- Nov 6, 2009
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After a session of testing four fans -- 12v, two low-Voltage adapters, 7v and 5v, and then the same five tests again, this time through a dust filter -- I said to myself, 'Why are you using a 7v adapter with no RPM line? So I made a temporary 7v adapter from a Scythe adapter, repositioning the Molex lines to 12v and 5v for a net of 7v. Just like the 7v adapter I was already using, but with an RPM line. No RPM signal, alas.
But I had forgotten to insulate the other ends of the 12v and 5v wires. They must have touched and -- instant off.
Sloppy. I figured I had tripped the short protection on the PSU.
I turned of the power, waited a bit, powered up and . . . nothing. Well, the PSU is fanless. So I pulled out my 650W unit with the built-in fan profile. Hooked that up and powered on. The fan spun, the way it does to show you that it did respond to being turned on. The fan on the heatsink spun, but then stopped. The PSU and the heatsink kept spinning up, then dying. Uh-oh.
Put in the clear CMOS jumper with all powered down, waited ten seconds, then pulled it off. Tried again. The two fans kept trying, but the system stayed dead. I tried starting it with the CLR_COMS jumper in. Not even a fan twitch. So out it came and I tried powering up again. No joy.
By now I'm figuring the short somehow sent a Voltage spike down the RPM line and killed the motherboard. That's the only connection.
Did I kill my old friend? It's a Gigabyte P55A-UD3P. I can probably salvage the CPU, the SSD and the RAM, not to mention heatsink, etc. I need to test the fanless PSU (Seasonic X-460FL), but when I put it back on and tried to power up, it did turn on long enough to run the fan.
Just remembered I had a shunt -- lead 4 to ground on the ATX24. I just used it, and the fanless PSU powered up my test fan just fine, so it's definitely the motherboard or something attached to it.
I'd like to know if I need to get a new motherboard. It's a double loss if I do: my copy of Win7 is OEM, so it's motherboard-specific, not supposed to run on other systems. There's $80 right there.
Any chance of resurrection?
But I had forgotten to insulate the other ends of the 12v and 5v wires. They must have touched and -- instant off.
Sloppy. I figured I had tripped the short protection on the PSU.
I turned of the power, waited a bit, powered up and . . . nothing. Well, the PSU is fanless. So I pulled out my 650W unit with the built-in fan profile. Hooked that up and powered on. The fan spun, the way it does to show you that it did respond to being turned on. The fan on the heatsink spun, but then stopped. The PSU and the heatsink kept spinning up, then dying. Uh-oh.
Put in the clear CMOS jumper with all powered down, waited ten seconds, then pulled it off. Tried again. The two fans kept trying, but the system stayed dead. I tried starting it with the CLR_COMS jumper in. Not even a fan twitch. So out it came and I tried powering up again. No joy.
By now I'm figuring the short somehow sent a Voltage spike down the RPM line and killed the motherboard. That's the only connection.
Did I kill my old friend? It's a Gigabyte P55A-UD3P. I can probably salvage the CPU, the SSD and the RAM, not to mention heatsink, etc. I need to test the fanless PSU (Seasonic X-460FL), but when I put it back on and tried to power up, it did turn on long enough to run the fan.
Just remembered I had a shunt -- lead 4 to ground on the ATX24. I just used it, and the fanless PSU powered up my test fan just fine, so it's definitely the motherboard or something attached to it.
I'd like to know if I need to get a new motherboard. It's a double loss if I do: my copy of Win7 is OEM, so it's motherboard-specific, not supposed to run on other systems. There's $80 right there.
Any chance of resurrection?
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