Hi Dave,

A common problem on some manufacturers motherboards in the past were the 
various bypass and filtering capacitors on the board (there could be 
dozens of them on a typical motherboard). These look like little metal 
cylinders standing up on end, usually partially wrapped in a plastic 
shrink cover. These would degrade over time and fail to do their proper 
function. allowing power supply noise and such to propagate around the 
board. The processors don't like that and may be intermittent, or fail 
to function at all.

It is usually easy to tell if these are a problem by visual inspection. 
Sometimes when they fail they overheat and cause the case to bulge or 
even leak electrolyte out.

If visual inspection does not show anything, you could try removing a 
board from the case and placing it on an insulating pad (leaving at 
least the power supply and video card hooked up) and try to power it up.

If it turns out that some of the capacitors are bad, there is not much 
that is practical to do, unless you have the proper repair skills and a 
lot of time to try and replace them.

Russ Poffenberger
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On 3/4/2010 8:09 AM, Dave P wrote:
> I work at a school we have several labs of machines with a D915GLVG motherboards in them. Some seem to be going bad. The symptom is they won't turn on. We have tried power supply. The odd part is it is intermittant. Has anybody ever seen this before. My one thought is the motherboard is shorting to the frame somehow. Thank You
>    

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