Question Is my mobo dead

Sep 14, 2019
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Hi I have an older Dell studio laptop I can't get to boot to anything. It lost power and when I turned it on it started the Dell splash screen and loaded but instead of booting windows it just shows a blinking cursor. I made a bootable windows 10 repair thumb drive to repair the MBR but it won't boot to that either. I tried the original install disc (it came with Vista) but that wouldn't boot. I tried an Ubuntu thumb drive same result. I can access the bios, Dell version A04, and I did CMOS reset but nothing changes. All I can think is the mobo is bricked any ideas?
 
Sep 14, 2019
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From what I found:

Bad mobo = no bios/ nothing happens
Bad cpu = nothing happens
Bad psu= nothing happens
Bad RAM= no memory response

I can't find anything like it out there
 
Sep 14, 2019
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A blinking cursor tells you the laptop is searching for a bootable media [thumbdrive, DVD or Windows boot drive] and can't find any.
Yeah I know. Did you read the post? That's the problem I put 2 different bootable USBs and a bootable DVD in and it won't boot to any of them.

If you listen closely when you press the start button of your laptop can you hear the HDD spinning up? Do you hear a clicking sound?
Hdd spins but I don't think it's the problem cause it won't boot to a USB or DVD either.

Today I'm gonna try updating the bios I'll keep you posted
 
Sep 14, 2019
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That may seem obvious but keep in mind I have no way of knowing how much you know about computers. Was your USB formatted as FAT32?
I'm no noob I've built a couple machines ground up and have worked on hardware for almost 15 years but I'm not a professional and I have never encountered anything like this. Both USB were made with Rufus with FAT32 file systems and MBR partition schemes. I also tried both on different machines and they booted like they should. It just won't boot to anything.
 
Sep 13, 2019
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That's what he did, he tried other media to boot off with the same result. Now I'm wondering if it's the CPU at fault. It had to be one or the other and my memory failed me.

Sorry for the pun.
 
Sep 14, 2019
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That's what he did, he tried other media to boot off with the same result. Now I'm wondering if it's the CPU at fault. It had to be one or the other and my memory failed me.

Sorry for the pun.
Everything I saw online says a burnt CPU won't even display the splash screen and definitely won't be able to access the bios. Needless to say I'm not super eager to swap CPUs, I'll try it as a last resort but I'm out of thermo paste so I can't try now.
 
Sep 13, 2019
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What I thought. It needs a CPU just to display the screen and access the BIOS. I wish I remember what it was. Something so obvious it eluded me.

When he said upon booting it ended with a blinking cursor. It would not boot any media at all. I remember this problem in a desktop so what makes the laptop different?

Did the CPU overheated? Bad memory? Bad cable? I'm started to think it's the chipset on the mobo.
 
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