If your motherboard is dead, thePC won’t power on at all. This means thePSU fan won’t spin, and themotherboard LEDs won’t light up.
These are the main signs, but don’t conclude that your motherboard is dead based on just these, though. Power supply issues often lead to identical symptoms.
To properly test whether your motherboard is dead, follow thestep-by-step troubleshooting processI’ve described in this article.
Diagnosing a Dead Motherboard
A system with a dead motherboard will showlittle to no signs of power. But problems with thepower supply system(outlet, PSU, power cables and connectors, etc.) can also cause the same result.
So, start by verifying that the components are working fine. If you canswap themortest them on another system, that would be the easiest method.
But if that’s not possible, use the following process to test everything on your own:
If the PC doesn’t turn on, you mustcheck if your PSU is defective.
If thePSU turns out to be faulty, temporarily use anothercompatible PSUwith your PC. If the system boots now, you knowwhich component to replace.
However, if thePSU tested okayinSteps 3 and 4, your motherboard is most likely dead. You may even find visible signs of damage (burnt sections from short circuits, bulged/cracked capacitors, bent pins,etc.).
Ultimately, you’ll have to borrow a board from someone or take the PC to a repair professional. I expect that the system will boot smoothly with a new motherboard, confirming that the old board was indeed dead.
Can You Recover A Dead Motherboard?
Repair professionals often recover dead motherboards by replacing the damaged components. But this tends to be technical and expensive.
In my experience, people are usually better offpurchasing a new motherboardinstead (due to factors like newer components and warranties).
I’m more interested inrecovering motherboards that can’t get pastPOST(Power-OnSelf-Test) here.
The BIOS catalogs all necessary devices and prepares the system to boot during POST. If a core component (CPU,RAM,GPU, etc.) is faulty, the system won’t boot. Users oftenmisinterpret this as the motherboard being dead.
In this case, the fans and LEDs will power on. Most importantly, you’ll want tocheck the diagnostic indicators:
After checking these, you’ll realize that you don’t need to recover your dead motherboard because it’s probably working fine. Instead, you’ll be able toidentify the actual faulty componentandsolve the underlying problem.
