How do you confirm your motherboard is dead?

[fifthdawn]

When I turn on my comp, nothing would appear on the screen and there is no beep or post sound. But all the lights still come on and fans spin.
I'm not completely new to computers, but me and some friends isolated the problem down to the motherboard. But we're not 100% sure so I want to confirm it before I spend the money getting a new one.

The board is a P55M-UD2 by Gigabyte with a i5-750. The computer worked for about 3 months so I'm sure everything is installed right at one point.
Heres what we've tried so far.

1.) Reseting the CMOS - The board didn't have a jumper cap so we tried the did the screw driver test where you touch the pins with the screwdriver between the 2 pins. We also tried removing the battery for a minute and putting it on. That didn't solve the problem.

2.) System Speaker? - Friend said system speaker tells you what wrong with it when you start up, but the speakers didn't produce any sounds.

3.) Power Supply? - We tried switching out to a higher watt powersupply and still same problem.

4.) Holding the Power switch - There was a recommendation that I unplug the cord and hold the power button for 30sec - 1minute. Suprisingly the first time we did this, the computer booted up, but it would not get pass the "Starting Windows" part and when we force shutdown, we couldn't ever replicate it again.

5.) Memory? - I have 2 stick of 2GB DDR3 rams. We tried moving it around in different sockets but that didn't solve the problem. We also logically concluded that the probability of both ram dying at the same time was unlikely so we ruled out memory.

6.) Video Card - The card still lights up and spins. We didn't know how to confirm it's really working. We don't have another comp that can fit the video card on the motherboard. Its a ATI Radeon 5770. We assumed its fine since its spinning and lights up.

7.) Monitor - We tested it, the monitor works on other comps


The only 3 thing we isolated down to is 1.)Processor 2.) Harddrive and 3.) Motherboard. One of my other friend said even if the processor or harddrive isn't working, if the motherboard is, you will still see something on the screen, since nothing came up on the screen, we assumed the only thing left is the motherboard.

What do you guys think?

EDIT: Oh, I also tried having everything unplugged to the power except the motherboard. Nothings changed.

 

[dEAne]

Concentrate on 4 things: Motherboard, Processor, BIOS and memory.

1. Turn the computer ON with the motherboard and the Processor - usually you press the ON button not that the fans will spin automatically (it if spins automatically then something is wrong). It could be the motherboard or the processor - I have tried changing both and it worked.

2. The Speaker is a vital sign - If it doesn't worked then it could be the speaker or part of the motherboard circuits is going bad. Don't rule out the memory, try to borrow a good memory from friends (warning: a defective motherboard can kill your RAM). Turn the computer ON with the motherboard, Processor and memory - if you can hear a sound on the speaker then good, if not try to see if the display will work - if you got the signal ok - If you're using a video card and you don't have any signal try to borrow a video card that works.

3. If you got everything work go to your BIOS first and check the PC health (temp, voltage) If the temp were erratic then fix your cooling, If the voltages is on red then try to replace your PSU. I usually run a diagnostic test (or a burn in test) to verify that the build is still ok.

 

[fifthdawn]

1.) I'm not sure what you mean by spin automatically. But when I turn it on, the fans defintately spins.

2.) I'll try tomorrow morning to get another video card and another stick of ram from a friend.

I'm just hoping its the motherboard right now since its the cheaper one to replace.

3.) During the time that my PC was working, I've checked the voltage and temps and they were fine. I would hate to replace my processor or videocard.