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can a power surge fry my mobo without effecting my PSU?
My mobo isnt recognizing any of the hard drives attached and so boots into a black screen with an error message.
I've tried connecting 2 different keyboards into multiple usb ports but neither of them register or even get power to illuminate keyboard lights, ie. I'm unable to access the bios. my optical mouse however gets power.
I know my psu is providing power to my HDs cause I can hear them spooling up.
My question: is it possible that the electrical storm that passed over my house yesterday fried my mobo specifically damaging my sata ports and the keyboard controller without effecting my PSU or any other devices in my house?
my rig:
CPU: i5 750
MB: gigabyte p55
HD: sandisk SSD and 3x caviar greens
psu: coolermaster GX bronze 550w
keyboards: CM mech and a dell cheapie
mouse: CM inferno
3 Answers
- IBMGuyLv 77 years agoFavorite Answer
It is possible but I think unlikely and is maybe just a coincidence. Although the hard drives are spinning and there seems to be power on one or more of the usb ports it could still be a fault with the psu as there is separate 5v and 12v supply's to the motherboard and if this were to be bad or out of tolerance it would give the problems you describe. So the first port of call is to try another power supply. I appreciate your psu is of good quality but age can be a factor.
However what is of concern is the fact that the main chipset PCH (southbridge) is responsible for controlling the sata and usb ports along with audio and lan ports and seeing as those are the ones you seem to have the fault with it does suggest a problem here if it were not the psu.
Did you get a "machine code" error or error relating to no system disk? if it was the Machine code error then the cpu could be at fault, especially if you were aggressively over-clocking.
Short out the BIOS reset and try a different psu first then a spare compatible cpu if you have something lying around that will fit. Also try alternative sata ports. If all these fail then I'm afraid it does appear to be the motherboard or even a corrupt BIOS especially as you cant POST or have no kbd control.
- ?Lv 57 years ago
If the storm would've caused a such electrical dissorder that your mobo was literally fried, then you would not be able to even turn on the computer. It's possible, however, that the mobo's filters have got damaged and that's keeping it from working normally with the HDDs or peripherials. The PSU should have been damaged first, me thinks, and it's very likely that it seems to be working OK but it's really not. If possible, check the voltages on the ATA Molex connectors, if it has them, but you should do this by jump-starting the PSU and having any of the cables connected to the mobo.
If the voltages seem to be OK, then try to reset the CMOS (BIOS) as specified by the mobo manual and plug everything back in. Then, turn the computer on and inmediately try to access the BIOS and see if your drives are recognized by it. If so, then try booting into the OS, which should be fine.
A negative result means you need a new mobo, but before that, check your drives on another computer. Good luck.
- 7 years ago
Yes. The newer SATA ports are more delicate.
Find another desktop and test your HDDS in them.
Or buy a new mobo
