Important Motherboard Question!

I bought a AK31A motherboard, I installed it in my new case, although i accidentally had one end of the board sityting up against the metal on the case with out relizing it. It didn't turn on after several tries, so I decided to give a different power supply a try, even though it was only 250watts and old, it worked fine, but the power supply smelled relally, bad(keep in mind it was onld and had been laying on my closet floor). Well it started the fans and stuff up, but becuz the power supply smelled like it was burning or something, i quickly turned it off, I then though it was my other power supply that wasn't working, then I decided to remount my motherboard, and i put it in there correctly so it wasn't touching the metal case this time. It worked, the bios came up, and I will alter install windows. Although I just want to make sure this shouldn't have caused any damage to my motherboard, just becuz i was too stupid to check if one whole side was up against the case... Well anyways please respond if you have any information on this...

-Mark

 

[starwarsdad]

Mark,

If it comes up and POSTs and goes into BIOS fine, you just shorted the board out by letting it touch the case. Everything should be fine now. Enjoy your new equipment!

 

Ok, any idea why the 250 watt power supply started the motherboard up while it was touching the case? I turned it off after about 10 seconds becuz the power supply was burning up...

-Mark

 

[starwarsdad]

The burning you smelled could have been dust. (That was my first thought anyway.) Man I work with computers everyday, I am not surprised by any of their ideosyncracies any more. I have no idea why the machine fired up with the 250. You may have knocked the board out of contact with the case while plugging/unplugging the ATX connector.

 

But the motherboard should be fine right? Even though I got it to start with the 250 Watt for some reason, that wouldn?t have done any damage if it was still touching and happened to start up would it?

 

[starwarsdad]

You should be fine. I would go ahead and finish building the system and install the OS. It is possible to damage the mobo by shorting/grounding it to the case, but it is very unlikely.

 

Ok, if i can get windows installed and working (Win98) it should mean that it caused no problems and is working fine, I havn't tried the on board sound or all the ports yet, I just want to make sure I won't have problems later on, thanks a lot for all the help so far .

-Mark