I took a very close look at my Soyo motherboard tonight. I think I see the problem, and now know why my main computer died.
In the photo to your left, in the highlighted circle, is part of a diode. A diode is like a switch, allowing current to pass in one direction and not the other. That particular diode is ‘fried.’ It no longer goes to the pad on the motherboard where it used to be seated. So, now it passes current in neither direction!
I have checked on eBay and there is someone selling this particular motherboard. In fact, he has 10 of them – each for $40. I have written, asking if he’ll ship 2nd day or overnight.
Of course, once I get the motherboard, I’ll have to remove the old one and install the new. It is possible my problem is caused by something else and this fried diode is a symptom, not the cause. In that case, I’ll probably be out the $40 and still without my computer.
One last note. The lovely photo of the burned part was taken on my Fujifilm S602Z and then transferred to my Linux machine (I’m typing on it now). The photo post processing was done on Gimp V2.0, which is sort of like Photoshop – but not as good. And to me, certainly not as familiar to operate. Oh, it’s also free.