I finally decided to replace my rickety old case today and surprise surprise something went wrong. So to be clear no other hardware changes have taken place & the computer was working fine this morning.

Symptoms are a failure to POST, beep or respond to the power button to turn off. I've gone through the standard problem solving check list:

1) Unplug everything except bare minimum: 1 stick RAM, Power, keyboard, graphics device.
2) Alternated different RAM in different slots.
3) Swapped PSU for a known good one.
4) Swapped graphics card for a known good one
5) Reset the BIOS
6) Threaten with violence.

Oh and the monitor works fine as well. I'm thinking that my motherboard did not survive the transplant.Last time I had a client with a similar issue it was that they added too many stand offs in a case that allowed you to add the bronze stand offs in the needed locations and one of them was in a location that is not a mount point, but just happened to be where IC legs were sticking out from, sending the signal to chasis ground.

Hoping this is not the cause of your failure as for they blew the motherboard by this oops.

The other time a person had an issue like this was because they were attempting to use a flat headed screw driver to eject the RAM out of the wings and the screw driver slipped off of the wing and struck the surface of the motherboard and travelled about 1/8" inch in a scratch motion. They cut across about 9 hairline traces that went from the CPU and RAM. I ended up helping them save this board by using an exacto to scratch the mask off of the traces to expose the copper and then with a soldering iron and solder added solder bridges at the gouge and reconnected the RAM traces to the CPU. 

So if a screwdriver jumped anywheres inside when working look at the motherboard surface..


Other causes for this can be the following:

- Motherboard was flexed during the process causing an open to occur.
- Screw somehow loose is lodged and SHORTING component(s).
- Screws tightened down with too much force and cracked/fractured the motherboard material which broke traces internally.
- New cases sometimes have rivot material or metal filings that fall into contact with board.
- Jumper(s) fell off in process such as BIOS Jumper etc.
- Other devices that the motherboard connect to were damaged and so you need to see if you get different results with minimal boot on integrated video etc vs video card etc.
- Static discharge through the process by not following proper ESD safe procedures
- Molex Power connectors not inserted properly or open connection between male/female pins
- 12v ( 4 pin ) molex power connection is not plugged in near CPU ( This has been found more than once!!!! )
- power switch and LED wiring to front panel wired wrong such as to RESET vs the POWER BUTTON so its actually holding the reset into a high vs low state ( and yes I have seen this before in my travels assisting people for 25+ years ) This was on a old 486 33Mhz years ago with button that was not a momentary switch as I believe 100% of modern computers are momentary switches so getting power switch and reset backwards just means that the reset buttom powers and the power button resets.
- Part on motherboard or other device damaged in the move.
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I think that covers all... but feel free to add any that I may have missed for him to try.

In this situation you could pull the motherboard, PSU out and try to boot it outside of the case on a tabletop with a tabletop surface that is dry and non conductive and if it boots then, work your way backwards to the case to find the cause of the failed boot. ( verify that component legs on the board are not comming into contact with the case and shorting out as for many cases now ship without the bronze stand offs, but instead are a press formed platform that are drilled and tapped and sometimes the dome of the raised mount point can CONFLICT with IC legs etc. This can spell disaster for the board depending on which leg is sent to ground.When I say bare minimum that included switching on via screw driver with the front panel disconnected and the case disconnected entirely. I'll be honest I was using the CPU heat sink as a handle to move it about (It felt more fragile than what I'm used to). Then there is the RAM that's not on a supported part of the board so there was flex there...

I miss my old Pentium II boards that just got thrown in cupboards and yet still somehow worked afterwards.If you had a POST card to plug into a PCI slot that might point you in the right direction at this point.

I have an older version of one of these with a LED readout that you can see where it is hanging. Mine is called a POST FLIP card because it has ISA on one edge and PCI on the other so you can plug it into either. But its like 13 years old and I should probably get a newer one, but rarely need it. I paid like $49.99 for it and used it maybe 3x in 13 years.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2C51051131Unfortunately I'm not American so newegg products aren't any good to me.

It appears that the motherboard is still under warranty, if it counts that I probably broke it. The question is do I want to put up with the hassle of returning it for ?weeks? or just splash out the extra £55 for a new one.I have always used my warranty when available. Never had to send a motherboard back before, but have had to send Hard Drives ( Seagate x 3 )and RAM ( 1 x Kingston + 1 x Crucial ) back and it has been no hassle replacements.

Seagate was great for all 3 drives, and of the 3 drives, they shipped me back a 160GB IDE replacement to the 120GB IDE drive that died as well as a 500GB Maxtor drive that was not covered by Maxtors 3 year warranty and became a paperweight instantly was covered by warranty when Seagate bought out Maxtor and rolled their 5 year warranty over to the Maxtor product line in which the drive was 4.5 years old, and Seagate gave me a RMA approval on this drive and I got shipped back a healthy Seagate branded 500GB SATA II drive for just the cost of shipping $ 8.00 (USD) and they gave me a 3 year warranty on this replacement drive that started from the delivery date of the drive to me. This 3 year warranty is just about up and the drive that is a work horse for video EDITING and compression is still healthy  One last after thought, what would the typical response from the motherboard be if it thought that the CPU fan wasn't working properly/at all?Have you tried running it out of the case? I'd predict that something is shorting the board out.

Moving the board by the heatsink shouldn't be an issue - In fact, that is one of the recommended WAYS to hold a board when putting it into the case as the cooler is always very solidly attached and is not sensitive to static.It's on a table now. Quote from: Accessless on February 16, 2014, 04:40:58 AM

One last after thought, what would the typical response from the motherboard be if it thought that the CPU fan wasn't working properly/at all?

assume that it's my computer in question unless I otherwise say so

Have you tried running it out of the case? I'd predict that something is shorting the board out.

Moving the board by the heatsink shouldn't be an issue - In fact, that is one of the recommended ways to hold a board when putting it into the case as the cooler is always very solidly attached and is not sensitive to static.

It's on a table now.

Again, have you tried running it out of the case?  It is very probable that the board is shorting on something in the case - Very easy mistake to make.