Motherboard failure after jamming in a PCI card while computer was on

motherboardtroubleshooting

I tried to insert a PCI card when my VIA EPIA C3 server was powered on. The result is that my PC seems to have died. If I power it on, the processor gets "hot".

I think some components are "broken" but not the motherboard at all.

What sort of control can I do to fix it? Change the RAM? Something else?

Best Answer

The first devices in the line of fire would have been the expansion bus buffer chips - things that interface to the control, timing, data and address lines in the rest of the system. Unfortunately, these are not discrete devices but part of the board chipset and so can't be individually tested. Under these circumstances I'd be reaching for a replacement motherboard. Most of the other bits (RAM and CPU etc.) are possibly OK, but only testing will tell.

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