Hi there

I have a home built computer that was made in 2004. (built for me by a techie guy; i have a rudimentary understanding of what the parts are but no more than that, no ability to tinker with the inside of a PC myself).

It's been used as a music workstation only, it has never been connected to the Internet, running windows XP.

I have two hard drives, one for o/s & audio apps (2 partitions), another for data (4-5 partitions)

The computer has been running like a dream for a DECADE, but I recently went away for a few days so shut down the power.

When I came back, I hit the power switch on the computer before plugging it back in, and it powered on briefly, presumably from some RESIDUAL power left inside.

I plugged it in, hit the power again, and again, it came on briefly but then off again.

I hit the power once more and this time it powered up fully (and always does now), fans/optical drive lights come on, hard disk light is orange briefly then goes off, the green power light (bulb symbol on case) stays on - all seems ok except - I am getting this "blank screens no POST beep" problem - which I see has been discussed a bit on this forum and others.

In a nut shell: you hit the power switch, lcd leds go green briefly, the screens stay blank, screen leds goes back to orange, no POST beep, power off switch only works if you press and hold it.

The possible steps to resolve are in these youtube videos:

Simple tutorial
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4e73dtkGxiY

Advanced tutorial
https://m.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=4e73dtkGxiY&v=_EK9a-R5pss&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_2380649897

The advice is to try each of these steps to:
 
1 - unplug everything from the back of the pc and power up
2 - remove cmos battery from motherboard, set caps from 1-2 position to 2-3 position to clear cmos memory.
3 - remove component by component from motherboard, trying each time to see if it fixes problem.
4 - Bread-boarding (remove motherboard from case and place on non conductive surface. try power.

if none of these resolve the issue, then one of 3 remaining components could be gone (power supply, cpu or motherboard)

I am not going to be able to do any of this work myself (obviously I've tried no.1), so I will need to get an engineer to look at it. But before I do, I have a few questions:


1 - If this was caused or triggered by a surge of residual power inside the machine, (when it was switched on with no power supply) does this suggest a prognosis? I'm trying to glean WHETHER I may need to REPLACE one or more components. Which leads to my next question:

2 - I've listed the machine components below - GIVEN these components are over 10yrs old, where could I get replacements or compatible alternatives?

3 - If one or more components are replaced and the problem is fixed, what does this mean for my o/s, programs and data on my hard drives - should it all just work as before once the hardware is fixed? I guess the engineer will do some level of software install, BIOS setup when installing any replacement parts etc but hopefully all else should be ok? (Unless the hard drives are the problem  ) 

Anyhoo, many thanks for reading  - and to anyone who can give any helpful advice, many many thanks!

Best Regards
Juice 

Machine components

Motherboard
MSI MS-6758 (socket 478)

Processor
Intel P4 3ghz pc800 pga478

Memory
Corsair twin x10243200ll ddr-dimm 124mb

Hard disk 1
Seagate barracuda 7200 160gb s-ata 8mb, s-ata/150  8mb cache

Hard disk 2
Maxtor diamondmax 7200 80gb ide/ata 133

Video card
Matrox AGP millenium g550 32mb dual dvi "low profile" ddr-ram

Screens: 2x lg 17inch lcd

Case: chieftec dragon miditower

2x optical drives
lg dvd recorder ide gsa-4040b
lg cd burner ide
Hi

It's a good that you have decided where to stop diagnoses this computer. It also seems that the programs and data are very important.
It is most likely that the main board has failed capacitors which could be replaced, There isn't so many people doing this work, due this problem not happening so much with modem motherboards. A computer tech would diagnose the capacitors  very quickly, they look like this when they have failed. http://www.capacitorlab.com/visible-failures/
So what can you expect the tech to do for you.
Discuss with you the options to repair or replace the faulty computer.
Make sure that you both know how you want to use the computer and your special requirements. 
Then a full backup of the 2 drives. This is very important !!!!
Source and supply a reliable machine, they may need to replace the IDE drive with a sata
Set the new computer up with your copy of windows and programs, they should be able to get your windows booting with the new hardware.

 
If your able to locate a like motherboard you could perform a 1 for 1 swap. But the only one I see is insanely priced for a board this obsolete as seen here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-875P-Neo-FISR-PCB-2-0-MS-6758-V2-0-MotherboardV2-0-Motherboard-/171772551655?hash=item27fe7121e7

The motherboard is only worth really $20-$30 and not $123.49  .... some would argue that its not even worth $20 because its so old. However if it was a system that I would want to get back up and running with exact motherboard, $30 is the max I would pay for a motherboard this old myself.

As Lisa stated though perhaps your board could be saved if its bad caps etc. I have performed the cap replacement myself before buying replacement capacitors through mouser electronics and for less than $5 replace the bad caps and have a healthy board again. Just have to be careful with polarity to match the polarity otherwise they explode. Requires some soldering skill to pull it off. I have even had to add a small PCB with capacitors on it with wires strung and soldered to the leads of the old capacitors that were removed in some situations where replacement capacitors were slightly larger than the originals but same voltage and uF rating to fix systems.

Many thanks to you both for your replies.  I will report back after my engineer takes a look. Fingers crossed its fixable!

Thanks again
JuiceWish i had an engineer...