How can I tell if my mother board is shot?

[Shadowmeph]

I made pretty much the same post but I posted it in the wrong section so I am reposting it here.


after leak testing for 24hrs I went to fireup my pc and it was a no go all the cables where connected and the psu works , I did get it working for a little while ..well sort of working I unplugged and pluged in the atx cable ( I think that is what it is called ) and the fans spun for a split second so I tried the power button and my pc fired up.
but when the it was booting and it was supposed to be at the desktop the screen was blank, I thought that it was my ram settings againso I checked , they were set to auto so I reset them to where they were supposed to be set and started my PC up again but the same thing happened, I I did a hard shutdown and now my pc would boot at all.
this is why I am thinking that it might be the Mother board
is thre anyway to check ?

[grinder]

so it would post and go through the action of loading the OS but sat black screen where you would normally see the desktop. I don't think i would pin it on the motherboard just yet.

[Arinoth]

If its posting and its going to a black screen somewhere during the Windows X (for whatever version) or right when it is suppose go to the desktop, i would assume its more some corrupt data in your OS directory, try to do a repair (xp has the fun complete re-instal, vista will try to fix what's wrong, haven't tried to see what win 7 does yet)

[Shadowmeph]

well the thing is that for some reason ( most of the time) I cannot even start the computer

[KaptCrunch]

Gigabyte p35-DS3L (rev. 1.0) ?

that the MB in question, the current bios version is F9 fixes

1. Update CPU microcode (Support Intel Wolfdale/Yorkfield E0-stepping CPU)
2. Some of 1000 GB (1TB) HDDs will be detected size error
3. PS2 keyboard compatibility issues
4. to name a few

[1Tanker]

I see you have 8GB RAM in a P35 DS3L? Is that new, or have you been using 8GB for a while? I would try taking out 2 sticks, reboot and see. I have a P35 DS3L.. i only run 4GB, but i don't think they love a lot of RAM. Mine runs pretty good with 4x1GB(or 2x2GB), but 4x2GB might be too much for it. GL

[gingerbee]

the only way i know of is to pull everything out. Test each piece of hardware with another computer if available( kinda needed i know). That way you can tell if everything else works. then if you have problems when you put everything back on the "messed up motherboard" and it goes screwy then you know it's your motherboard. look at the back of the MB to see if there any problems.
( p.s have you looked closely at the MB to see if there any burnt parts?)

[gingerbee]

i did just notice that you don't have your power supply listed( had 1 power unit 12v rail kinda half go and that caused all kinda problems very similar to yours) good luck hope it helps.
and you add parts to it that it did not have before right?

[Shadowmeph]

the psu I have is a coolermaster 750watt .
hmm I removed the board and checked for anything burns and didn't find anything , I also losened off the wingnuts that are used to hold down the stinger water block to the cpu, now I am able to boot, not sure if it is a fluke or not. I am going to test this out for a while and see if I can boot to my desktop. will be back in a while

[gingerbee]

weird that it works when you loosened the water block