System board melt down - now what?

[bdlong]

I didn't act soon enough when I noticed my cheap power supply was giving voltage out of specs. As a result, I believe I have cooked either my
processor or system board or both. I ordered a new, better quality, name brand power supply. I didn't want to have to upgrade anything, so
I ordered the same exact system board that I had in the system. The board and power supply arrives, put everything together and it still refuses to
boot. Swapped processors with a spare I had laying around, same problem. Well, it is man made and must be a DOA. I get an RMA and ship it back.
The replacement arrives last night. I plug it and it refuses to boot, with either processor. I guess it is time to face the facts - I screwed up by
putting a cheaply made power supply in and now I'm paying the price. (You can pay me now or pay me later......)

I guess I get to upgrade afterall. I'm only frustrated because for the same amount of money I could get a few hours or rental from my local FBO, and
I don't feel like I'm flying enough as it is. Here is my question:

I have a ChProducts flight yoke that plugs into the game port. I love the product, and I don't want to spend more money on an updated USB joystick or
yoke. Should I stick with a system board with onboard game port, (they are rare, but I have found a couple), or get the best board for my money and
add in a sound card with game port?

Thanks

Dean

[eddy]

My 2 cents, don´t get the onboard game port, because that most of the time (or allways) means you have to use the onboard soundchip
as well. And that´s sthg you must avoid. A dedicated soundcard like the Audigy 2 (I hope they still come with gameport, my Audigy 1 came
with one) is the way to go.

Btw: What happens if you fire up power supply, motherboard and CPU only ? Just for a test. Afterwards add some memory and do the
same again. If it´s working then add the graphics card and leave the rest away for now to get at least into the BIOS. Afterwards you can
add the rest one by one to see where it get´s stuck.
But a brand new PS and MB should definitely show some signs of life even without CPU or the rest.

Oliver

[WBHoenig]

I agree with the latter portion of eddy's post.

[olseric]

Agreed.

A hardware driven PCI board will consume less resources than an onboard gameport.

[Dutch64]

You say it doesn't boot up, is there no text at all or does it get stuck somewhere? With a faulty ps, everything can be destroyed. What mb are you using?

[bdlong]

I've removed everything from the board except the processor, processor fan and internal speaker - no memory, no add-on cards, no drive cables. With
one processor, the system boots for about two seconds, fan spins, speaker has what I would describe as a British police siren, (not the beep codes
that I would expect.). After about 2 seconds it shuts off. With the second processor it won't even boot - no fan, no sound. I emailed the
motherboard manufacturer, and they said it is one of three things: bad motherboard, bad power supply or bad processor. I figured since neither
processor would boot that it had to be the mother board, now I'm not so sure.

Dean

[Dutch64]

My mb doesn't even start without memory so at least put some memory modules in place?