A short circuit?

Recently my neighborhood was struck by lightning. The lightning fried a phone splitter and our modem along with the computer. The computer does not work at all. When I press the power button nothing happens, no fans and no lights turn on. However, something odd happens when I first plug it in.

When I plug the computer in, a light come on in the motherboard. at three seconds one of the chips starts getting warm. at 15-20 seconds that chip becomes very hot to the touch and I can't keep my finger on it for more than 2-5 seconds. I haven't left it on for much longer than that.

Does this mean that the chip is short circuiting? Will I have to get a new motherboard?

The motherboard is a P4SD-VX and according to the documentation for a similar model the chip is an INTEL ICH5.

Sounds like it..



Yes. The light that comes on only shows that the board is getting power, not that it is working. The ICH5 chip is what is known as the "Southbridge" and controls all the PCI and IDE/SATA connections. It is soldered onto the board wiith tiny little balls (called a Ball Grid Array package) and as such special equipment is needed to replace one of these chips. To be honest, your best bet would be to scour ebay and buy a replacement board, unless you want to use this as an opportunity for a shiny new computer

When it comes to lightning strike, often as not the entire machine is damaged... I'd opt for the shiny new computer and scrap the existing one.

Ya.

Lightning can do a lot of damage, and while it may only be the motherboard that is shot, you may find out you have quite a few more issues.

Like they have said, use it as an excuse to upgrade.