Determine if motherboard is fried?

[doug68]

i got a question, ive got a gateway 3250s that someone said the motherboard was fried. Is there a way to determine if its bad besides hooking it all up? from inspection it looks fine.....was going to piece it together for the kids...

 

[astor]

Aside from burns on the circuits, I think it's be hard to tell if a board is fried without actually plugging it in. But I'm not entirely certain. My board is dying but visibly it looks fine.