Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!usc!venera!gremlin!nrtc!wdarden
From: wdarden@nrtc.nrtc.northrop.com (Bill Darden <wdarden>)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Mom's PC Died
Message-ID: <8045@gremlin.nrtc.northrop.com>
Date: 3 Jul 90 19:40:09 GMT
References: <44260@brunix.UUCP> <33DmL1w162w@valnet>
Sender: news@gremlin.nrtc.northrop.com
Reply-To: wdarden@nrtc.nrtc.northrop.com (Bill Darden)
Organization: Northrop Research & Technology Center, Palos Verdes, CA
Lines: 27

In article <33DmL1w162w@valnet> herrj@valnet (Jonathan R. Herr) writes:
>> So, I am left thinking it may be 1) a lame power supply that just
>> isn't doing the job. 2) some problem with the drive cables (not
>> likely, but it would be a nice cheap solution :-) ).  3) a problem
>> with the (gulp) mother board somewhere.  Since seems somewhat likely
>> since I never get through a boot sequence.  
>> 
[Stuff deleted]

Try doing the following assuming there are no beeps (or error codes)
at start up.  If there are beeps, note how many and duration.  The
beeps and error codes are used to indicate specific problems areas.
Brenner's PC repair book published by Sam's will help you.  

1.  Check the DC voltages on the mother board for a bad power supply.  
2.  Reseat all of the socketed chips on the mother board.
3.  Look a bad crystal by checking for clock pulses on pins 2,8 and 12 
of the 8284 timer chip.

Any one of a dozen chips being bad can cause a dead PC.  I would not
waste a bunch of time looking for a morther board failure becasue
you can buy used Turbo XT mother boards with 640 KB on them between
$50 and $100.

Good luck,

BiLL......