tiny bit.....

Have also tried the 'unplug everything' approach, down to a bare motherboard with Celeron, but this makes no difference.

So - at the moment, I have three possible strategies (further suggestions welcome!)

a) Buy a motherboard 'bundle' (e.g. Celeron 336 2.8Ghz - 512mb - Micro ATX from Novatech http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/bundles.html) on the grounds that I can simply drop the whole lot in and it should fly - about £100 inc vat

b) buy a series of new parts (uP, motherboard, ?memory?) and simply replace bits until it starts to work - could be several parcels / delivery charges etc

c) Bin the whole thing and buy a cheapie replacement system unit and transplant the old hdd to the new unit.


I'm confident around electronics, just a bit baffle by the wide range of bits & pieces available now - which is why the 'bundle' approach appeals..

My diagnosis of 'motherboard or uP' - sounds about right to you ??

Many thanks - sorry it's such a long posting
Adrian
Suffolk UK
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