When he opens it be sure to check the cmos battery one the motherboard. It can wreak havoc if it's dead. Then check all the connections. I had a motherboard go out because of the lan connector, disabled the onboard one and put in a card and it worked fine. It can be any number of things, but don't give up until he checks it out for you. Also it may be possible to remove the hard drive if you find that the mother board is fried and put it in an external box so save your stuffage. Sorry to hear this happened to you, and keeping my fingers crossed that it's a popped wire or bad cmos battery.