Possibly fried RAM and CPU - could it damage a working PC?

Hello,
I dunno the answer,
It is not a similar thing that happend, but one day years and years ago, i was removing and puting ram while windows was on, and i learnt my way:

I couldn't use again two of 4 memory slots.
Ram was ok.
With hard disk i hot swaped with ide cable and power, was a very bad idea.
I shorted something on the motherboard.

I will never do this again.
Now about your issue:

You can try to run the dell with: motherboard,psu ,your old processor and one stick of old ram. + external vga if no integrated graphic inside.

I tryed to check forums, and fryed cpu or ram won't fry your motherboard, if it's compatible with your dell.

What fryed my mother board like i sayd, was shorting things by hot swaping components while i was a kid lol.

Also removing the power cord directly from the psu while the computer is off instead from wall,
I see lighting strikes.

Just to say it's surely safe to test components one by one.

Ps

I'm not sure it's a thing to try but for me i could diagnostic xhy my motherboard won't post, just removing ram, i heard 3 beeps. so motherboard was posting.

It will not damage it. It will either work or it won't. Like @Elbern said try them one at a time in case memory works but not cpu (or vv).

Most likely they will both be OK and only the fuse on the motherboard is blown - that is what happened to my Lenovo when I dropped a screwdriver on the board when it was plugged in.

Good luck

Hi, did you try another Psu(power supply) with your old pc(from your dad)? Sometimes its only the psu that fries in lightning strike, also you will need to use other power cables, since they can actually melt together inside the the rubber.

You graphic card can actually be fried also not only from the motherboard, but from the monitor if the strike passed through that.

I have had systems that were protected by AVR and UPS getting fried by a monitor, untill I found the cause - I noticed the monitor were still ON even though the AVR were OFF.

I don't know about protection on newer systems but some years back some RAM short circuited in a PC and destroyed the motherboard. I don't see why it wouldn't happen - RAM shorts out and draws too much current through the power lines on the motherboard.

Good luck, You :)

On my way i will have to entirely reinstall windows, i can't recover a partition i artificially tryed to shrink and move from left to right, and stopping the process in kde disk manager completely destroyed the windows partition (raw) .

Enough talking, good luck again :)

Elbern said:

Good luck, You :)

On my way i will have to entirely reinstall windows, i can't recover a partition i artificially tryed to shrink and move from left to right, and stopping the process in kde disk manager completely destroyed the windows partition (raw) .

Enough talking, good luck again :)

Which version of windows are we talking about? Have you tried to boot with windows(your version) recoveryDVD and repair startup problems - Raw is not your windows partition, its the bootloader partition!

Normally before re-install, I would run HDD regenerator(if you have it), just to make sure there are no bad sectors(and fix if there is), then I would boot with windows recovery DVD and repair startup problems, then run chkdsk from elevated command prompt, then see if it worked. If not then I would boot on Linux LiveDVD and run Gparted and make room for 100mb raw Partition in the start of the hdd, this time format it, and boot with Windows recovery DVD again. then run the Startup repair again.

I'm directly against re-install if something else can be done!

Just my 50 cents!

JBJ

Elbern said:

Good luck, You :)

On my way i will have to entirely reinstall windows, i can't recover a partition i artificially tryed to shrink and move from left to right, and stopping the process in kde disk manager completely destroyed the windows partition (raw) .

Enough talking, good luck again :)

I don't know if this will help as I'm not sure if "raw" means completely destroyed, but if it did move successfully or cancel successfully you can run the following commands in a command prompt from a Recovery CD:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

For the last command it may tell you that it found Windows installations. If so, add them.

Take out the disc, reboot, and cross your fingers.

Elbern - when you look at the partition table in gparted or disk manager, which partition is it you think is the windows one(the one you call raw)?

Look at the size of the partitions, the one that normally is raw is only a few hundred megabytes(thats windows bootloader and always the first Partition on the HDD). When in linux or mini window XP the Raw partition with the bootloader might be called C: . because its found as the first partition by the LiveCD!

I'm asking the above just to make sure you fix the correct Partition!

But if the partitions are correct then yes follow my suggestions above in previous post, but first follow the ones YOU gave:)

JBJ
IT support through 25 years - from CPM to Dos to Windows - and some linux.