Who's right???

[UrbanFuturistic]

I cant give all the specs, so dont ask. But what I can give you are the symptoms.

My friend says his computer is borked. It powers up, but the video doesnt come on and the hard drives dont spin. His conclusion is that the motherboard is dead, and so is the video card. Wow, you really worked so hard for that one.

He says he "knows whats needed for the computer to post" and has "years of experience" and that "hes checked and rechecked everything". His years of experience? Troubleshooting computers in highschool. Wont listen to a word I say because I didnt know that newer video cards were lower voltage(if this is even true?).

Now, while I havent had such formal experience(if you want to call it that...), I am no newb to the inside of a case. Ive had plenty of systems that Ive built myself, and have run into plenty of problems over the years, some I could fix, others I couldnt. Most recently however, was on a computer that I built for my mother. Computer would power up, but no video and no hard drives spinning. Wow, sounds familiar, right?

So, I say to him that its not the mobo, that its most likely the video card and that I have a GF3 Ti200 that I can bring over tomorrow to help him work it out.

Now, IMHO I feel that I dont want anything from this. If Im wrong, Im wrong. Im confident in my diagnosis, and am not afraid to admit it if I came up with a wrong answer. If Im right? Glad I could help. I lose nothing, I gain only the good feeling that a true gearhead/mechanic/tinkerer gets when he helps someone. It feels good to help. You know?

So after offering him the card, and basically being called stupid because I didnt know one small piece of info that he did, I figure what the hell. Ill get some second opinions. So what do you guys think?

Is the motherboard borked, along with the video card. RMA them both and be done.

OR

Swap the video card with a different one, make sure he didnt pass up something in haste and possibly save the day so he only has to wait for a new vid card and can get by on mine in the mean time.

 

[Brisbylan]

1st.
Swap out the video card it could be that

2nd if the video card didnt fix the rpbolem check all of the voltages on the PSU, the powersupply can turn all of the fans on and still be bad. It needs a signal (power good) to fully turn the system on, i've seen about 20 PSUs at my job that have had this problem it was over a years time period.

3rd If the video card dosnt fix it and the psu is in working order then it may be the mother board or even the cpu. Cpu goes bad ull get no video and sometimes no alrams either.


and i have
2 years comptia a+ certified
1 1/2 years experience in computer repair/ electronics component level troubleshooting field
6+ years of computer experience