My PC died - I think it's the motherboard

My PC - about 5 years old, running WIN98, with a JetwayV266A motherboard - has been playing up for the last couple of weeks, switching itself off a couple of seconds after I press the power-on button, without even getting to POST. I then had to unplug the power cable for 5 seconds, plug it back in and press the power-on button again. The average number of attempts to get it started was about 10, but the record was 32! At first I thought it was a hardware fault with the power-on button, but a friend said it could be the motherboard.

I ordered a new PC, and on the same day that the new PC arrived the old one just stopped working altogether. When I press the power-on button, absolutely nothing happens.
Could this be a dead motherboard?

Also, on the same day a big thunder storm knocked out the shared router modem that I share with a friend, which also killed my friend's connection to the router. I'm thinking that this could be coincidence because of the trouble over the previous 2 weeks, but on the other hand it could also be the cause.

I'd like to get the old PC working so I can transfer my data onto the new one. (I know that I can resort to transferring the hard drive to another PC to do it, but if there's a simple solution to get the old PC working I'd like to try that first).
Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi ThinBoy and welcome to Dev Shed.

It could be a failed PSU. I would change that out first before replacing the mobo.

Hi,

I have a spare PSU and I already tried it. No joy.
I don't want to replace the motherboard because I've already got a new replacement PC. I just wondered if there was any simple problem I could be overlooking.

With regard to putting my old WIN98 HDD into another PC, if I set the HDD as a slave, would a WIN2000 PC be able to read it? I'm assuming it would.

If there is an analog (dial-up) modem in the system you might try removing the card... sometimes power surges (lightning etc) can cause analog modems to short and cause problems similar to what you've described.

good luck

Good idea. But - I took the modem out and the network card, and it's still as dead as a dodo.

I don't think that there is any problem here that you have missed and that the motherboard has failed.

As for your HD, then Windows shouldn't have any trouble in reading the drive. I'm assuming that you just want to use it for data and/or retrieve old files from it ?

OK. Thanks.
It's not really a major problem - just got to borrow someone's PC and persuade them to let me stick my HDD in it .

Ah, I thought you were going to install it in your own new one ?

The new PC is SATA, the old is IDE.
I ordered a USB2 Hard Drive enclosure that will take IDE drives, so I'm hoping that the new PC will be able to read the old drives via that. Fingers crossed.

You can mix SATA and IDE drives on the same system, it's not a problem.

hi
myself krishna from delhi
has 5 years exp in this field do chip level repairing of mobos need some tips n tricks on diagonostic cards n use
thank u
krishna