It's dead Jim

[tedgyz]

Bwaaaaahhhhhhh!!!! My new PC blew up this weekend.

I had been testing my CD-RW drive at work because it has issues. This weekend I reinstalled it. When I turned the power on, the PC made some sort of kerzop sound and there was that horrifying acrid smell of electric fire. The smell seemed to originate in the power supply. So, I went to Best Buy and picked up an Antec TruePower 430. Alas, it has not solved my problem. (BTW, the original PS was an Antec SmartBlue 350)

With both power supplies, when I power on the system, I get a loud beeping sound and no POST screen. I fear I have smoked the CPU and/or RAM, or worse, the mobo.

I plugged the C: drive into my wife's computer to verify it is alive - it is! I also needed to pull my tax data off so I can finish my taxes - I have a refund due.

In an interesting twist of fate, I have an extra, identical mobo (another story). However, I'm not going to drop a bunch of questionable parts into it. I had been thinking about filling in my extra mobo to make another PC, but was hesitant to spend the extra $$. This event pushed me over the edge. I ordered an Athlon XP 2100+, praised for it's overclockability. I also ordered some Kingston PC2700 memory to go with it. (newegg.com)

Question : What would you recommend for an approach to identifying the failed components?

My plan is as follows:

1. Build new PC with all new parts
2. Replace 1 part at a time with old parts...
3. Memory
4. CPU
5. HD x 3
6. DVD
7. CD-RW
8. Power supply?

I'm a little concerned with two of the parts in question - power supply and CD-RW. I don't know why a perfectly running system suddenly died. The only significant event was re-installing the CD-RW. That makes me fearful to install it again. The other thing is the power supply. How can I test it? I certainly don't want to plug it into a bunch of good parts. I was thinking of testing it on a sacrificial lamb - some old dog PC.

Any and all advice is welcome.

Desperately seeking PC,
Ted
P.S. Here is my current system config:

Leadtek K7NCR18G-Pro motherboard (nForce2 with integrated Geforce4 + 5.1 audio + LAN + IEEE1394 + USB2.0)
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ Thoroughbred B
2x 256MB PC27000 RAM (generic brand)
Maxtor DMX+ 8 40GB
Maxtor DMX+ 60 60GB
WD 800JB 80GB, 8MB cache
Pioneer DVD player (slot load)
Liteon 48x24x48x CD-RW
Maxtor ATA100 PCI card for extra IDE device

 

[WeeWolf]

What is the beep error code? Listen to it and go look up the code on the net. It should give you a better idea of what is wrong. I doubt it is the mobo if you are getting beeps it's usually the cry of the mobo when you hear beeping. If the mobo is dead usually you hear the chilling silence. I would try and work with what you have for now no reason to risk new parts just yet. Try pulling everything but the essentials and booting ie... video, ram detach all else and see if you get somewhere. If at that point you don't get anything then you have a core problem as you said before mobo, vid, ram would be your possible culprits as far as what is dead and causing the beeps.
You can also use your nose by taking out each part and giving it a sniff burnt electronics is a pretty distinctive smell and you may be able to smell the burnt out part.
Good luck

 

[tedgyz]

I'm getting a single, long beep that repeats

BEEEEEEEEP
(pause)
BEEEEEEEEP
(pause)
BEEEEEEEEP
...

Your point about the mobo being OK if it is beeping is a good one. I'll look up the BEEP code. As far as the burnt smell, it seemed to come from the PS, based on the sniff test. That's why I ran out and bought a new one. Perhaps the dying PS took the RAM with it.

 

[WeeWolf]

Three long beeps is usually video try a different video card. It is still a good idea to look up your codes print em out and keep em handy.

 

[redbeard1]

It's not common, but a friend and I have both had power supplies short out when they were plugged back in and turned on. In his case he replaced the power supply and everything was ok. In my case it took out 3 hard drives and a zip drive, yet the motherboard still works to this day. So anything is possible when they short out like that.

 

[TheCorm]

Originally posted by: WeeWolf
Three long beeps is usually video try a different video card. It is still a good idea to look up your codes print em out and keep em handy.

Had a friend who's power supply went like this due to a surge, when the power supply was replaced it was still not working properly, it turned out that the graphics card had been fried...but everything else was okay apart froma few errors found on the hard drive but they were fixed too.

When I tried to old card in another system it worked but had funny horizontal lines all the way down the screen.

So this is worth a go!...I see you are using integrated graphics...hmmm....may still work if you get hold of an AGP Geforce4 MX440.

Corm

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Video is 2long 1short, this is the 1 long beep repeating audio error Chances are either the CPU or memory went belly up but it could be the part of the chipset like the NB was damaged as well so use the parts in the other board for TS purposes as bad ram, CPU, vid card is highly unlikely to toast the board despite the posts which cry "this bad CPU toasted 3 boards!"

 

[WeeWolf]

This is what Award/Phoenix has to say on beep codes currently for thier BIOS's:
The only AwardBIOS beep code indicates that a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information. This beep code consists of a single long beep followed by two short beeps. Any other beeps are probably a RAM (Random Access Memory) problems.

That is taken right off the Phoenix site. So I stand corrected it is probably not video in this case but I don't see where you get audio from unless you have an old beep code listing. Something obviously blew to have heard and audible pop and smelled the nice ozone smell of burning electronics. As was stated before start with the basics and work from there but getting anything from the motherboard is a good sign in this case. Tedgyz says he is going to try different memory I think so we'll see.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

WeeWolf, you misunderstand me brudda, I mean audio error code which indicates you hear the beeps that's all. Notice I followed it with ram or CPU as the most likely issue? Every board maker has the opportunity to impliment their own version of the award which is why there isn't a generic list like the others have, however I notice most don't diverge greatly from each other. I've TS many boards with the award bios and the single long beep usually turned out to be a dead CPU, bad memory controller, bad ram, or bad PSU, he eliminated the PSU so I suggested the others. It's possible it's something else just not probable from my personal experience.

 

[AtomicDude512]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
Video is 2long 1short, this is the 1 long beep repeating audio error Chances are either the CPU or memory went belly up but it could be the part of the chipset like the NB was damaged as well so use the parts in the other board for TS purposes as bad ram, CPU, vid card is highly unlikely to toast the board despite the posts which cry "this bad CPU toasted 3 boards!"

In another post three long beeps ended up being the CPU, dont know if this helps...

 

[WeeWolf]

Yeah my bad I misunderstood I thought you were suggesting a audio problem was the cause of the beeps. ooops