God, exhausted from just trying to figure all this GARBAGE out. Got my new PC today, except for the hard drive. I knew it would be a learning process for me and my bro in installing a mobo, but didn't expect this.


Everything physically installed fine, until we got whistling from the PSU. The mobo was shorting out from one corner screw. So after spending two hours to figure that out. Everything is good, set up, now we want to get to the BIOS screen to run the BIOS update. Everything hooked up, now the power button won't start it up. It's hooked up correctly, and it's drawing power, because the lights in my room dim when I press it on the first try, just like an older TV turning on. Another PSU came with the kit, should I try hooking that up and seeing if the PC will start up with it? When I press the button, nothing but the lights in my room quickly dim. No PSU fan spin, no heatsink fan spin, no case fan spin, nada.

I even thought outside the box and took out the front piece and power button from my old case and hooked it up to my new PC and pressed it. Did the same thing upon first try, dimmed lights quickly but nothing in the PC happened.

I have no idea what else it could be. I don't fully understand the whole "rail" thing involving PSUs so I may need to be edumacated.

Help me out... I'm on the brink of suicide.

 

I feel your pain, JB. Yeah, if the computer is dimming the lights in the room, something ain't right If it were me, I would unplug EVERYTHING except the mobo and the case fans. Take the CPU off the board, also. If the fans don't spin up... well, there you go. New power supply. Troubleshooting hardware sucks. Start with the simplest arrangement and keep adding stuff to it until it doesn't work anymore. Divide and conquer.

I used to build computers at work, and then started building them for family as christmas gifts and such. No longer. If they want a new computer I tell them "www.dell.com" or go buy an abacus.

I never want to see the inside of another computer again.

 

Don't worry about the dimming lights thing. It's nothing bad. Same thing happens when I turn on a TV after it hasn't been used for a while. Believe me about troubleshooting it. After we couldn't figure out the PSU whistle thing, we took apart the entire thing, and one piece at a time (for the mobo, one screw at a time) until we found out what was causing the whistle in the mobo. turned out to be one of the screws in the mobo. I hope to God it's the PSU. I don't even know what to do If it isnt. What do I get replaced? Mobo? Get a new case? Bah...

So much thinking about it, I just need to go to sleep.


BTW I'd love to do a dell, but that is way out of my budget.

 

If you had a screw ground out the MB you could have shorted it out. I would double and triple check the on/off and reset connectors.

You can check just the power supply by unplugging it from the MB and momentarily short pins 14 and 15 as shown here. If it powers itself up fine and all your connections are good I would say you fried something on the board.

Just curious. How exactly did you short the board out with a screw? Did you use an incorrect placement hole? Also wondering what you meant by going to run the bios update. I assume you meant you was going to let the bios find hd's, ram, etc. I hope you didn't mean you were going to flash it right off the bat.

 

Also wouldn't hurt to take the entire thing back apart, lay the mb on the box it came in and hook up everything up so it's outside the case and try it. Don't worry about the switch, just short the two pins it plugs into to start it.

 

Yep we already did that Larry. The guy at XFX told us to do that. That's how we figured out the mobo wasn't completely dead. It was one screw in the mobo that caused the thing to short out and make the power supply whistle. Right now I'm just trying a bunch of different things, including the other PSU that came with it. I may have to kill myself before this is over..

 

Update:

Tried other PSU. Still nothing when trying to power on. Excuse me while I kill myself.

 

Called XFX again. They think it could be the case still shorting it out. So now I gotta fkin take the MOBO out again, put it on the static bag, hook up the PSU, and touch the power source pins with a screwdriver and see if it boots up.


Bah..

 

Did it work???

 

Didn't try it. Turned out my brother never installed Standoffs under the mobo. Did that, did everything right. Still nothing. the PSU fan spins for a second then nothing, so it's not the PSU. It has to be the mobo. Ugh. Gotta go call a towel head I can't understand from tiger direct and get a replacement.

 

Mobo is gettin replaced. Shipping it out tomorrow morning.

 

LOL

ya you kinda need those standoffs

when I built my rig I had a mobo that was doa and wouldn't post out of the box


I remember building a buddys computer that I couldn't install an OS on cause it had bad ram.

its kinda how it goes

 

Make sure you only put the standoffs where you need them. I think I mentioned that in another thread awhile back. Don't fill every hole in the case with them. Check the mb manual and it should show you what holes on the mb to use.

Don't despair. Sometimes a build goes smooth as silk and sometimes things get wonky and it takes some thought and troubleshooting. Without known good extra parts to try it can sometimes be hard to troubleshoot. Bad ram has led to one of the biggest headaches I've ever had until I started using memtest.

 

memtest is awesome.