Computer died after 1 month

[tmdl]

We built a new computer based on the book "Building the Perfect PC". Everything worked fine for a little over a month. Last Saturday morning, I turned on the computer and we smelled a burning smell and the monitor was blank .

At first we thought the monitor, which was a 17" Dell CRT, went bad. I attached another 15" CRT from our older computer and turned on the new computer and still nothing.

I next looked into the case from the CPU cooling opening on the side of the computer, and when I turned it on, the fan started turning, but then stopped. I tried turning on the computer again and the fan did not turn at all. I did notice the power-on LED on the front of the case did turn on when I turned on the computer. I had to hold in the power switch for 10 seconds till the power-on LED went off. I also noticed that the power supply fan was not turning.

Next I started disconnecting the power and data cables to the hard drives, floppy drives, DVD/CD drive. I still got the same results with all those disconnected.

Next, I disconnected the front panel hard drive LED wire, the front panel USB wires and removed the floppy, CD/DVD and hard drive cables from the motherboard and still got the same results.

Next, I removed the 2 sticks of memory and still got the same results.

Finally, I disconnected the 24 pin power cable and the 4 pin processor power cable from the motherboard and used Sean's power supply tester (I bought this from Sean, who posts on these message boards). The power supply fan came on and I was able to measure the correct voltages at the test points suggested by Sean on the 24 pin cable. I also measured the voltages on the 4 pin processor power connector on the 2 pins which were connected to the yellow wires and they showed 12 volts, so it seems like the power supply is OK.

I next connected both the 24 pin main power connector and the 4 pin processor power connector to the motherboard, depressed the power switch on the front of the case and once again the fan on the power supply and the CPU fan did not turn.

Next I removed the 4 pin processor power connector from the motherboard and left the 24 pin main power connector connected to the motherboard, depressed the power switch on the front of the case and both the power supply fan and CPU fan started turning!!

My guess is that the motherboard power regulator which supplies power to the CPU has a short in it, because as soon as I connect the 4 pin processor power connector to the motherboard, the power supply fan and CPU fan do not turn, but if I remove it both fans turn. What do other people think? Is the most likely cause the motherboard or can the power supply or CPU be causing these problems? Thanks for any help anyone can give me. I listed the components in my system below.

* Antec SLK3000B mid tower case
* Antec Truepower II TPII-430 ATX12V 430W power supply
* Intel BOX945GNTLR Socket T (LGA 775) ATX retail motherboard
* Intel 3 GHz Pentium 4 630 Prescott (800 MHz FSB) LGA775 EM64T retail processor with Intel fan
* Crucial 2 GB (2 x 1GB) 240 pin DDR2 SDRAM 533 (PC2 4200) Unbuffered dual channel system memory
* Two Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250 GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 hard drives
* NEC ND-3540A DVD/CD burner

 

[177ine177ine]

wow, very odd. My best guess is as u said, the motherboard has a short. U said that at one point, the psu fan did not run. That could be part of the problem.
MYsuggestions:
Try a new PSU
TRy to find burn marks on any of ur hardware and components
Try a different power outlet (If u havnt already)
IF all else fails, RMA the mobo and see wut comes out of that
l8r

 

[pat]

We built a new computer based on the book "Building the Perfect PC". Everything worked fine for a little over a month. Last Saturday morning, I turned on the computer and we smelled a burning smell and the monitor was blank .

At first we thought the monitor, which was a 17" Dell CRT, went bad. I attached another 15" CRT from our older computer and turned on the new computer and still nothing.

I next looked into the case from the CPU cooling opening on the side of the computer, and when I turned it on, the fan started turning, but then stopped. I tried turning on the computer again and the fan did not turn at all. I did notice the power-on LED on the front of the case did turn on when I turned on the computer. I had to hold in the power switch for 10 seconds till the power-on LED went off. I also noticed that the power supply fan was not turning.

Next I started disconnecting the power and data cables to the hard drives, floppy drives, DVD/CD drive. I still got the same results with all those disconnected.

Next, I disconnected the front panel hard drive LED wire, the front panel USB wires and removed the floppy, CD/DVD and hard drive cables from the motherboard and still got the same results.

Next, I removed the 2 sticks of memory and still got the same results.

Finally, I disconnected the 24 pin power cable and the 4 pin processor power cable from the motherboard and used Sean's power supply tester (I bought this from Sean, who posts on these message boards). The power supply fan came on and I was able to measure the correct voltages at the test points suggested by Sean on the 24 pin cable. I also measured the voltages on the 4 pin processor power connector on the 2 pins which were connected to the yellow wires and they showed 12 volts, so it seems like the power supply is OK.

I next connected both the 24 pin main power connector and the 4 pin processor power connector to the motherboard, depressed the power switch on the front of the case and once again the fan on the power supply and the CPU fan did not turn.

Next I removed the 4 pin processor power connector from the motherboard and left the 24 pin main power connector connected to the motherboard, depressed the power switch on the front of the case and both the power supply fan and CPU fan started turning!!

My guess is that the motherboard power regulator which supplies power to the CPU has a short in it, because as soon as I connect the 4 pin processor power connector to the motherboard, the power supply fan and CPU fan do not turn, but if I remove it both fans turn. What do other people think? Is the most likely cause the motherboard or can the power supply or CPU be causing these problems? Thanks for any help anyone can give me. I listed the components in my system below.

* Antec SLK3000B mid tower case
* Antec Truepower II TPII-430 ATX12V 430W power supply
* Intel BOX945GNTLR Socket T (LGA 775) ATX retail motherboard
* Intel 3 GHz Pentium 4 630 Prescott (800 MHz FSB) LGA775 EM64T retail processor with Intel fan
* Crucial 2 GB (2 x 1GB) 240 pin DDR2 SDRAM 533 (PC2 4200) Unbuffered dual channel system memory
* Two Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250 GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 hard drives
* NEC ND-3540A DVD/CD burner

Anything shorting out the MB to the case, like a misplaced mounting post?

 

[ELGoku]

It's the MOBO dude trust me. altho if you connected your USB cables backwards that also can screw up your PC.