'fried' motherboard?

[lacerta]

first off this is my first post here so hello everybody!

so basically, im considering buying a used alienware computer off my buddy for $100. he tells me he thinks the motherboard is 'fried' from when he was working on it and got electrocuted or something along those lines.

so now to my question, is it possible for just the motherboard to fry?, i would expect if something happened to fry the motherboard, why would anything else be ok? i hope it is just the motherboard so i can pick up some cpu/mobo combo and have a sick little computer for 500 bucks

any help is greatly appreciated!!

-ryan

 

[lovely?]

well what were the specs on your computer and what are the specs on his alienware?

 

[lacerta]

all i know is that its a amd athlon 3200. any parts i would be replacing would be bought new, not hijacked from my current computer.

 

[daisymtc]

What make his Mobo gone?

The worst case of your friend PC gone with Mobo + PSU + CPU...
And thus, you are paying $100 for a used case + optical drive + HDD...

 

[just a noob]

just 100 dollars for the case is a pretty good deal, alienware at one point sold there cases for $400, you could probably pick up an e8400+p45 but, you might need new ram to go with it, but i think you can get 4gb of ddr2 for around 60 bucks

 

[lacerta]

yea i think ill just buy it haha.

 

[NuTech]

Yes its possible for just the mobo to fried

 

[concorde]

If the motherboard is dead, chances are the memory, processor, and any cards connected to it might be dead too. I wouldn't be taking any chances with this PC. Additionally, if your friend or yourself doesn't know how the motherboard died, who knows if the power supply is at fault and will kill off the remaining components (hard drive, optical drive)... If you really want this computer, I would, just to be safe, sans the power supply.

 

[bragr]

Maybe not the board

Check out the computer first. 40% when a customer has come to me saying that "the mother board has crashed" is just a bios error. If that is the case, buy it reset it to factory defaults. 50% its not the motherboard, but the power supply that is going bad and sending low power to the motherboard making it act weird and not work. Take a power meter and go through a few plugs and look for low power. Use google to find what each plug should be. If thats the culprit, PSU are cheap and it take 4 screws and pluging in to install. Only about 10% of the time is it actually the mother board. If thats the case, a tiny tiny static shock could have damaged a single small chip and you'd only have to replace that. Do you have another computer to test to rest of the component (e.g. cpu, ram, video cart etc)? If only the mother board is bad, you could get a new one off of newegg for $50US easily.