Changed case/PSU/video card, now Gigabyte Z68 won't POST

[suklee]

I just upgraded from:

Gigabyte 560Ti
Corsair VX550W
Cooler Master Case

To:

Sapphire 7970
Corsair HX850W
Corsair 500R case

And now my PC won't POST. Specs are in sig. My phase LEDs on the motherboard are all on.

I swapped in an old 9800GTX+ and it still didn't POST at first, but after I laid the case down flat (horizontally) I managed to POST once. I then put the 7970 back in, it too POSTed so I thought I was good to go. I put the case upright again and now it won't POST.

Any ideas on what could be wrong here?!

 

[Kenmitch]

Sounds like maybe you are shorting the MB to the case. Loose screw somewhere?

Maybe you have a standoff in the wrong place?

I'd suggest a rip it out of the case for further inspection and maybe try a on top of the MB box build just to see.

 

[suklee]

I put the 9800GTX back in, posted, and put the 7970 and I'm now up and running. Case is even standing upright! Temperamental, but how can I locate the actual short?

Having some DirectX error with regards to launching BF3 after switching from NVIDIA to AMD, but that's diverging from the OP...

 

[Kenmitch]

Making sure all mb standoffs are in the correct position would be the first place to start. If you are 100% sure then don't worry about them. A unsused standoff sitting under your mb isn't a good thing if it's close to a solder point or trace it could damage your motherboard or other devices.

Making sure you don't have a loose screw rolling around on or behind the MB which could explain the case down/up problem at times.

Did you make sure your memory is seated good. Possibly you bumped it around a little in the transplant. Might be worth a reseat as a just in case.

Other things that could be an issue but do to your symptoms I wouldn't see how. Bad case lead for usb, front sound, etc. Double check to make sure the wiriing is good. Possilbe that maybe a wires insulation is damaged which may at times contact the chassis?

 

[suklee]

I did try to reseat my memory but it didn't help. I don't know what it was really, probably a short somewhere... and I never did take off the mobo so it might have been an unused standoff. but it's running smooth as butter now so I'm not going to touch it! Love the case, dropped my load temps by 10C - even though it's a tad larger than I would have liked.

Thanks for your help.