Mobo, CPU or mud?

[yellobes]

Here's the deal. A few weeks ago my computer stopped turning on. The indicator light on the power supply would jump on as soon as I plugged it in, turn off as soon as I pressed the power button. Just tonight I did a little research into the problem and find its a bit more complex. I unplug everything, plug in the power supply and start hooking up cables to the power supply, 2 hd's, a disk drive, the motherboard, fans and everything is going fine until I plug in the 4 pin processor cord. A little pop, everything goes dark. My question is, is it the processor, motherboard or power supply and is there a sure way to figure this out with nothing but a 2 pin voltage meter from radioshack and my wits? Furthermore, this is a Celeron D- 3.5 ghz, dvd reading, cd burning, linux running rig from 2006, suffice it to say I'm a student looking at a move in the near future. $300 a month, $150 in my "pocket". So the question is, motherboard, power supply, processor or modest priced laptop?

 

[familyman1]

The first thing I would do is spec out the psu with a voltmeter. If all voltage readings are within spec, its either a cpu or mobo problem. Whatever you do, do not power up the psu and start plugging things in anymore. You may have fried the cpu if it wasn't already. Any time you plug in components after the psu is energized, you are creating a voltage spike. Here is a link for the pinouts on the psu- http://pinouts.ru/pin_Power.shtml

 

[PharmrJohn]

My desktop fried last year. I took it to a friend in the business and he tested the PSU. It worked fine. Told me it was either the MoBo or the Processor, that there was not a way he could tell above and beyond putting in a new processor, testing, then if that didn't work, put in a new MoBo, test it, and go from there. My board and processor are old enough now that I am just going to get another matched set (upgrade) with all the trimmings of course and just build me another rig.......