Computer Build Smoked and Won't Power on Now

[hartselletiger1]

Helped my friend build his first PC yesterday (Ryzen 5 1600, Zotac 1060 6gb, Msi B350 mobo). Upon powering the pc on after building it, the PC produced a foul odor and discharged a spout of smoke (similar to the odor produced when soldering). It did not continue to smoke just a spurt of it right away (it appeared to come from the stock AMD cooler. I assumed it was the thermal paste and told my friend to unplug the pc immediately so we could clean the paste off of the motherboard before permanent damage was done.

After we did that (there ended up being no excess thermal paste on the board or in the AM4 socket) the PC would not power on. We've tried reconnecting the CPU, graphics card and motherboard power, removing the CMOS battery, checking for unused case standoffs, etc. We switched wall outlets, switched power adapters as well.

Tomorrow we plan on rebuilding it from scratch and seeing if that can yield some results. My hunch is the motherboard is fried due to a faulty PSU or the motherboard was independently not functional. To be clear, the PC powered on, discharged smoke, and now won't power on.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. New to the site so I apologize if I posted this in the wrong place or did not format it correctly.

 

[Kasper Jorgensen]

Which exactly PSU did you install in this? Full name and model please?

 

[hartselletiger1]

EVGA 100-N1-0650-L1 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

 

[Kasper Jorgensen]

Not exactly the best PSU you got there, but if something fried and as how you described it, it sounds like something fried somewhere then it wont help rebuilding it.

Either you connected something wrong or one of your components are DOA. I would say it's likely either the PSU or mobo that is faulty.

 

[boju]

Did thermal paste spill out did it?

https://community.amd.com/message/2801709#comment-2801709

If it didn't get into the pins it should be ok. I can't get a straight answer whether the Wraith's thermal compound is conductive or not. Some say it is and fewer more say its not.

Regarding the PSU, you didn't use custom cables or any power related cable not original to the Evga? Using different cables can lead to shorts as the pin outs can vary even though the cable plug looks the same.

 

[hartselletiger1]

No didn't use custom cabling, but I'll have to check if it got in the pins of CPU. I unseated the CPU but didn't check it as thoroughly as I probably should have.