rebuilding an once working system

[jdsha]

hi,

a friend of mine took apart an old but working pc, and tried rebuilding it. he abused it until giving up and asking me to rebuild.
I connected everything back, but there's no post nor beeps. as far as I can tell, everything is connected properly.
what do you think went wrong/what has the most chance of going bad when abused lightly.
note 1: it's not my first build.
note 2: he hasn't messed with the cpu and it's fan

thanks

 

[Barty1884]

Abused in what way?

Is there anything lighting up/spinning at all? (let alone 'beeps', there should be some sign of life with a working PSU)

 

[jdsha]

nothing intentional, but I don't exactly know, but he admitted t not being gentle after I saw everything scattered n the floor.
small light is on, everything spins, flash drive show activity light.

also I tried with a different PSU from a working system-same result

 

[Barty1884]

Have you tried breadboarding it?

Take everything out of the case, and try to boot with just the mobo, CPU/HSF (GPU if no integrated graphics) and 1xRAM DIMM. If you can get it to post from there, then you can start adding everything back.

If I was to hazard a guess, the motherboard has been damaged due to static if your friend was being careless, but you're a long way from confirming that I'm afraid.

 

[jdsha]

done that. that's why I'm asking here.
problem is I barely have components for an old system.

would there would be all these "working stuff" with a fried mobo?

 

[smorizio]

make sure the mb has a good battery and it in right. with no ram and a working power supply there should be cmos beep codes if the mb is posting. look on the mb top and bottom see if he ripped a cap or part off the mb. look for burn spots.

 

[jdsha]

still nothing.
looks intact.

 

[Barty1884]

Ok, well if you can't see anything visually, and it won't post even while breadboarding, the only real way to know for sure would be to test the components with known working parts.

Do you have a donor motherboard that can test the CPU?

Test the RAM in another computer.

Based on the information, it sounds like the motherboard may be dead/fried.

 

[jdsha]

it's really old (ddr1 and stuff)...
I'll see what I can do.

thanks everyone

 

[Barty1884]

Wow....that's pre '03 at least?

It's going to be pretty much impossible to diagnose those parts as it's unlikely there will be spares around.

Might be worth encouraging your friend to let you loose with a couple of hundred (dollars, I assume) and built a real budget PC. They'd see a dramatic improvement (obviously).

 

[jdsha]

something in that area.
he has an over-kill-costs-like-my-entire-life pc that he knows nothing about besides how to open facebook with a k edition i7.

only reason I'm doing this is because I repair old pcs that people are throwing away, and donate them to kids who can't afford one... this could have made a kid happy with a lightweight linux OS...

 

[Barty1884]

something in that area.
he has an over-kill-costs-like-my-entire-life pc that he knows nothing about besides how to open facebook with a k edition i7.

only reason I'm doing this is because I repair old pcs that people are throwing away, and donate them to kids who can't afford one... this could have made a kid happy with a lightweight linux OS...

Sorry to hear that. It is a shame. Where are you located, out of curiosity? Some good work you're doing there!

 

[jdsha]

i'll salvage what I can.
Israel. almost everyone in this forum can do such a thing. I'm a college student, and I don't make enough even to buy myself a PC for when my laptop isn't enough, but taking an old one for usually (almost) free, couple of fixes and improvements... it's well worth it