Death of my PC?

I have a PC (over 5 years old) with MSI 6340 mobo and VIA KT133
chipset. Yesterday I was minding my own business happily using my PC
when I suddenly got the blue screen of death and the PC switched itself
off. I tried to reboot, but cannot even get as far as POST. The PSU
whirrs away as does the CPU fan. The green LED on the underside of my
HDD lights up, but otherwise activity is dead. On the front of the case
the LED lights for On state and amber for Standby/Sleep state are
simultaneously lit, when I power on. I can still power off by
depressing the ON button for a few seconds.

I'd like to think it was the PSU unit that was faulty, because that's a
cheap and easy replacement. But as powering on manages to energise both
fans and HDD LED, I have a horrible feeling that the CPU or mobo may
have blown. I can tell you that my CPU has never overheated nor have I
had any hardware problem in the past.I don't have a spare PSU to test
out. What does anyone think may be the likely cause. All suggestions
gratefully received.

CC

bendipa DeleteThis @clara.co.uk> wrote:
> I have a PC (over 5 years old) with MSI 6340 mobo and VIA KT133
> chipset. Yesterday I was minding my own business happily using my PC
> when I suddenly got the blue screen of death and the PC switched itself
> off. I tried to reboot, but cannot even get as far as POST. The PSU
> whirrs away as does the CPU fan. The green LED on the underside of my
> HDD lights up, but otherwise activity is dead. On the front of the case
> the LED lights for On state and amber for Standby/Sleep state are
> simultaneously lit, when I power on. I can still power off by
> depressing the ON button for a few seconds.
>
> I'd like to think it was the PSU unit that was faulty, because that's a
> cheap and easy replacement. But as powering on manages to energise both
> fans and HDD LED, I have a horrible feeling that the CPU or mobo may
> have blown. I can tell you that my CPU has never overheated nor have I
> had any hardware problem in the past.I don't have a spare PSU to test
> out. What does anyone think may be the likely cause. All suggestions
> gratefully received.

I had one of those boards that ended up dying due to bad capacitors on the
mainboard. If you open up your case, look around the CPU for the green
cylinders; if they have bulging tops or are leaking, that would be a likely
culprit. Sometimes I could coax it into working by flicking the switch on
the PSU instead of the front case switch, but eventually it died completely.

I ended up getting a new board and CPU from ebay, for fairly cheap that used
the same memory as a replacement, and that is what I am still using today.

Jon