Question Is my motherboard cactus?

[DeroBoy]

I hadn't used my desktop for a while, and on starting it back up for the first time it failed to recognise what I thought was only my graphics card, but when I switched over to inbuilt graphics and got windows (10-64bit) to boot I found that the network card isn't being recognised either.

My assumption is that there is an issue with the motherboard, but I dont know how to test to verify. Any ideas?

PC specs:
OS: Windows 10-64bit
MB: Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H
CPU: Intel i7
GPU: Gigabyte AMD Radeon -something
Sound: in-built
Network: ASUS PCE-N15

 

[DavidM012]

Waff psu could be taking out components. What brand/how old?

Test PSU with multimeter

Check voltages are in 5%+/- tolerance.

What else could it be?

If there is already mobo dmg. from PSU then practically the entire system can't be relied on. Unless you know you're way around a mobo with a multi meter or breadboard you can't test it for problems. Bottom line is replace mobo and psu. Fryed gpu's don't come back to life, nor do network cards. Your cpu is also at risk if the psu is causing electrical anomalies.

 

[DeroBoy]

Everything is about 6 years old. PSU is a AeroCool Templarius Imperator 750. I will have to do the multimeter check.

Thanks for the assistace.

 

[DeroBoy]

So the PSU testing comes back clean. Any ideas on moving forward with my analysis?

 

[DavidM012]

Replace cmos battery with new cr2032 coin battery, they have a life of about 5 years. If the battery is flat it could explain why the gpu wouldn't boot since bios settings aren't saved if the coin battery is flat, if booting off the igpu is the default, but then it's disabled when gpu is present, but the boot from gpu setting isn't saved because cmos battery is flat, that could maybe confuse the bios.

One or more component failing in an old system with a non-recommended psu is a bit worrying tho. You can only test each item if you have another pc to try the gpu and network card in, they both could have failed for seperate reasons by themselves because they are old but still, power is the only other connection in the system.

The multimeter test doesn't prove that the psu is fine under load but I don't know a way to do more than that without other more detailed and specialized testing equipment. You can't see what's going on with the psu much, except that at least it doesn't seem to be overvolting anything first glance.

The only other things you can do is try another gpu & try another network card and try placing the system under a normal load for a while, sounds like it's still basically working, but it would be nice to know that power issues wasn't the reason for any peripheral component failure.