Computer Randomly Boots Up

[Tobbe]

Hello There,

Machine Info: AmdK6 2400+, Phoenix BIOS, Radeon9800Pro Videocard, 1 GB RAM. 80GB harddrive. Virus Free.

My problem is as follows. When I start it up I sometimes gets the black screen and nothing more, and sometimes it starts perfectly. Today it has been almost a week since I managed to start it up. It started out with a black screen two weeks ago and has graduaaly moved down to complete darkness as of today.

What I have done so far, one step at a time: I replaced the CMOS battery with a fresh one to make sure the BIOS had enough power. I replaced the power supply with a new 450w to make sure the whole system had enough power. I replaced the the Radeon card with a GForce2 card to test if the video card was ok, which it was. I have disconnected my DVDplayer/writer. I have tried to disconnect my harddrives, one at a time, nothing happens. I also took the memory sticks and checked the connectors but nothing strange there.

I am pretty much going nuts over this machine. To say the least.

I deeply appreciate all assistance to solve this problem.

 

[vegasgmc]

Ive had similar problems on computers Ive worked on and it was always a bad capacitor on the motherboard.

 

[zephead]

right on...it could be a transistor too (i've seen 'em turn out both ways though)

 

[Tobbe]

Thanks alot both of you.

After vegasmc comment I examined the motherboard and found that one of the capacitor had gone bad (burned circle around that area on the backside of the MB) and it had burn away one of the hardly noticeable connections on the MB as well. I might get the thing up and running again thanks to you guys. Much Mahalo for your assistance!

Tobbe