I Fried Something...Please Help

I just brought home my brand new Asus A8N SLI Deluxe, AMD 64 4000+ (FX-53) and GeForce 7800 GT/GTX

I read the whole manual before doing anything....I then inserted 3 plastic supports on the left side of the Chasis, and set the mother board on top, placing 3 metal screws on the right side, and one in the middle (The manual told me to use 9, so I improvised) I hooked everything up the way it was supposed to...or so I thought...

I hooked everything back up, turned on the power supply, and hit the powerbutton...first thing that happened, was a small noise that sounded like a shock (Im not an idiot, I know thats not good) followed by a burning smell (Even worse) However...all the fans are running, and the Motherboard Starup screen shows up and says to hit 'delete' to enter Setup, so I do. Eventually the Bios shows up....however...my CD Rom is not working, and none of my IDE Drives show up in the Bios....

My question is this....what did I Fry...and can it be replaced without sending back the motherboard...

 

Check and make sure that your ide cables are firmly connected to your drives, Also make sure your power connectors are firmly plugged in as well.

 

So the fact that I heard a shock sound and smelled burning doesnt concern you? You think that becuase it boots into the Bios everything is okay? Im wondering if somehow I fried the IDE controler. Is this even possible? Ill check the connections and cables again...however...my CD ROM should still open, but it has no power whatsoever....Im at work right now, so I can only check the forums to see opinions, I wont be able to physically try it out for another 8 hours

 

First let me offer you my deepest sympathy. This is a terrible thing to happen with such a nice system. Don't panic. I'm sure someone on here will have an idea.

(I don't but I'm sure someone has)

 

I was just informed...and I PRAY...that this is what happened...I fried my Power Supply....that being the reason, its not detecting any of my IDEs, and my DVD Burner wont even open....But the rest of the fans work, and the motherboards boots into the BIOS....too much hardware for my 500 Watt? What do you guys think, is this a possibility?

 

I think a 500w power supply would handle that.
I'm glad you think it's not something serious!

 

Too much hardware for a 500W PSU? No. Do you have it in the correct voltage setting?
But, if you would like to check it, you can do so with a multimeter. They're great tools if you don't own one, and can usually be accquired for cheap. Assuming that it is an ATX power supply, set the multimeter into a voltmeter setting, with a range of about 20V.Take a spare power lead from your PSU and connect the black probe to a black PSU lead. Take the red probe and connect it to a yellow lead and you should get a reading of 10.8V to 13.2V. Take the red probe and connect it to a red PSU lead. You should get a reading of 4.5V to 5.5V. If the power output falls within these tolerances, your PSU should be in good working condition.

 

Hmm well...I my motherboard says, that for a Dual 6800 configuration, my PSU needs to have a Minimum of 500 Watts...and right now, im already pulling 1 x 7800....so I went ahead and bout a new PSU anyway, becuase I will need one eventually....here is the one I bought.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=370559

That should more than suffice, heh. When I get home tonight, im going to replace the Ribbon cables, and if that doesnt work, try different PSU 4 Pins to see if just a select few got blown...

I mainly think its a PSU problem, becuase everything works but the IDE Drives, and my CD Rom isnt getting power, which makes me think the HDD Drives arent either, causing them to not be detected. Any other opinions, or does this sound like it very well could be...

 

See if you can plug it into another computer. If it fried already, it shouldn't do it again, but I'd take care.

 

IDE Cables are plugged in firmly, as are the Power Cables....I now have a new problem..

I switched out my new IDE cables with the old ones incase that worked...I unplugged my DVD Drive, as well as my cords from my DVD Drive to my Sound Card. I also Disconnected the power and the IDE from my Slave HDD, so now all I have hooked up are the Video Card, and the Primary HDD. This time it actually boots...it does the BIOS Check..and I get the ever dreaded error

DISK BOOT FAILURE. PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK yadda yadda

I tried all the IDEs on that drive, and made sure everything was plugged in...still no detection...Any suggestions?

P.S. I tried hooking the slave up at the same time with the same IDE, and it doesnt detect that either when I go into the BIOS.

 

Wait do you have an os on the hd? If so the hd could be blown. I feel your pain had one die about a month back. I was mad as anything and had to waste all my cash on a new hd (kinda pricy when your in high school and too young for a job so you do anything possible to make a quick buck. Then in a few months i got something called gasoline prices to worry bout (how fun)). Anyaway, if you wanna check your harddrive to see if that blew, plug it in to another and if it does the same thing, even with an os installed, its your hd.
-the new tech guy
PS: If it was power relate, other things could have blown too.

 

My question is what kind of power supply, as many generic powersupplies aren't worth crap, even though claiming to be 500 watt.

 

I use a generic psu on my pc from compusa. Its there brand and it runs completly silent and i havent had a problem with it yet.
-the new tech guy

 

Well I hope its not the HD Luckily I had nothing important on my 40 gig, other than my OS, and a few othe programs that are easy to recover. Everything that was important was on my 80 gig....now if that blew as well...which it very well could have...Then Ill be pissed, and Ill be more than willing to pay the $400 or whatever it will cost to get everything recovered on it.

Now I dont understand how both drives could just crash....they both worked with no problems before, and I dont see how I could have caused a power surge with the same power supply I had been using

Im not sure what kind of power supply it is....Ill go check and get back to you guys...

 

Well i know when my hd went i got a good one and set everything up on that. Then i took the dead one and hooked it up as a secondary hd and i was able to access it in windows that way and recover data off of it before destroying it.
-the new tech guy

 

Okay Its a Okia Switching Power Supply....Does anyone know what the switch on the back of the PSu needs to be set to?

Ive officially tried everything. I tried my 80 gig as the Master and tried both my Old IDE Cable and the new one that came with the board....still no recognition....Im at a loss

 

That's a generic one afaik, I'm guessing it's the one that came with the case? Most of the time generics are OK, but they are far more likely to crap out than a non-generic, and seeing how much you spend on the rest of your parts, you can't afford a cheap-o PSU.

And that switch on the back is a power switch .. should be set to on (the 1 sign) or 0 for off.

If you think it's the PSU that did it, I would wait and install the new one. Then download a program called knoppix It's a linux live CD so you can boot with no hard drive(I'm assuming you know know how to burn an ISO?). Don't put any hard drives in and put an old CD player in. Take all but the unneed components out. Just use 1 stick of RAM, the mobo, the video card. Stick in the cd and go. Should be easy enough to figure out how to boot it. You come to a screen and you can press F2 for options, I use knoppix26 to boot it. You can use tuxracer and glxgears to test your setup, although they may or may not work due to other reasons. But if it boots and you surf the net or whatever for an hour or two most likely your hardware isn't terribly damaged.

 

Well god I hope not...However...On the PSU....I know the On and Off switch...I may be a noob, but come on, give me a little more credit...no the switch im talking about is red, and its a great deal smaller than the on/off switch....if I remember correctly, it is a voltage/wattage switch, but I could be mistaking.....I will try what you say....my new PSU doesnt arrive for two more days....i will keep you informed...I really appreciated all your input...Thank you so much.

 

That little typically red switch, should say 115.

 

Triaxx2 is assuming it's a voltage switch. He's probably right, but he's assuming all readers of this forum are in North America. Readers elsewhere should take care to make sure it's set for the AC mains voltage in their area. For instance, British readers should set it for 220 volts. Failure to do so when necessary will likely destroy the PSU.

 

What you've done may set you up for several problems.

By my count, two stand-offs are missing, and three are non-conductive plastic. That means that there may be several areas that do not have a ground connection (to the chassis) that the board designers were counting on. Under some circumstances, this might lead to erratic operation and/or an increase in radio-frequency interference emissions.

The missing stand-offs will leave the mobo unsupported in those areas. If too much pressure is exerted in those areas (say, by inserting a peripheral or memory card), a cracked mobo is a likely result. They don't work very well after they've been cracked. This could be an explanation for the symptoms you've reported.

As a general rule: if there is a solder pad around the mounting hole in the motherboard, use a metal stand-off. The designer is assuming an electrical connection to the chassis at that point. The solder pad also reinforces the board to take the pressure exerted by the stand-off's nut. If there is no solder pad, use a plastic mount. Using a metal stand-off may short something to ground that was not supposed to be, and the stand-off's nut will exert the wrong kind of pressure on the mobo at that point.

 

*Sigh* So it COULD be my motherboard....it COULD be my HDDs, and it COULD be my PSU...is there anything I can do, to start ruling these out, and come to a final conclusion of what actually is the problem?

I dont think I cracked my Mobo...I didnt hear any cracking sounds, and I was very careful in the placement of the Mobo, as well as compensating for the lack of support when inserting a sound Card/Video Card/Network....etc...

My PSU should be here in a couple days. How would you reccoment I go about installing it? Should I just install it, plug it in, and start up the system? Or should I unhook all my cards/drives, and just plug the PSU into the MOBO and see what happens?

 

Well when you hook up the psu i would recommend you unplug the power and any other periphrial outside the system ie mouse,keyboard etc. But to rule bad parts from good ones there is only one thing you can do buddy, and that is to hook up the periphrials to another working computer and see if anything goes when you flip the switch.
-the new tech guy

 

Re your hard drive(s):

If possible, I'd try setting up your drives (one at a time) in another machine that boots an OS that can read the filesystem in use on your drive. See if that system can access your drive. Don't try to boot from your drive when it's mounted in another system, so set it up as something other than primary master or make sure the BIOS won't try to boot from it.

Have you tried booting your system from a floppy drive or bootable CD-ROM to see if the drive(s) can be accessed? If you can access the hard drive(s) that way, there's no need to mount the drive in another system -- but run the tests below anyway.

If you can get access to the drive, do the following:

• run ScanDisk (or another such program) to confirm data and surface integrity.
• Then run the drive manufacturer's diagnostics to test the hardware in the drive. You should be able to d/l the diagnostics software from the drive manufacturer's website.

 

Unfortunately I do not have another PC in my household...im using my GFs PowerBook to talk on here. I ordered my parts online, on both www.ZipZoomFly.com as well as www.Newegg.com and ive got about 10 more days to return the parts if I need to. Once i get my PSU, I will take everything out, except the motherboard, and one Drive. Ill just take it one step at a time, and see what happens. I will keep you all informed.

 

Rob M, is right, I did forget to mention that this is area specific, but I was speaking directly to Unexperiencedn00b.

 

I'm with Rob on this one man. The MB could be shorting out ( touching the chassis ) or not getting the correct connection it requires. I've had this happen in the past.

I seriously doubt it's the PSU as it does make it to the BIOS. If you had no power then the sytem wouldn't even start up. It does make it to the post screen?

 

When I start it up...it brings up the A8N SLI screen, and at the bottom it says Press Del to enter Setup....so I do...the SLI Screen goes away, and it goes through one or two more checks before entetering the BIOS. It doesnt detect any of my IDEs, and wont even let me enter the Cylinders/Cycles etc...manually....

As I mentioned in the first post...when I started it all up the first time, after installing my new hardware (Motherboard, Video Card, and CPU) I heard a shock sound, and smelled burning...

If you say my motherboard is shorting out...do I need to return it for a new one? or is there something I can do, to get it to still work? I dont see how it can short out...the manual told me to screw the motherboard down with 9 screws...which it did not provide me with, and it didnt provide me with any of those plastic Support things either...also...the motherboard came with a CRAP load of other connectors, USB/Fire Wire cards, wires, and all kinds of other stuff, that it doesnt tell me what to do with...they assume I should know....also on the motherboard, there is a 4 pin powerconnecter...directly on the boar, right next to one of the SLI Slots...ive never seen this before

Do those of you who are thinking about getting the A8N SLI Deluxe....make sure you either know what you are doing, or you have help from someone who does, becuase after the basic installation of the board into your tower....you're on your own.

 

The four pin connecter is something new on motherboards, my psu has a hookup for it. It is for the new p4 / amd64 processors. you should make sure that you have a wire plugged into that to properly power the motherboard.
-the new tech guy

 

I sincerely hope you get to the bottom of this problem Unexperiencedn00b.

 

Alright, We have a breakthrough....I got my new PSU today...hooked everything up...and YES! DVD PLAYER DETECTED! lol...but still no HDD...Now I havea question...the HDD cable comes with three connectors...One goes in the Motherboard...and that leaves two left for the HDD...does it matter which one I hook into the HDD? The one in the middle, or the one on the end...they both fit....

 

Well i tried Both Drives, Tried each one on Slave and Master...Tried both my Old HDD Cable, and the brand new one that came with my Mobo...Both the drives are indeed getting power, when I lifted one up, it was vibrating...but it still doesnt detect them....so my final conclusion, is that I fried my drives....which I dont understand how this could have happened....I have one final question you guys...

If one drive does not have an OS on it...with the system detect the drive? I do not believe my 80 gig has an OS on it. If the system wont detect it without an OS on it, then I can take it over to my neighbors, set a partition on it, and install my copy of XP pro on it, and that should fix the problem...right? I still dont understand how I could have fried my 40 gig though...I did nothing differently

 

It should detect it as long as it's been formatted at one point. Can you boot from a floppy, or CD, and see if it'll manually move to those drives? Also, make sure that your drives are connected to the correct IDE plugs, HD's on 1, CD-DVD on 2, and be sure also that your processor works. I had a very similar problem recently, when all the drives would spool up, but nothing would happen, I couldn't even get beep codes, out of it. It turned out my processor had been fried. I had a friend who is a computer pack rat, who had one he let me borrow. You might want to see if a friend can loan you one to test.

 

You must correctly configure your hdds. 1 must be a slave, 1 a master. The slave goes on the middle connector, the master goes on the end. You have your DVD drive on a seperate cable right?

You need to format both drives (assuming they aren't fried). You can use fdisk for this. http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/ Do you know how to go into your bios and make your floppy drive the first boot device? (That's assuming that you have a floppy drive).

Alternatively you could try booting from your Windows XP CD. Go into your bios and make your DVD drive your first boot device, stick in your XP CD and boot her up. You can format and partition your hdds in the XP setup.

 

Ill try booting from the XP CD. Yes, the DVD is on the IDE 2 cable, and the HDD is on the Primart IDE Cable. The HDD is configured as master...the 80 gig, has a crap load of stuff on it, but I dont think it has an OS on it, seeing as it was my Storage HDD. the 40 gig on the other hand has XP Pro on it, but it still was not being detected. I will try booting fromthe CD when I get home from work today.

Also, the BIOS Detects my processor just fine, and clocks it at 2.4ghz, right where it should be.

 

Try putting the 40 gig one on the end of the cable with the jumpers set to master. Set the 80 gig one to slave and put it on the middle connector on the cable.

On the back of your hdd is some letters that represent master, slave or cable select. Move the small jumper accordingly.

 

Most new systems are going with CS (Cable Select) for ALL the drives!!!! that way the bios sorts out which ones are master & slave according to where they are connected to the cable!! Master being the connector all the way at the end, and slave being the other closest to the master!! And the Mobo connector being at the other end all by itself!!!!

Roger

 

Alrighty I will try both of those suggestions again when I get home...if all else fails, is it safe to assume I lost both My drives? Damn that really sucks...on well....It was time for a better drive anyway...my 80 gig was a Maxter 7200, and the 40 gig was a Seagate Baracuda UDMA 7200, heh.

 

SO the fact that it recognized my CD rom, tells me that its not the IDE controler on the board, and that probably nothing is wrong with my Motherboard at all....please say yes, lol.

 

I don't know, we need more info. Can you boot from CD or Floppy?

 

I will try it when I get home. I will be home in about 30 minutes. Should I just put my XP Pro CD in the Drive and change the boot sequence from the BIOS? Im sure thats what I do, I just want to make sure...I dont want to fry another component, lol

 

It should work like that.

 

Alright...I was able to boot from the CD....Windows Setup did not detect any Drives So I cant format and re-install... Also...I booted from the Mobo CD, and it wanted me to make a RAID SATA 16/32bit, RAID 16/32bit, Disk...and thats the only options the Mobo CD gave me.....well I dont have a floppy Drive, heh.

Also...I set both my HDDs on Cable Select, and put my 80 gig on the middle Connector, and the 40 gig (the one with the OS) on the end...still nothing.

Is it safe to assume I fried my drives? Or can it still possibly be something with the MOBO.....I need to hurry and try to rule out the Mobo problem, becuase Ive got another 7 days or so before i cant return it....So

Given what has been told so far....is it

A) My Hard Drives
B) My Motherboard

Keep in mind, when I first started this post, I mentioned hearing a shock sound, just a single sound, not like...a current on going frying sound, just a *Pop* followed by a burning smell....If a Hard Drive becomes fried....will it make this sound, followed by the smell? Or is this only Mobo Related?

I believe we are nearing the end of this post. I want to thank everyone for sticking with me through this. Wether we figure it out, or I buy new HDDS....were almost there!!

 

I forgot to mention I also set one drive on master and one on slave, and set it on it appropriate spot in the IDE cable, and I booted from both CDs again....still no Detection.

 

Well do you have another hd that you are not useing? Try an hd that you didnt have hooked up to the computer when the burning smell incident occured and see if the system detects that drive. If the bios sees the drive then your hd is blown. If not im sorry to say it, but its a good possiblility your mobo is blown. But if it works get new hds and you should be good to go.
-the new tech guy

 

Well I dont think the Mobo is blown...everything works...all the fans work....the BIOS is good, it detects my video card as well as the processor...Also it detects my DVD Rom which tells me nothing is wrong with the IDE Controller...so I dont see how it could be the motherboard...but I will see if I can get a hold of a HDD (I dont know where from) and test it out....

 

I guess im going to just go ahead and buy a new HDD anyway....(Ive been needing some more space for all my Graphics/Music programs, as well as my games) If I stick my potentially blown drives in my neighbors computer to test them, to see if they really are friend....is there a posibilty of frying his Mobo? I wouldnt think so....im just not sure how a friend drive would react when hooked up to another computer...

 

No if its bad the bios will either display an error or or the system simply wont detect it.
-the new tech guy

 

Okay good.