I have a 2 yr old PC that will not start up. The fans run for about 2 seconds before shutting down. After doing some troubleshooting it appears the motherboard may be the problem since the power supply checks out OK. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7VA with a G3 AMD 2400+ processor. Is there any way to check out the motherboard and processor before I go to the expense of buying a new motherboard and/or processor?

Ebay is auctioning a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP mb that I could buy as a replacement which has the same form factor and chipset. Would there be any other compatiblilty concerns going from the GA-7VA to the GA-7VAXP?

Any further advice on troubleshooting and replacing components would be appreciated.

Make sure the CPU's fan has a 3 pin connector, and is connected to the correct MB terminal.

If that's ok, then reset CMOS with a MB jumper(Check the computer's or MB's documentation for instructions).

If that does not work, then check the MB for any bulging, leaking, or ruptured capacitors.

If they look ok, then remove the CPU's heatsink, remove the old thermal compound from the heatsink and the CPU die, and apply Arctic Silver.

If no luck, then do a barebones setup with just the PS, MB, CPU, video card, RAM, KB, and monitor installed, and place the MB on a piece of cardboard.

If the same problem happens, then you may have to either swap out the MB, CPU, video card, and/or RAM(borrow these components?), or have them shop tested.

Thanks for the advice -

I checked the 3 pin connector on the fan which looks good.

Not sure how to reset CMOS. Went to the Giga-byte web site for the manual on my MB but the manual did not provide instructions. Any suggestions on where I can find info on reseting CMOS?

If you don't have jumpers to clear cmos or can't locate them you can always remove the cmos battery for an hour or so. First unplug your computer, remove the battery from the mobo. Replace the battery, plug in the computer, start up, and enter into bios. The settings should returned to the default values.

If you still can't get to the bios setup follow ski's advice with the barebones boot.