Thanks in advance to anybody who reads / answers, this is probably a long explanation.
I've been wanting to restore my parents super old Packard Bell desktop that I found under a pile in their garage (from around 1998), the system has not been used in decades however and apparently it was left outside for a period (I have no idea why). So far all attempts to bring the board back to life (MS6168 Ver. 2) have completely failed, and the board does not post at all, CPU and PSU fans do not spin etc.
So far, I've tried:
- Cleaning the board with compressed air, and then later very gently with a toothbrush (it was very dusty, looks pretty much fine now. Didn't make any difference.)
- Replacing capacitors; not all of them but the majority. The ones I left look visibly perfect, compared to the ones I replaced which were obviously bulging / leaking and had clearly failed. (I only stopped replacing all of them because even replacing the clearly trash capacitors didn't make any difference at all to the situation, so I just kind of assumed that maybe it wasn't the issue / if capacitors were the issue, it would have been the ones I already replaced.)
- Ensuring that the power supply works; the original from the time was very definitely not safe anymore so I bought a replacement identical model, which made a different board post so is clearly working.
- Replacing CMOS battery; did nothing. (Also tried resetting CMOS, again didn't work)
- Usual bread-boarding steps, i.e. removing the CPU, removing RAM, trying different slots etc.
Only thing of note is that the board is definitely getting power in some capacity, tripping the FP pins makes the PSU fan twitch, and the post board I purchased temporarily lights up the 12v light before fading away over a few seconds. Interestingly this only happens the first time I try to trip the pins after plugging in PSU, almost like the board needs to discharge before this can happen again. Theory right now is maybe there's a short on the board somewhere? I'm just not sure what would be causing that. Same with the issue being a bad capacitor, I didn't replace all of them but it seems unlikely to be any of the remaining capacitors because at the very least they look fine. CPU could be the issue, but I doubt it given the same exact problem occurs even without the CPU installed, same goes for the RAM.
As far as I can tell the only thing remaining to try is replacing the remaining capacitors that I left, other than that it's either something well beyond my ability to repair or something weird like "the board needs to have the IDE cable installed to post". As of right now I'm kind of just assuming the board is dead, but any help / ideas would be appreciated.
I've been wanting to restore my parents super old Packard Bell desktop that I found under a pile in their garage (from around 1998), the system has not been used in decades however and apparently it was left outside for a period (I have no idea why). So far all attempts to bring the board back to life (MS6168 Ver. 2) have completely failed, and the board does not post at all, CPU and PSU fans do not spin etc.
So far, I've tried:
- Cleaning the board with compressed air, and then later very gently with a toothbrush (it was very dusty, looks pretty much fine now. Didn't make any difference.)
- Replacing capacitors; not all of them but the majority. The ones I left look visibly perfect, compared to the ones I replaced which were obviously bulging / leaking and had clearly failed. (I only stopped replacing all of them because even replacing the clearly trash capacitors didn't make any difference at all to the situation, so I just kind of assumed that maybe it wasn't the issue / if capacitors were the issue, it would have been the ones I already replaced.)
- Ensuring that the power supply works; the original from the time was very definitely not safe anymore so I bought a replacement identical model, which made a different board post so is clearly working.
- Replacing CMOS battery; did nothing. (Also tried resetting CMOS, again didn't work)
- Usual bread-boarding steps, i.e. removing the CPU, removing RAM, trying different slots etc.
Only thing of note is that the board is definitely getting power in some capacity, tripping the FP pins makes the PSU fan twitch, and the post board I purchased temporarily lights up the 12v light before fading away over a few seconds. Interestingly this only happens the first time I try to trip the pins after plugging in PSU, almost like the board needs to discharge before this can happen again. Theory right now is maybe there's a short on the board somewhere? I'm just not sure what would be causing that. Same with the issue being a bad capacitor, I didn't replace all of them but it seems unlikely to be any of the remaining capacitors because at the very least they look fine. CPU could be the issue, but I doubt it given the same exact problem occurs even without the CPU installed, same goes for the RAM.
As far as I can tell the only thing remaining to try is replacing the remaining capacitors that I left, other than that it's either something well beyond my ability to repair or something weird like "the board needs to have the IDE cable installed to post". As of right now I'm kind of just assuming the board is dead, but any help / ideas would be appreciated.
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