A workstation will not boot after a lightning strike.

[timpass]

Lightning struck yesterday and knocked power out momentarily.  Server and 8 workstations rebooted fine, this one did not.  Power light is on and fans operate but no signal to monitor.  Different monitor did not work.  I do not have a spare 500W PSU, a 350W PSU would not boot.  Tried reseating memory and hard drive as suggested by HP troubleshooting with no luck.  Did not reseat video card due to obstructions preventing access.  Any thoughts on diagnosing the problem?  I've got an Intel Core I7, 16 GB RAM, and an nVidia GeForce GTX 970 card that I would hate to junk.  Thanks!

[Grzwacz]

Hello timpass

Nice start on troubleshooting. Finding the bad component can be a real pain.

The GTX 970 requires a 500 watt power supply. This may be why the PC did not boot using a 350 watt PS. This would be inconclusive as to a power supply problem or other component problem.

You could try booting the PC with the 350 watt PS and only one or zero sticks of RAM and monitor connected, disconnect power to all HDD's, optical drives, and no keyboard, mouse or any other attached peripherals. Maybe you can get a POST error message. This should drop power draw below 300 watts. 

Try one stick of RAM in each memory slot. Try known good stick of replacement RAM in each slot.

Try no RAM to see if you get MB DRAM error. No MB error codes could point to the MB.

At some point you will have to pull the 970 and try onboard Intel graphics with the 350 watt PS and troubleshoot each remaining component again down to a barebones boot.

No luck could now point to the system board or CPU.

Grzy

[timpass]

Thank you!  I appreciate the thorough response.  I'll give your suggestions a try.

[Grzwacz]

Hello timpass

You are welcome.

Good luck in sorting this out. Hope it is not an expensive component failure.

Grzy

[timpass · Accepted solution]

Grzy, I removed the video card and it booted up with all other devices connected.  So it looks like that is the problem.  Thanks for your help!

timpass

[Grzwacz]

Hello timpass

You never know what component has failed until you troubleshoot.

Sorry to hear the GTX 970 got zapped. It is not an inexpensive component.

Grzy