While I was burning a DVD, my pc suddenly powered down and won't start afterwards, I have reset all the connectors from the case to the board to no avail. I have also changed the power supply, still nothing. My thinking was either somehow the case's switches are dead or the CPU died, since I can see the light of the network card on board lit while i plugged in, and turned on power supply, so the board is not fried. Since I m not really having any income right now, I m reluctant to go and buy a new CPU, I m thinking about going down to fry's for a new case, what do you gurus out there think? do you think the case is the problem or is the CPU fried? I didn't smell anything. By the way, I built the system last year with a FIC PE865PE max board and a P4 2.66 gig cpu with 533 fsb, 2x512mb pc2100 ram and 1x256mb pc2100 ram. 1xseagate 160gb sata hd, 2x 160gb maxtor ata hd, and one western digital 200gb hd. 1xverbatim cd writer, 1x hitachi dvd rom and the latest additon of the BTC dvd writer. with a 450 watt power supply in a mid tower with 3 case fans and one system blower. anybody have any suggestions of what might be dead? thank so much for your help!

Start by disconnecting all drives and any PCI cards. Strip back to barebones. PSU, Mobo, CPU, 1 stick of ram and graphics. Can you get it to post? If so then reconnect drives etc one at a time (Of course make sure power is disconnected while making any hardware changes) Try to boot after each change. If it will not boot in barebones mode then you will have trouble working out which/how many of the main components are bad. You need enough spare parts or another compatible working system in which to swap your bits one at a time to test them. There is no point buying a new CPU only to find it's the graphics card or ram that is bad. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.

Thanks for your reply Richard59, I tried the bare bone thing, the cas simply won't power up, and I take it back, My power supply is a 600W, I m sure that would be enough power for the system. I spent a hefty sum on that PSU... Could a fuse blown on that unit? or could the mb be fried? I have been reading the postings on this forum and trying the solutions, changed powercord even nothing is happening, Same thing, light came on in the network socket when i switched on power. thats it, nothing else will powerup when i push the power button, could that switch be dead? how do i jumpstart the mb with a pen, I saw them doing at fry's but I don't know what exactly to push, could someone give me a hint? I have just started my A+ core course, nothing major has been taught yet.hehe. Thanks in advance!!

All the power-on switch does is temporarily bridge the pair of pins that the PWR leads from the switch connect to on the motherboard. pull the leads off the board and carefully bridge the pins with a screwdriver. That will at least eliminate the switch as the source of your problem. I doubt the switch is the problem anyway as your crash happened during a session and it is unlikely any surge through the board would reach/damage the switch. The board would be fried first. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.

Thank you again Richard59 for your quick posting. I tried the shorting the switch trick, but no, nothing comes on, I m beginning to think it could be a dead motherboard or a dead CPU, what do you think?

Could be either or both. I had a system meltdown a few months ago. When the powersupply blew it took out the motherboard, CPU and graphics card. I salvaged the ram. Suggest at this point you take it to a tech to test and work out which is bad. No point replacing bits that aren't bad unless you are ready for a full upgrade. Good luck with it. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.

Get someone to let you borrow their comp and just keep swapping parts back and worth until you find the problem. Intel P4 3.0GHz Gigabyte 8KNXP Radeon 9800Pro (410/370) 1GB Corsair XMS PC3200 80GB WesternDigital HDD Plextor DVD R/RW LiteOn 52x32x52 CD R/RW