a nice blue flash

[Martyuk39]

Basically I'd put together a system, then for reasons I forget I decided to take out the motherboard. Problem was there was power to the system at the time. There was a blue flash - brief, exciting but now it's a dead system. Not a peep, even from a fan. Fortunately I'm in one piece, in spite of my low IQ level. So I assume the motherboard touched the case and there was a short.

The question is, what am I likely to have killed?
1) the motherboard
2) the CPU
3) the RAM
4) the power supply?
5) most or all of the above?

I'm at home (it's 10pm in the UK) and currently haven't got spare components to mess about with. I'll have to go to the store early tomorrow and pick up what I guess I need. Time limited, meant to be delivering said system Saturday, should be doing something else Friday. Shouldn't make daft promises. The system I was putting together comprised an Asrock K8NF4G, Sempron 3300, 512MB cheap RAM ("elixir brand"), Colors IT 8024 case with Colors IT 400W Quiet PSU. It's certainly very quiet now.

 

[thescreensavers]

take it all out and put it on card board and try it.

You also said you took the bomo out well maby somthing metal got in between the mobo and case. try it on card board and see what happends

 

[Martyuk39]

I've tried that - still nothing stirs. It was a particularly impressive flash though.

 

[Markbnj]

I'm more concerned that you forgot why you took the motherboard out .

About the only thing you can do is get it all out of the case and try different combinations of components to see what still works and what doesn't.

 

[Martyuk39]

I haven't forgotten - it was just insignificant that's all. I had a half-baked, childcare-interrupted idea about benchmarking, but I should have assembled a working system first. I mean, as a result of my cockup, I can't even now say what were working components in the first place.

Currently connected are the CPU and the memory and that's it. But nothing at all happens when I apply power, so I'm wondering what it is I've written off.

 

[eXx08]

OK nothings dead, if you unplug it and plug it in somewhere els it should do the same thing. This is what my computer did, reconect everything from Power to SATA or anything in between. Make sure there are no lose wires anywhere, if all els fails then undo everything, reinstall efvery componet and try it up again. It may be a connection with the HDD.

 

[Martyuk39]

Just to be straight - nothing at all is plugged in apart from the CPU and the RAM. Oh, and the CPU fan, the 20-pin, the 12V 4-pin wotsit and the front panel connectors. That's it. No peripherals. Something should spin up. If nothing does, then I'm assuming there's no power to spin anything up because I've murdered the PSU, or I've succeeded in frying the motherboard. If it were the RAM I'd get power plus beeps. If it's the PSU or mobo I'd get nothing wouldn't I? I think.

 

[AMCRambler]

You should be able to test the power supply easily. I think you have to jumper two pins on the connector and it should actually power up the fan in the PS so you can check that, correct me if I'm wrong guys. I think this is how.

 

[Martyuk39]

I shall leave this for the morning - thanks for your help!

 

[AMCRambler]

No prob, good luck. Forgot you're like 6 hours ahead of us!