[SOLVED] Unable to power on PC within case

[Horizonframe]

Hi! I'm having an issue where my motherboard seems to be shorting out within both of my cases. I was upgrading to a NZXT H510 from a crappy Apevia case as well upgrading my gpu. When I installed everything into the new case it wouldn't power on. So I removed the components and tried powering the motherboard outside of the case. It worked. Then I tried moving everything back into my old case just to see if I could still fall back on that. Nothing worked. So now my components won't work in either case for whatever reason.

I've been troubleshooting the past few days, rebuilding, quadruple checking everything, even tried turning on the system in the case without the motherboard screws. Still nothing. All of the standoffs are where they should be. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what is causing the short. Could the standoffs be the issue even if they're installed where they need to be? I had considered getting nylon standoffs just to see, but even then, I'm not sure how my old case will no longer work for it when it's worked over the past year. I'm kinda new to PC building still. Gotta be something I'm overlooking here.

Specs:
Motherboard - MSI X470 GAMING PLUS MAX
CPU - Ryzen 5 2600
GPU - Radeon RX 5600 XT
RAM - 16 GB DDR4
PSU - EVGA 650 B5

 

[Darkbreeze]

How are you powering on the board outside the case? By jumping the pwr pins? Try disconnecting ALL of the leads coming from the front of the case and doing the same thing with the board installed in the case. Make certain that you check EVERYTHING, TWICE, that is listed here:

"No POST", "system won't boot", and "no video output" troubleshooting checklist

"No POST", "system won't boot", and "no video output" troubleshooting checklist This checklist is a compilation of troubleshooting ideas from many forum members. It's very important to actually perform every step in the checklist if you want to effectively troubleshoot your problem. 1.Did you...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[Horizonframe]

How are you powering on the board outside the case? By jumping the pwr pins? Try disconnecting ALL of the leads coming from the front of the case and doing the same thing with the board installed in the case. Make certain that you check EVERYTHING, TWICE, that is listed here:

"No POST", "system won't boot", and "no video output" troubleshooting checklist

"No POST", "system won't boot", and "no video output" troubleshooting checklist This checklist is a compilation of troubleshooting ideas from many forum members. It's very important to actually perform every step in the checklist if you want to effectively troubleshoot your problem. 1.Did you...

forums.tomshardware.com

I did jumpstart the pins. I had the gpu, my ssd, and one stick of ram installed when I tested it. I then emulated that same setup in the case and tried to jumpstart it that way as well but had no luck.

I came across that post when I was trying to google for solutions and followed it through. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pinpoint the root of the issue.

It's really odd. Everything looks on point. I watched a lot of build guides and read a bunch of forum posts to see if I missed anything and have rebuilt the system around 9 times now. I've used 2 different power supplies and even my previous motherboard and still no luck inside both cases.

I know it's gotta be some sort of user error on my end because the components work outside of the case and they worked in the previous case before I upgraded and now they don't work in either case. I have a friend that's built a few PC's and I'll let him look at it in a few days. If he finds out what it is, I'll update this post.

 

[Darkbreeze]

The only difference between outside the case and inside the case, assuming you have NONE of the power leads from the front panel connected (That includes pwr, reset, hdd activity, audio connections, etc.) are the standoffs. Make absolutely certain that there are no standoffs installed in ANY location in the motherboard tray portion of the case that do not directly line up with a corresponding standoff hole in the motherboard. Count the number of standoff holes in the motherboard and compare with the standoffs installed in the case. Seems unlikely since you had this in the other case previously and it worked fine, but aside from front panel connections and standoffs there really isn't anything else that could be a factor that isn't also a factor when you bench the motherboard.

Make certain that you've connected the CPU fan to the CPU_FAN header, AND do NOT connect any of the case fans because those too are not connected outside the case so maybe one of those has a problem. Unlikely, but I've seen them have problems before.

There just really aren't that many things that could cause a system to work fine on the bench and not work in the case. Or two cases actually.