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oops, AD11 motherboard kaput
Hi, first time poster here, so take it easy on me and check out my longish post if you're not too busy. I'm also somewhat clueless about hardware, as you will soon find out.
System:
AD11 motherboard, ~1.4 gig Athlon
GeForce2 32MB
256MB DDR at 266
Symptoms: computer won't boot, can't even load graphics card or get to the BIOS setup.
So I recently installed a DVD burner, and everything seemed okay. But the burn speed was pretty slow, at 1.3x, and figured out that I needed to set the new drive as the master, and make sure the DMA settings were right. In swapping the settings on my two DVD drives (old DVD-ROM and new burner), I had to remove the IDE cables to get at the jumpers, and when I replaced the cable I plugged it in upside down. Yeah, yeah, lets not dwell on that part. I swear you have to twist it around rather unnaturally to plug it in the right way. Anyway, afterwards I had some issues detecting both DVD drives together (could only get the computer to recognize one or the other), and my multimedia audio controller died (lost all audio other than mobo beep). I figure this extended incident is the most likely to be causing my current problems.
Second possible cause, my cat decided to check out the inside of the computer when I had the case open (not powered on). I don't think she broke anything - I pulled her away quickly - but she could have been carrying some static or something. I highly doubt this did anything, just including for completeness.
Final possible cause (that I can think of) is that the last time I had my computer on I defragged my HDD. I hadn't done this is a long while, and so this was a marathon defragging session, something like 6 hours (+/- 2 hours, obviously I wasn't sitting there watching it). Since this was the last time my computer was working properly, I'm a little suspicious.
When I try to boot up, the power stays on but the BIOS doesn't seem to load. The third or fourth time I tried, the HDD made some awful noises (it has been removed from the computer since). The case fan, CPU fan, and the graphics card fan all stay on while the power is on, but there is one other small fan in the middle of the motherboard that spins up for a split second and then shuts down (short somewhere?). That one fan that keeps dying is somewhat strange.
I've removed the IDE devices, but I left in the floppy drive (I thought I would need something in case the computer actually worked). Sound and network cards I left in, since I figured the computer wasn't even getting that far (though I suppose I should try yanking those too).
Anyway, I have a few questions...
1) What do you think happened? Upside down cables, bad kitty, or overworked hard drive? Or none of the above, maybe a dead power supply, or a short somewhere I can't see? Professor Plum in the Library with the Candlestick?
2) Is it possible the current hardware can be fixed? Or am I screwed? Maybe I just need to replace that one dinky fan? (yeah, sure).
3) Assuming (2) is "probably not," what do you recommend I do now... Buy another of the same motherboard? That would set me back $50 for a motherboard that's probably been obsolete for a couple years. Might there be a good bang-for-the-buck AMD motherboard that would be backwards compatible with my current hardware, and open the door for upgrades?
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