Question I think I might have fried my motherboard...suggestions? Help?

[TheDarkOne198]

Here is what happened: I was troubleshooting why a newly bought M.2 SSD was making my other SATA SSD boot drive no longer work, while it was connected and was trying to move those oh so stubborn SATA cables to different ports on the motherboard. Not able to get to them,I was attempting to remove my GPU from its PCI slot and as my hands could not fit between it and my NH-D15 heatsink, I was using a flat head screwdriver to push the lever to release the GPU. Like a complete idiot,I forgot to turn the PSU power off again (I had been turning it off and on a lot in my troubleshooting and removing/reconnecting things) and the screwdriver slipped and hit the metal contacts of the nearby M.2 drive meant for Optane sized sticks. I saw a small spark and the system turned itself on and I think I might have done this without realizing a previous time as well as at one point before, the system turned itself on again. Like I said, I had been turning the switch off and on again and was too busy thinking of what to do next to remember to turn it off. There were several times I tried to power on only to realize the PSU switch was off, as well. Now, when I turn it on, the power light does not light up, my GPU fan (Vega 64 blower card) does not spin (tried two different PCI-e slots) and one of the system intake fans do not spin. I switched its cable to another slot and put on my of CPU heat fans on the same port it was on and confirmed its the port not putting power out as nothing connected to it spins. Finally, it fails to POST and the MSI Debug lights only show the CPU light on solid white with no other lights coming on and no HDD activity at all, no matter what. I have tried using onboard HDMI and taking off the discrete GPU and have gone through the effort of reseating the CPU, new thermal paste and all, to no avail. Does anyone think there is a way to salvage it without buying a new Mobo? I just spent $300 on that 970 Evo and another 16GB of memory. Kinda strapped for cash now. Relying on an old as crap laptop right now. BTW, I know the memory is good because I had previously booted into Windows with the full 32GB working fine.

CPU: i7 8700K
Mobo: MSI Z370 SLI Plus

 

[rgd1101]

you mean this?
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z370-SLI-PLUS/Specification
"The SATA1, SATA5 and SATA6 ports will become unavailable with some conditions of M.2 devices. Please refer the manual for M.2 & SATA combination table ."

anyway. test only with cpu/and/ram and see if that boot.

 

[TheDarkOne198]

Yes,that is it. I had heard that M.2 could do that but I thought it was limited to Z170. I have tried without GPU and using onboard graphics, with only the RAM and CPU, already. Short of removing SATA cables, I don't know what else to do. The M.2 drive is not even connected now anyways. Nothing works. I tried again with no GPU connected and only the onboard HDMI out and nothing. By the way, had previously rotated the SATA ports around and no matter what I plugged my Plextor SSD into,it would not be detected unless I removed the M.2 drive.

I have also tried removing DIMMs this morning,up to no sticks in use to see if it gives the error of not having memory. Nothing. It does not post. I hope the CPU isn't fried,instead. That's even more expensive. I do not think that would be the case though,it was not whacked or anything. Like I said,I saw a spark when hitting the other M.2 slot and everything stopped working after that. I think the board is dead.

 

[rgd1101]

could be motherboard or the psu

 

[TheDarkOne198]

How can I test to find out which?

 

[rgd1101]

need to get a spare.
or take it to a shop

 

[TheDarkOne198]

and I have neither of those around here. I will just have to buy a new motherboard and hope that is the issue. I think a bad PSU usually cuts off after turning on or doesn't power on at all. At least to my experience,having had to replace them before. Mine is a decent quality one so I am hoping it's fine. I will have to throw the dice and find out.

 

[TheDarkOne198]

UPDATE: I got another of the same kind of motherboard. For the first several days, everything was fine. Now,all of a sudden odd things are occuring. Namely: SATA drives I have connected, specifically two, 1TB HDDs randomly losing connection in windows and just tonight, it takes several minutes to POST, with the HDD light turning on for a good 5-6 seconds and then staying off for about the same amount of time,over and over. It takes forever to even get into the UEFI. When it does finally POST and either gets into settings,all drives are present. Once it finally boots into windows,one or both of the HDDs are not detected. The last time I saw them show up,I ran a full Chkdsk on them and it looks like it repaired something but now the problem is worse. The MSI ez debug light stays on "VGA" the whole time this HDD light issue is occurring, during post. I keep an eye on the S.M.A.R.T. information and all my drives read in good health. I'm stumped.

Update 2: I reseated the GPU and pulled the SATA cables and reconnected them somewhere else and moved them back. Idk why but drives are showing up in windows now. It's very confusing. I do not have an option to close the thread,for some reason.