cpu or motherboard problems?

[SandraD]

I recently aquired a P111 Seanix computer that my friend gave to me. He told me that he originally had a virus and formatted his hard drive. His computer was shutting down. I ran through some troubleshooting steps with him and we discovered his cpu fan had failed. I would say that was his problem right from the start. I have swapped out his power supply, video card and memory. I have also tried to boot with no cards at all except for one stick of ram and a video card. My question is. Would it be the motherboard or the cpu that has failed? I had a good look at the cpu and it looks good. I have heard that a bad cpu will have brown spots or burn marks. Nothing like that appears. Is there any way to test the motherboard? I do not have another one to swap. Your help would be appreciated. Right now the computer will turn on...seems to post and then shut down like there is no power. It then starts back up again and shuts down for good.

[yawningdog]

I would say that the cpu would be the first suspect. Burn marks are a nice indicator, but lack of them doesn't necessarily mean all is ok. If you also suspect the hard drive, check to see if it will boot from a floppy.

It may or may not matter in this case, but it's often helpful to post more info pertaining to your hardware if you have it. (CPU make & model, mobo make & model, etc.)

Good luck.

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Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to use the net, and he wont bother you for weeks.

[diurnal]

Yes you can test the motherboard get a voltmeter and plug it to the power connector that runs from the powersupply to the motherboard. Probably called p8 and p9 connectors.
Get the red wire hook it to the yellow. Get the black wire and hook it to any black wires. Turn the pc on then if you get 11volts or higher your in good shape. Make sure its on dcv, the voltmeter.
Also make sure none of the drives are hook up, when your testing it.
Another thing is if the cpu is damaged you would not see marks to indicate that its blown. Yes in some cases you can

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Murph's Law: 1.Everything takes longer than you think
2.If anything can go wrong it will
3.Nothing is as easy as it looks