Troubleshooting a Windows Boot Issue

[svet-am]

My in-laws are vacationing with us over the 4th and brought me their computer (an IBM ThinkCentre M52 8212-1SU) which has been misbehaving. The machine was connected to a brand new UPS at their house (literally just a few days since they purchased it).

THE SYMPTOMS:
1) Originally, it was stopping at the infamous MEP.SYS driver loading stage
2) Upon my tests, booting a Windows XP boot CD has it stall at "setup is starting Windows"
3) They reported a lightning storm in their area one night and that the next morning the screen was black (normal power save behavior) and that upon moving the mouse and pressing keys, it would not return from power save (the power _was_ still on). They tried rebooting and they noticed symptom (1). I noticed symptom (2) when they got it to my house and I ran tests.

THE TRIALS SO FAR
1) Replaced PSU, same results
2) Replaced CPU, same results
3) Replace RAM, same results
4) Replaced/removed USB keyboard, same result
5) Performed CHKDSK recovery from recovery console, same result
6) Remove HDD, same result
7) Updated BIOS, same result
8) Remove PCI-E video, same result
9) Replaced CD-ROM, same result
10) Booted UBCD (this works apparently just fine)
11) Tried booting a Vista install DVD, it stalls at the Vista equivalent of "Setup is starting Windows"
12) Updated BIOS and cleared all BIOS presets, same result
13) Formatted the HDD and tried reinstalling with a blank disk, same result

So far, it's looking to me like it's the mobo. Unfortunately, eBay is a bit short on replacement mobos, so I'm hoping it's something else.

I'm really hoping that someone can suggest something I've not yet tried. I'm open to anything at this point since that would likely be cheaper than buy a replacment mobo from IBM.

thanks in advance, all!

 

[Joe Average]

Sounds like the kind of troubleshooting I've done thousands of times, so good job.

Now the hard part: tell 'em to get a new PC and you'll move their data files over to the new box.

It's most likely the motherboard as you've surmised, and fleaBay is the most likely source for a replacement unless you get lucky. Perhaps being on the lookout for the exact same machine would be a good idea too; that should/would provide a direct swap of the hard drives and hopefully no issues in the process. Some people are absolutely paranoid about reinstalling or starting over, but sometimes there simply is no alternative.

So, look for a mobo, see what happens. If you can't get an exact match on the mobo, you could probably replace the mobo with something that works and fits in the same form factor from some other manufacturer (Asus, Gigabyte, etc) and go from there.

Good luck, regardless...