when you say "fried your MOBO".....

[axpro]

when you guys say "i fired my motherboard doing X...  what do you mean..?

I got my MAME project up and running, then all of a sudden i had no keyboard and no controls, i unplugged my ipac and rebooted, no help.

the next day i booted upa nd it was fine.

today i try it and it is dead, when i power up my pc (athlon xp 1700) the lights on the keyboard don't even blink, i unplugged it all and tried plugging the keyboardinto the ps2 mouse input and they blinked , but i didn't leave it on to check if i could use it!   i am a mac guy, i just bvuilt this thing so i could build a less expensive setup and i am having a helluva time...

any ideas on what i can do? it'll be a pretty big pisser to toss this motherboard because of a stupid ^&%$&^%$&^ short!

THanks Dave

[RacerX]

You might check to be sure that your RAM is seated properly.  On a prior machine that I had, my RAM came unseated and I was freaking out because I couldn't get the machine to boot up.    Then I realized what had happened, reseated the RAM DIMM, and everything was fine.

Just a thought.  Hopefully it's something that easy.  Good luck.  

[axpro]

unfortunately the machine is starting fine, just no keyboard.

[Dave_K.]

Its possible you blew the keyboard fuse.  This happens when you don't ground things properly or chain grounds together with other devices which use a seperate power supply.

[BobA]

Here is a link to a page that covers PS/2 keyboard port repair.  Most motherboards protect the port with fuses. Some such as AOPEN even have resetable fuses.

http://www.mplug.org/phpwiki/index.php/FixPS2Ports

Hope that helps.

BobA

[Analog-X]

All the tips here are great.

I would also like to add, double check and make sure your Processor is being cooled properly, check the contact between the fan and processor and make sure the fan is working.

You can get strange side effects when your Processor overheats.

If it stops working and you turn it off and turn it back on the next day and it works, it maybe because the processor had a chance to cool down over night.

[HeadRusch]

Agreed.  Anything that "works ok then dies" usually can often be attributed to a heat-buildup.

An Athlon chip REQUIRES both a HEATSINK *and* a Fan.  If you bought your Athlon CPU as an OEM then it didn't come with one.  If your Athlon chip was a boxed non-OEM version, then it would have come with one already.

Got a heatsink fan on that thing? If not, that could be your problem right there.

Good Luck!

[axpro]

thanks for all the info...

here's the news so far...

tried to fire it up after letting it rest for the day, no go.  dissasembled and reasembled themotherboard... works like a charm!?!?!!!

i still have no idea what cased(cases) it... it is working right now thoguh... th fuses were all fine, and the cpu came with a quite substantial heat sink and fan.  there is really nothing i can do to explain it. and being a problem that has so far been occasional, i don't even know when or if it wil lhappen again!

i'll keep you updated