[HELP!] (updated) motherboard/cpu burnt...

[madknife]

OK... so i just finished building my first system... and being as stupid as i am, i mistakenly plugged the mb power (the 4-pin plug of the 24 pins) into the cpu power jack... so as i turned the machine on, i burnt through the wires plugging into the cpu power jack... and now, when i boot up my machine, it goes through the BIOS page, and then gets stuck on the "listing PCI devices" page... and cannot go any further...

Question: is the cpu burnt, the motherboard burnt, or both? i need to decide what i need to buy again...

Thanks a lot!

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums It's probable that your hardware is damaged from the mismatched voltages, if it got to the burning/melting stage. As a test, try starting just the core components without any extra stuff connected. No keyboard, no mouse, no drives, no extra add-in cards, no case wires except the power-button wire.

Does it make any further progress, or does it still do the same thing?

 

[madknife]

thanks! a friend of mine told me to come here if i have any computer related questions... lol
so i did what you said, and the same thing happens... i think the problem is that the system is not recognizing any of my peripheral device... be it SATA harddrive, the optical drives, or external USB drives... but my question remains: should i buy the motherboard, the cpu, or both? i just don't want to spend a few extra hundred dollars buying something i don't need...

thanks again for the help!

 

[montag451]

Is anything recognised in the BIOS - any hdd's?
Are the hdd's initialised/partitioned/formatted?

Welcome to the forums.

 

[madknife]

no, the hdd is not initialised/partitioned/formatted. it's a brand new hdd that i have just bought.

 

[montag451]

OK, in BIOS it should show up, but most likely won't show up as much in Windows.

Does it show up in BIOS?

 

[madknife]

I can't even go into BIOS... i have gigabyte ds3, btw
in the BIOS screen that appears as soon as i boot up, none of the options (F9, TAB, etc) work except the one (F11) that allows me to choose what to boot from... i tried that, and from that list, (HDD, Optical, USB device, etc) nothings boots...
so... again, which is broken?

 

[montag451]

If you look at your mobo, around the CMOS battery, there is the chip that holds all of the BIOS info -
does that look damaged in any way, and, if possible, could you see if there are any traces that do look damaged that lead in that vague direction.

 

[madknife]

i'm not a pro and can't really tell... it doesn't look smoked though...
i guess i can put the question another way: if the cpu is fried (or partially) fried, would the computer be able to boot up at all? the fact that i can get past the bios screen and get to the PCI device listing, does that say anything about the state of the cpu?

 

[madknife]

oh and btw, when i boot up the computer, the cpu fan stutters for a few seconds before fully spinning... what does that imply?
thanks!

 

[montag451]

Not really - but one can never tell with an item that has 30million transistors on it.

Most likely, it is the mobo, but to be honest, if the BIOS is damaged, you wouldn't see any hw, or in fact anything on your screen.

Can you try tapping the key that gets you into BIOS as soon as you press the power button.

 

[madknife]

ok... so i bought a new motherboard, and played around with them a bit...
with the old, burnt motherboard, the cpu fan only runs intermittenly... stopping and stuttering all the time. with the new motherboard, it stutters for some 5 seconds before it starts running. when it does start however, it appears to be running fine. i was able to install windows and everything appears to be just fine...

my question now is: does the stuttering of the fan indicate that the cpu is damaged? also, are there any software out there that i can use to test my hardware to see if they are ok?

thanks!

 

[daveybrat]

Don't sweat it, you've fixed the problem and now you can enjoy the computer. That fan stutter you see is normal for the retail intel fans. Mine do that too on pc's i build especially with gigabyte boards. Nothing to worry about at all.

Enjoy the new system!

 

[madknife]

Originally posted by: daveybrat
Don't sweat it, you've fixed the problem and now you can enjoy the computer. That fan stutter you see is normal for the retail intel fans. Mine do that too on pc's i build especially with gigabyte boards. Nothing to worry about at all.

Enjoy the new system!

lol... that sounds very... optimistic...
actually, i have discovered another problem.
it is EXTREMELY hot in the case (not sure how to measure the temperature?)
and 9 times of out 10, i'm not able to get past the GIGABYTE board screen (and again, can't get into the bios... can't select boot mode... etc) i guess the time i was able to boot normally was pure luck...
playing around with it a bit, i found that if i turn off the computer, i have to leave it off for at least an hour (for it to cool down?) before i can restart it...
why would that be and, again, how do i test?
thanks!

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

It sounds like you have the fan set to "smart," which means the fan only spins when the motherboard senses it's getting too hot. I'm not sure what in the world such a feature is meant to accomplish (it's probably some power or noise management BS), but it might account for both the heat inside the system as well as the stuttering fan. Just go into the BIOS and fix the fan setting. That should do the trick.

If it's still hot, check the heatsink seating. Those LGA775 fans can be a bitch to install--and sometimes they appear to be properly seated when they are not.

Good luck.

 

[madknife]

thanks for all the reply regarding the cpu and the fan!

how about the case where i get stuck on the GIGABYTE board screen?

thanks!

 

[jjzelinski]

Wait wait wait, how sure are you that you didn't fry part of your PS? You BURNT through the wires! If you're still using those same burnt wires their resistance is probably significantly higher than they were before and that would affect the components that are being fed by them. Now granted you said you jacked up the 4 pin ATX connector but that is connected electrically to god only knows what. I'd be astonished if your problems are anywhere near a conclusion....

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

I sort of assumed that when madknife said he burnt through the wires of his PSU that he was well aware he would need a new one. However, if he has not bought a new power supply, then he *needs* to do so right now, if only for safety reasons!

Madknife, if you haven't yet purchased a new PSU, please do so. For basic integrated systems, you can get a cheap but reliable FSP Group 300W for only $29.30 shipped. If you have a powerful video card, an overclocked system or an excess of IDE/SATA devices, something more like this 400W model might be in order ($44.30 shipped).