Last night, I attempted to upgrade to 5A22 using a CD that didn't burn correctly, something I didn't realize until too late (I burned it on my iBook using the OS X disk utility, and when it auto-ejected, I assumed the burn had gone fine--I didn't see the dialog box about the burn failing until later--oops).

Anyway, I booted off the bad CD, got the first Knoppix screen and typed in "TV". A long string of error messages followed, which is when I realized I was using a bad CD. I hit the power button on the box and decided to leave it alone and go to sleep.

This morning, I burned a new CD and attepted to turn on the machine and eject the bad one, but when I hit the power button, nothing happened. For all intents and purposes, the machine is dead. The only signs of life are illuminated LEDs on the motherboard. Hitting the power button causes no fan or disc spinning activity whatsoever.

Could I have fried my CPU by using the bad CD and/or hitting the power button at an inopportune moment? I really, really hope not, but I'm kind of scared that I did. I assume it's more likely that the CPU and not the motherboard is the issue here, since the illuminated LEDs suggest that it's not completely dead. I've sunk enough money into my attempts to get this box running that I'd really prefer to avoid shelling out for a new CPU or motherboard if at all possible. Any tips on how I might be able to test components to find out what went wrong and/or resurrect the machine would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

Hardware specs are as follows:

Biostar TForce 6100-939 MoBo
Athlon 64 3000+ CPU
Generic ATA DVD-ROM
Western Digital 250 GB ATA HD
512 MB Corsair Value Select RAM
eVGA GeForce MC 4400 PCI video card (in lieu of the motherboard's video due to lack of an NVidia Linux driver for the 6100 chipset).

Thanks a ton in advance for any help that you can provide....

I suppose it could have died by coincidence at the exact time you attempted the install. But the install itself can't fry hardware.

Try resetting the non-volatile memory on the motherboard. I've seen that get confused and prevent a system from starting in the manner you describe. Beyond that, just look for loose wired, bad connections, etc.

It's highly unlikely your system has fried hardware.

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That's a relief to hear. I'll give it a try when I get hope tonight. I assume this would be a matter of resetting jumpers, and that the motherboard manual would explain how to do it?

Try unplugging the computer from the wall for 60 seconds before tring agian.

Unplug might help, modern mainboards are always alive to wake on lan, modem, time etc. Unpluging it might clear a confused state after it powers up again. good luck.

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I tried unplugging it this morning to no avail, but I didn't leave it unplugged for 60 seconds, just five or 10. I'll give it plenty of downtime before trying again when I get home tonight...

Are your power supply fans not turning on? If not then you might have a bad PSU.

let us know your results to help others.

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You could try booting whilst holding down the HOME key as this generally resets the CPU settings in the BIOS. This is useful if you have overclocked your system and can not boot.

If you have not already done so, make sure you have a speaker pluged into your mainboard especially if it doesn't have one in. This may give an indication with a number of beeps as to what the actual problem with the system may be.

With a speaker plugged in, disconnected all your drives from you mainboard (including power) and see if it boots. Then if still no good, try and remove your RAM from your mainboard as this "should" cause you mainboard to beep at you as it will know there is no RAM in your system.

If your system is all quiet, it would appear that your mainboard could be dead, but as suggested earlier, it could be a power supply, just cause the lights come on the front doesn't necessarily mean your PSU is OK.

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Yes, you generally have to turn off the system (and maybe unplug it), then move a jumper from its current position to the left or right for a few seconds (to dump the contents of the CMOS memory), then move the jumper back. The jumper is usually near the coin cell which provides battery backup to the CMOS memory, and is often a different color (e.g. red) to distinguish it.

I have not heard of the "home" key to reset CMOS. Perhaps some m/b makers are doing this now. It would be more convenient, but it may not work. The jumper will always work.

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I left the machine unplugged all night last night, giving the CMOS plenty of time to clear, and tried to boot it up this morning. No dice. There's no speaker attached to the mainboard, so I haven't been able to suss out anything with system beeps or what have you. The PSU is extremely quiet--I have an Antec case billed as "the quietest on the market"--so it's hard to tell if its fan is spinning up or not. The only noise of any kind I'm getting is a gentle whine that comes out when I unplug the cable--it sounds like something is spinning down, but I can't tell what exactly. It may be awhile--tomorrow night, or even Friday--before I get a chance to roll up my sleeves and dig into the guts of the machine to test things out, but you guys have given me plenty to work with. I'll be sure to keep you appraised of the outcome. Thanks for your help!

If it's a case of clearing your CMOS, it's usually just turning it off at the wall/psu and moving the jumper over to the next pin and back again. Leaving it unplugged won't clear it... the battery is there to stop the information in the cmos being lost.
Hope u sort it. ifried my system a while ago... soooooo annoying. mind you i plugged the wrong bit into the mobo! oops my bad.
it's very unlikely u have fried it through running software

Well, I'm officially breathing an enormous sigh of relief: I cleared the CMOS via the jumper on the mobo, and the machine came back to life. I'm now in the process of running the upgrade installer. Hopefully everything will proceed smoothly from here on out. Thanks for your help, everybody...

Okay, maybe I spoke too soon: The machine boots just fine off the CD, and I've succeeded in installing 5A22 on my HD, but whenever I attempt to boot off it I get an error message (DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER). I've scrupulously checked the BIOS settings to make sure I'm set, I think (the HD is set ot be the main boot device if no bootable CD is present, I've configured it to reflect the absence of a floppy drive, etc.) and it makes no difference. I tried disconnecting + reconnecting the serial cabled from the drive, and that didn't make any difference. Jumper settings on the drives haven't been changed, and while I haven't unplugged the serial cable from the MoBo, I assume it's OK since the CD drive works and it's #2 on the chain after the HD. I've tried both upgrade installations and auto installs, and it makes no difference. Any thoughts on the topic? At least I can take comfort in the fact that a new HD is much cheaper than a processor/Mobo, if that's what it comes to...

Make sure the disk is marked bootable. This needs to be done in both the BIOS and on the partition itself. Some WD disks need to be jumpered a particular way to boot, depending on your BIOS. Try CS first then MA. If there is another disk on the same IDE channel (cable) make sure it's jumper settings are complementary (both CS or one MA and one SL). Finally make sure the the lilo install worked (search for more info in the forums).