Computer won't start at all

[nleibert]

Hi guys,

It's been a little over 3 years since I have built my computer and here's the problem I'm having:

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R with an Intel Xeon X3210 Quad. I originally had my cpu overclocked to 3.5GHz but a couple months ago I put it back to stock at 2.13GHz. Today I decided I wanted to overclock it again to gain a little extra performance however no matter what I did, the bios would not save my new cpu speed (I made sure I had all powersaving features, etc disabled). I then decided I would clear the bios and see if that correct the problem. I accidentally put the jumper on two pins next to the Power Switch instead of the Clear CMOS pins (Don't ask lol), took the jumper off and put the power cord back in and pressed the power button. Nothing happened.

My computer won't start at all now, no lights, no sounds/beeps, nothing at all. To eliminate it being a PSU issue, I used the paperclip trick to start the PSU up and it ran perfect, fan came on, lights on, etc. I than wanted to eliminate it being a power switch problem so I shorted the power switch pins with a screwdriver and that didn't work either. I have also made sure all plugs were in correctly, reseated everything, etc.

I believe my motherboard just crapped out but I wanted to check with you guys before I went out and bought a new motherboard, cpu, and memory (gives me an excuse to upgrade to an i5 quad!).

I just don't understand how it can work one minute and then not work at all the next and the only thing I did was jumper the wrong pins.

Thanks

 

[denis280]

Yes! but try this first!touch the two pins very carefully with a screwdriver the one for (power) and see.if it starts then power switch is finish.good luck

 

[mindless1]

I could be wrong, but my "best guess" as to what might have happened is that while working, you had an ESD that fried a transistor the motherboard latches to turn the system on when the front case switch/pins are shorted together.

I have a suggestion. While the PSU is plugged into motherboard, everything fully assembled, use needle nose pliers or bent paperclip, whatever works for you, to then short together the PS_On wire from the PSU to an adjacent ground from the REAR of the connector... see if you can get the system to turn on and run like this or if the PSU either shuts off or still fails to run at all.

If it immediately shuts off or seems dead still, you have a shorted component somewhere and should strip the system down to bare essentials then try to power it on again, not caring yet whether it even POSTs so not even a video card or memory should be in it yet. If it powers on, disconnect AC and add back parts one at a time, retrying it again after each part addition till you find the faulty part.

If you can power it on by the initial method described w/o pulling any parts out, you might be able to still use the motherboard the old school AT way, by wiring the PSU connector pins to a non-momentary switch to turn it on, and off. Many old AT cases used the same switch dimensions that new ones use so you could swap them without special measures being needed for mounting.

Also, you might find just such a switch that is compatible with your case out of an old AT computer from a mom 'n pop computer shop's trash bin (or an alternate switch mounted elsewhere instead).