wierd power issue

[boom314]

so i bought a computer from my friend a few months ago who had upgraded to a whole new rig. well i just got around to installing an OS on it and i was going to fiddle around. I had an error installing Windows so i rebooted and attempted to reinstall.

while it was rebooting i went into the other room to find a disc, when i came back i smelled what seemed like burning dust. (you know, the smell when you turn on an electric heater after a whole year and it has that smell) i noticed that there was no image on the television and the dvd drive wouldn't eject. i held in the power button to power off the machine and it didn't do anything. so i flipped the switch on the back and waited a few minutes.

I attempted to power it back up and i could still not get the disc drive to open nor any image on the screen. i unplugged the drive and checked the molex plug for power and had the correct voltages so i figured the power supply was still good. plugged that back in and still couldn't get the drive to open. So i unplugged the graphics card and still nothing. I took out the graphics card and then i could open the drive.

Did the graphics card fry? it doesnt smell of burnt anything. perhaps my PCI-e slot is messed up? what are the chances that i ruined the motherboard?

 

[Salatheon]

I'd try the graphics card in another system and if that works try a different power supply, also unplug all the drives and other PCI cards, and power on the system.

 

[boom314]

i will have to try and find a friend who will let me try components, i dont have any spare parts here. ill try with no drives plugged in.

 

[boom314]

so i inspected the card and it shows no signs of burning. im going to try and remove the card then use my on board graphics to see if that works. i bought this whole setup for 250 and i dont want to spend alot more money on something else

 

[C1]

If you smelled electrical overheating then there is an outstanding chance that the responsible component has retained a telltale odor. I would carefully try to sniff out which component has fried. You can only do a little bit of sniffing or a few sniffs at a time as the sense of smell becomes desensitized or tires readily.

 

[Atheus]

Yup sounds like you definately fried something. The most likely component IMO is the PSU itself - I've had units in the past which had blown caps and all sorts of problems but would still output 12V to a multimeter and so seem fine at first glance. If you bought the whole system for 250USD it's probably a truly rubbish PSU...

If you've got another machine to try the components in I'd do that - graphics card first, then RAM and CPU. Do not try the blown PSU in another system you might fry that one too. If everything works in another system you're down to the mobo or PSU. Could be both.

 

[boom314]

well when i smelled the burning i did try to smell parts, and the power supply exhaust did have a burned odor. would it still smell? should i not try to power on the machine again?

 

[boom314]

ok so i borrowed a friends spare power supply, its rated at 305w so i only plugged in the motherboard, video card and hard drive and i couldnt get any video to come out of the onboard or the graphics card. does this mean i need a new motherboard?

 

[mlc]

you need a stick of ram before you try posting....

And if you get nothing, then try pulling cord, and then the battery, and clearing the CMOS jumpers .. to clear bios to see if you get anything

 

[boom314]

well i had ram on the board, i meant other accessories. what do you mean by cord? at one point i only had the motherboard, ram and cpu in and still couldnt get it to post

 

[BoomerD]

You want to unplug the box from the wall. That's what he means by "pulling the cord."
You don't want power to the board when you remove the battery.

Your PC won't boot without a video card...how could you see it if it did?
(unless, of course, if your processor and board had on-board video)

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Thats the smell of your psu

 

[boom314]

the power supply was under warranty and is currently on its way back to newegg for a replacement

my motherboard has onboard graphics, thats what i was trying. i cleared the cmos and still didnt get anything. ill try pulling the battery and try again.

*edit* just pulled the battery and tried to post. nothing came up, i think i im going to try and rma the motherboard since it is still under warranty as well

 

[boom314]

ok so i just thought about something. if the board powers up and the CPU fan turns on would the board be bad or could my cpu be fried?

 

[BoomerD]

COULD still be either one.

 

[boom314]

well i googled the board and found that some people have problems when the chipset heatsinks are loose, and both of them are loose. they "fix" it by pushing them back down. im going to try that when i get home