PSU went up in smoke, did it take my mobo with it?

[meatfestival]

Hello all

Last week my Enermax Noisetaker 600w SLi exploded with a rather impressive cloud of orange sparks and smoke when I tried to switch it on... I RMA'ed it and just got a nice new Noisetaker II today.

I hooked it all up, and my motherboard's flea power LEDs come on, as does the ethernet port's LED, but when I press the PC's power switch, I hear a tic as the fans come on for half a second, then they go off again. I've also tried pressing the power switch on the mobo itself - same thing. Mobo is a DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI

The motherboard's 4 diagnostic LEDs also flash on for a moment. I've tried disconnecting all but the bare minimum components necessary, but it's no good. If I hold the power button in, it just does the on/off thing continuously.

I dug out an old Athlon XP motherboard and hooked up the new PSU to that, but the same thing happens. However I don't have an actual CPU to put in it (I did connect a few drives and fans though), so I'm wondering if perhaps the PSU explosion killed my Athlon 64.

The reason being, I seem to recall reading something about how PSUs won't stay powered on if there isn't enough load on them.. would the lack of a CPU fit that bill? Someone on another board tells me that Socket A and 939 boards should power on without a CPU, can anyone confirm?

Really have no idea where to start with this, so would be grateful for any pointers. I could just RMA everything but it'll cost me a fortune in shipping, so preferably not...

I have SLI 7800 GTXes, tried each graphics card individually, still the same.

I will probably RMA the mobo. I've also been planning on upgrading to an Athlon X2, so I'll probably just buy that now as well. If that works, I'll test the old CPU and see if it also needs an RMA...

 

[Atheus]

I do not know if it should power up without a CPU - I've never tried this, however, if you want to test the PSU, you can short the green and black wires with a paperclip and it will power up any fans or whatever connected to it.

I had an Antec Truepower blow up once and it did kill my NF7-S motherboard...

 

[JBT]

PC's won't turn on with out a CPU.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Your old mb won't power up without a signal from a cpu fan.

You may have lost the newer mb though.

 

[meatfestival]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Your old mb won't power up without a signal from a cpu fan.

Ah, I might look at this again... I did connect one to the CPU fan connector, but it may not have had the necessary 3 wires

 

[imported_nocturne]

I would imagine a computer wouldn't be able to function at all without a cpu installed (something has to process everything)... I'm not willing to test it though (AFAIK the BARE essentials to get any response from the computer is psu, mobo, and cpu, as no mem will give an error beep code).

To me, it seems that if your PSU went out in such a hail of sparks and glory, it would be almost impossible for the mobo to suffer no harm. But in any case, the cpu should be fine (only way I have seen a cpu fail is by overheating or by being purely defective from the start).

BTW... if you bought your cpu OEM, you can't RMA it.

 

[meatfestival]

Originally posted by: nocturne
I would imagine a computer wouldn't be able to function at all without a cpu installed (something has to process everything)... I'm not willing to test it though (AFAIK the BARE essentials to get any response from the computer is psu, mobo, and cpu, as no mem will give an error beep code).

To me, it seems that if your PSU went out in such a hail of sparks and glory, it would be almost impossible for the mobo to suffer no harm. But in any case, the cpu should be fine (only way I have seen a cpu fail is by overheating or by being purely defective from the start).

BTW... if you bought your cpu OEM, you can't RMA it.

It's a PIB so should be covered by AMD.

I hooked up my new PSU to my dad's PC and it powers up fine, so I can take that out of the equation. I also tested my drives and sound card in his PC and they were OK. It seems quite likely that it is the motherboard. I'll see if I can borrow a PCI express graphics card from a friend just to make sure it's not that.