Please help, very very tired and frustrated :(

[LightningRider]

Hey all.

Well I have had a lot of computer trouble the past two days and at this point I am very frustrated seeing as how just as when I thought I had everything fixed... another problem has arisen.

Let me explain... But first my specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ S939
ASUS A8N SLI-DELUXE
3GB DDR400 RAM
OCZ GameXStream 850W
2 Optical Drives
2 IDE Hard Drives 120GB (Seagate) and 200GB (Maxtor)
1 SATA Drive 250GB (Seagate)
eVGA 8800GTS 320MB KO ACS3
SoundBlaster Audigy 2
Ledtek TV Tuner card

I got my new case a two days ago. Thermaltake Kandalf 9000 series. I should note that at this point I was still using another motherboard (MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum). So I took out my motherboard and drives etc and transferred them to the new case. I switch on the system and notice my mouse and keyboard don't work. They won't light up at all. I can't get into Windows Vista and am greeted with BSOD's. I try booting with Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration etc. and sometimes I get a little further but it still crashes. I tired taking out different memory sticks, but nothing really made a different. So I decide to reformat, and during the installation of Vista, it BSOD's. I tried twice, and disconnected and installed on different hard drives each time. Different BSODs happened at different times.

At this point I was desperate so I switched my motherboard for the one I listed in the specs above. I finally finished switching everything out and I turned it on. My mouse and keyboard still did not work (I am using another mouse and keyboard obviously), but I managed to get into Windows Vista without reformatting, although the board severely needed a BIOS update since it only recognised one core. Also one hard drive was corrupted. So I thought the problem was the motherboard and that I had solved it but that the mouse and keyboard had remained damaged by it.

Today I woke up and wanted to flash the BIOS and reinstall Vista since it was in such a mess. So I installed a floppy drive I had in the case, but in my inpatience from the day before and with the whole current situation, I mis-plugged the power supply to the floppy and only plugged in 3 of the pins in. There was a burning smell when I turned it on and needless to say the floppy fried. At this point also, the Power LED of the Kandalf case stopped working as well, so now I have to RMA that. So I took everything out of the case and put it back in the old one and packed up the Kandalf and got an RMA number. I switched on the computer and installed XP so as to flash the BIOS with the utility ASUS provides which doesn't work in Vista at this point. I used a USB flash drive to download the data on another computer and then transfer it to the computer I wanted to flash the BIOS of. After flashing the BIOS the CPU was recognized and then I reinstalled Vista. Everything seemed to be working fine now.

This is where I'm at now:

Tonight I tried to install my USB printer and had some problems. After the install of the drivers, I couldn't print anything! Device manager said the printer was installed with the correct and updated driver but was not showing up in the list of Printers and printing a test page did nothing. I then tried to plug in some other USB devices and noticed that they were not working either. They were not being powered from the computer. I tried a flash drive, and I replugged my mouse, only to find it not working. So I am now plugging the mouse into the PS/2 port instead. The flash drive LED light no longer illuminates.

I find this very strange since the USB ports were working fine before (I flashed the BIOS in Windows XP with the flash drive, and the mouse I was using was USB, but now no longer works in the USB port).

So could something be causing all these components to fail? Obviously yes the Power Supply is a likely culprit, but it is a fairly new power supply, only a few months old and it's not a low quality one by any means either. Could it also just be that this motherboard is faulty also? It is rather old but it seems unlikely that BOTH motherboards could be bad. On the other hand the power supply being defective seems unlikely too since it is brand new and a good one. I don't think the floppy frying incident had anything to do with it since the motherboard, mouse and keyboard failed before that ever happened.

I know it is kind of sounding like the power supply is the bad guy here and I think I am gonna RMA that too just to be sure, but can anyone give me some idea of what another cause could be? Is there any sure way to test that the power supply is defective? What does everyone think is the problem here and what I should do?

I know this is a mega sized post but I would really really reallyyyyyyyyyy appreciate it if some could read it and give me some feedback, I am really getting frustrated with everything failing on me.

Main points:

-mouse, keyboard and motherboard stop working
-have to change motherboard and everything works
-after reinstalling Vista, USB ports no longer work, they do not power devices, system does not recognise USB devices despite drivers being correctly installed
-could Power Supply Unit be causing devices to fail one by one and is there a way to test a power supply or should I just RMA the sucker

One last thing: I do have another PSU I can try my system with (Enermax Noisetaker 485W) but I fear the damage has already been done and I won't notice any difference if I try the other PSU.

 

[vanvock]

Have you checked the BIOS for any USB related settings?

 

[KAZANI]

Why suspect the PSU, if it was functioning normally with the previous box? The way it seems to me this disastrous experience started with the new case. Have you tested the initial motherboard, keyboard and mouse if they are working with the old case? If they do, then it's definitely the move to the new case that caused it all. Maybe you screwed some wiring, like you did with that floppy, or the case had some fault.

 

[LightningRider]

I have checked the motherboard for USB settings. USB Controller is enabled, Legacy Support is Enabled and USB 2.0 is enabled. Those are the only settings.

KAZANI, I don't see how a case can effect the rest of the system. But I tried the keyboard and mouse in another computer when it happened and they did not work. I suspect that perhaps the PSU has been faulty from the start and has been slowly damaging the components over time. It just doesn't make sense that TWO motherboards are having problems, one seems to have failed completely the other is only showing USB problems for the moment.

What else could be damaging components like that?

 

[vanvock]

Maybe the motherboard is shorting out on the case somewhere. Try running it out of the case on cardboard & check all mounting points, make sure there are not any unused standoffs & that they are all in the right place.

 

[LightningRider]

I will check but I don't think it's that. I mean I changed the motherboard so many times moving from different cases, every time I made sure to screw all 9 screws into the mounts for an ATX motherboard/case. I also made sure to take any fallen loose screws out of the case.

 

[montag451]

Try disconnecting all non essential hw.
ALL pci cards, all drives except boot drive - you get the picture.
What happens now?

 

[LightningRider]

Have tried that, tried taking out different memory modules one by one, different hard drives etc.

I doubt that would cause USB ports not to work at all.

 

[KAZANI]

Originally posted by: LightningRider I tried the keyboard and mouse in another computer when it happened and they did not work.

What about the first mobo, did you try it too?

I suspect that perhaps the PSU has been faulty from the start and has been slowly damaging the components over time. It just doesn't make sense that TWO motherboards are having problems, one seems to have failed completely the other is only showing USB problems for the moment.

So you think the move to the new box and the onset of the symptoms just coincided? You can never know of course but I tend not to believe in coincidences when it comes to computer panics.

As suggested above it could be that protruding solder points at the back of the motherboard came into contact with the case and caused a nasty short circuit.

Anyway, I hope you get to the bottom of this soon and post back, I would be very interested to see what triggered such a horrid cascade of component failure.

 

[LightningRider]

Yeah, well I just have never known cases to really cause problems with the rest of a system. I mean the case doesn't really do anything with the system, no? Anyways, I will check the grounding and make sure nothing metal is touching the motherboard when I get home (man work is taking forever!).

I am also gonna test another PSU and see if my USB's get powered. Hopefully if it is the PSU, the USB ports are simply not being powered and they weren't fried instead...

If my USB's come on I will be extremely happy as I guess the PSU was the problem, but if not, maybe the damage has already been done too. I really don't want to have to buy a new system just cause of this stupid incident.