Guest Posted May 14, 2002 Report Share Posted May 14, 2002 I have a new PC which was struck by lightning and I had to get the motherboard replaced. However this is where the problem starts and my questions begin. The mother board was replaced by the supplier but they claim the operating system, Windows XP, has been corrupted. The machine was working perfectly before it left with the technican, all except for the USV port???? Am I correct to assume that its perfectly normal to have to replace the motherboard to repair a USV port that has had a nasty shock. Am I correct to assume that its perfectly normal for the operating system to cease to work after the motherboard has been replaced. Next. What does a USV port do and where can one read up on all those plugs and ports at the back of the computer and get a nice simple explanation of what they do and how to switch them on and off. Finally is there an easy to follow DIY handbook which a layman can follow when he is faced with a PC which wont boot up and a series of techs who dont speak English and just keep shaking their heads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 15, 2002 Report Share Posted May 15, 2002 It is likely the Operating system will get corrupted if the replaced mainboard isnt identical to the old one (or the technician has cocked up the install !). the USB port is integrated into the board so cannot be replaced separately, they'll probably send the board back to their supplier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 15, 2002 Report Share Posted May 15, 2002 1. It is reasonable to change motherboards rather than repair them. Motherboards are cheap and complex. Finding someone with the expertise and equipment to troubleshoot a problem, then order and install a component would be difficult and most likely cost far than just swapping in a new board. 2. The operating system failing to start is reasonable. During install, Windows determines how to load based on the hardware it sees at install time. With that said, it should be possible to get it to boot again with some tinkering; especially XP. The first thing I would do is start the system in safe mode, delete the computer from device manager, and restart. 3. You could avoid #1 and #2 by buying a USB add in card and just plug it into the motherboard with the bad USB port. USB add in cards are cheap, readiily available, and faster (USB 2.0) than ones found on motherboards. 4. What is USB? It is the latest industry standard connector to plug in external devices such as digital cameras, external drives, mice, and keyboards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 15, 2002 Report Share Posted May 15, 2002 Cheers. The box took a hit through a cable modem. Does this make sense? Would this be a LAN card which is being referred to as a USB port? The mouse and keyboard plug in at the top of the box. Are these also referred to as USB ports? What do the printer, monitor screen and scanner feed off? What are input/output ports and what port does a work station use to plug into an internal network. When they connected me up to the cable modem I needed to confirm I had a LAN card. Why is this if its a single work station? Sorry for firing these all off in one mouthful but they are questions I have been wanting to ask for sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaronTT Posted May 15, 2002 Report Share Posted May 15, 2002 I also recently had to replace a motherboard due to a power supply going bad. Because of that, it cooked several of my add-in cards (modem, sound card, MPEG-2 decoder) and my motherboard's USB ports. So I replaced the MoBo plus some cards. So does it sound reasonable? Yes. I've had a couple of serial modems die because of lightning strikes. (I believe a cable-modem may be a bit different. A serial modem 'listens' to the line, in analog mode even when the PC is off, and a brief noise spike can overwhelm it. A cable modem is probably similar.) Chances are that your mouse and keyboard are not using USB ports. PROBABLY plugged into a dedicated keyboard port and a dedicated mouse port. That said, they MAY be plugged into USB ports. Check the end of the 2 cables. Are they DIN (circular with several pins in them) or have a flattish- rectangular connector. DIN would be using the traditional ports, flattish would be USB. On one of my machines, I actually do use USB for both my keyboard and mouse. Not sure what you mean about the 3.. monitor, etc but I'll take a guess about what you mean. Printer could be fed off (in order of likelihood) parallel, USB, serial. Monitor is off of a dedicated video port, whether it's part of the motherboard or separate card. Since you're running XP, I expect that it's a relatively new PC, so your scanner probably runs off (In order of likelihood): USB, SCSI, parallel. Check the plugs at the end of the cable. USB is distinctive. About the LAN... I believe that the Cable modem is using a LAN protocol.. in effect, you are on a LAN with the cable provider. You are sending data as well as receiving. (I don't have a cable modem here in Thailand.) Hope this helps... maybe Escape Rabbit can add info or explain it better Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 16, 2002 Report Share Posted May 16, 2002 Thanks. Afraid I just dont know the functional difference between serial, parallel and SCSI let alone USB. I have tried usb.org but once again what I need is some basic grounding before all this is going to fall into place. I assume that these mysteries are all part of putting a PC together. Does anybody know of of a good ABC reader I could start with to help me figure out what is doing the essential bits on my work station? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaronTT Posted May 16, 2002 Report Share Posted May 16, 2002 Functionally, I would say that there aren't many significant differences. Some are more effective (eg faster) than others. Offhand, I don't know of a good primer. Do you know how to use Google-Groups (Groups.google.com) (ex- Deja-news)? You could do a search to find a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on the differences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 16, 2002 Report Share Posted May 16, 2002 The cable modems I have seen take a regular round coaxial cable just like the one that goes to a TV, then have an ethernet connector on the way out. The easieast way to connect this to a PC is to use a ethernet to USB converter because you do not need to open the machine to do it. That sounds like what you have and it would not be surprsiing if you do not have any other USB devices -- just look and see if any other of the flat rectangle connectors used. So I think another way to get the old motherboard to work again would be to buy a PCI Ethernet card (aka LAN card) and plug the cable modem Ethernet cable into that. You can get these for less than 500 baht / $10. I haven't run across a good primer on the buses, but maybe search around the internet as the other gentleman suggested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted May 16, 2002 Report Share Posted May 16, 2002 Hi! Serial and parallel are point to point connections. Serial lines transmit one bit at a time in sequence and parallel transmit 8 bit simultaneously which is faster. SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interconnect) is a bus architecture. It should be compared to tha IDE bus rather than serial or parallel lines. Today IDE is fast enough for most workstation applications so SCSI is mostly used in servers. USB to is a kind of a bus that implements a network topology. I.e. you can connect a hub to a USB port and split it up into several lines. regards ALHOLK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gummigut Posted May 17, 2002 Report Share Posted May 17, 2002 Would be interested to find out if the supplier swiped out with an identical model motherboard. In any case, the OS should not be corrupted by switching boards. As mentioned, the OS may have to hunt for new drivers if they changed motherboard types. What I expect is that the technician is a lazy son of a blah blah and would just prefer to burn his current HD image or just re-install the OS from scratch rather than re-configure the existing OS. As for a place to get a primer... I like firingsquad.com. This may get a bit too technical for you as they can get pretty specific but when I'm going to build a new computer I can almost always count on them to have the scoop on the latest hardware/technology. You would want to go to the Guides and look for Building Your Own Computer. You'll notice in the Guides section they have write-ups on all kinds of stuff like 3D anti-aliasing to CPU cooling guides. I also take a peak at Anandtech.com everyone once in awhile too. <<burp>> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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