My computer suffered a lightning strike yesterday while I was at work, killing my modem and possibly the serial ports. Though I have replaced the modem I have been trying like heck to get the machine back on-line again to no avail. Specs ----------------- GEMlight/Gate Start GMB-P56IPS Mainboard Socket 7- Pentium 120 CPU (intel) 64 MEgabytes of EDO RAM Win 98se Award PnP BIOS 586 Trident 9440 PCI Video Card (2MB) For a little history this motherboard has been plauged with problems concerning the communications ports not working since I got it. But after several hours of tweaking BIOS and motherboard settings I finally got one serial port to access my old modem. Unfortunatley, I decided to swap this motherboard out for a more used Biostar 8500 TVX motherboard (also Socket 7, except with an AMI PnP BIOS). And since then I have been having one major problem, the BIOS does not work on either board, both do the same thing, heres all the stuff I have tried with one board, the other, or both. -I know the CPU is ok, as I tested it in a computer I built for mom that uses the same motherboard, and it ran just fine. Concerns came from the CPU fan which was burning out making an odd smell (something it has not done before) -I know it seems a little rediculous (and I am sure I'm going to probably get a few laughs AT me for this one), but I have swapped the BIOS from the GEMlite into the broken 8500 TVX to see if I could get it to boot. -I have tried resetting the defaults on both boards using the reset jumper to no avail. However, curiously, both boards do the same thing when I turn the computer on, and this is strange as they are practically polar opposites (8500 Biostar w/AMI, GMB-P56 w/Award), the screen flashes for a second, then you can see the refresh bands across the screen for a few seconds, and thats it, the only activity is spinning hard disks, blinking CD-R/CD-ROM. But there are NO lit lights on the keyboard or floppy drives. What I want to know is are both boards dead, or are the BIOS the only thing that's messed up, and if there is any way, how can this be fixed. Any help would be appreciated. Hate to be so long winded but I know more info helps find answers.

if you are useing a power strip,did you try swapping it out? you could have a bad power supply. You may try hooking up you mobos with just memory, video card and key board up to you moms power supply and see if they will post.