Hi all sorry for the book and thanks in advance for any help.

I'm working on a friends pc and need a second opinion on what I think is required to fix. Here's the story... Neighbor's house was hit by lightning. That evening my friends system stopped working...coincidence...who knows?

Basic Specs:
Biostar M6TLC M/B
Celeron SL2WN 333/66 CPU

The system powers up - cd, cpu, nic, hd spins, etc. all get power, but all I see is a black screen upon boot and no beeps.

Here's what I've done:

Removed the following and tested in a working system:
Video Card - works
HD1 - primary boot disc - can not read
HD2 - File storage - can access all data
Memory - no issues

I have tried a new power supply - same results
Replaced the CMOS battery - same results

Found the bios drivers for the board - heh, discovered the floppy drive doesn't work. Replaced the floppy with a known working drive - still no luck.

I am seriously thinking the m/b is gone....am I off base here or is there anything else I should try?

Thanks!

I should add - I have tried a working HDD in the system and that still produces the same results.

I think you have the same problem as me.

Everything seems to work, but the system doesn't do anything.
I've taken my pc to a repair shop and lo and behold! the thing got itself working
again!! :p

This happened yesterday.

Today the PC has done it again...
I've removed all the drives thinking it was lack of "juice" from the power supply, but to no avail.
Removed the CMOS battery. No luck...

I think i'm gona reset the BIOS on hardware...

BTW, I wan't struck by lightning...

Systems getting hit by lightning are not as uncommon as one may think.

My family experienced a complete loss of all computers, and computer related electronics within our house around the time the Pentium 4 was introduced. The reason we replaced all computers and related electronics, was because of malfunction. (One of our computers PSU's was actually soldered "on" aka. pins were crossed). My laptop was killed, and our primary computer was dead "ok" but experienced some strange behaviour after the strike.

The most common symptom was the computer not posting, or the computer not seeing its hard drive. The problem with a lightning strike is its hard to pin down exactly what the problem is and even then it can still show some of the symptoms seen before. In your friends case it may just be easier to replace the whole darn thing.

As for the original mesage, I'd suggest you to test every single piece one by one in a working computer to see which one is burned. From this symptom in hard to detect which part is defective.

Cheers,
Gabriel.

Did you do an actual "clear CMOS"?This is usally done by jumpers on the MB.Replacing the battery,you may not have given the CMOS enough time to reset.Sounds like your not getting a video signal.What type of videocard does this machine have?On-board,PCI,AGP????Start at above and we can go from there!!

Good Luck!

Voodoo