Dead Mobo?

So, I was upgrading the ram in my machine from 512 of TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM RAM to 1 GB of Corsair CMX 512 3200C2 RAM

Opened up the pc, slotted them in, booted up. 2-3 seconds into the boot, pc shuts down accompanied with the distinct stench of burned electronics. Osht.



I Am/Was running

300 W Mercury PSU
P4 2.8 Ghz
ASUS P4P800 Mobo
ATI Radeon 9600 Graphics Card

Drives don't seem relavant to this problem


Help?

 

pull out the motherboard > check the bottom > is it burnt anywhere? > pull out the cpu > is it burnt anywhere? > if one or both of these are burnt up you'll have to replace them. Also make sure your ram is still ok and not burnt up.

 

Neither of them -Seem- burned, but my thermal paste between processor and heatsink is black , and the ram bays smell of burny.

No signs of burning or charring on the underside of the motherboard

See pics

 

apply more thermal paste to the cpu and heat sink, also is the fan on the cpu's heatsink still plugged in?

is your ram burnt?

 

Yes, all fans were connected, can't see any burns on the ram, Corsair have put heatsinks over the chips -.-


-EDIT-

Small burn found on one of the corsair sticks of ram

 

Thermal paste first then,

take that stick out and try using just the one stick.

does this alow it to boot?

 

I tried to boot with the old ram before pulling the entire thing apart, didn't boot, no post, HDD light permanantly on

 

ok, lets try to narrow down our problem the oldskool way,

take out your ram and turn on the pc. does the machine come on a beep at you?

if this isn't the problem, start to unplug one thing at a time until you unplug the thing that is causing the hickup.

I'm thinking your ram slots or your cpu might be toast, but i'm not sure. try this and let me know what you find out.

 

I took a sniff of the ram slots, they reek of burned electronics, so I'm pretty certain thats it. There are no signs of any burning to the processor at all

Will try and boot w/o ram later, pc is currently in bits

Any idea what could have caused this?

 

bad pin on the ram, a 12 century demon possessed your pc and said hahahahahaha i'll burn your ram, mormons, whatever it is lets pray it's gone for good and that by getting a new mobo this won't ever happen again.

 

Great, gotta find a socket 479 board now -.-

And get an RMA on this ram.

I wonder if I can trade it in for TwinMOS

 

Apologies for the double post.

Can you reccomend another motherboard, or should I get another P4P800?

 

i think u meant socket 478 since thats what the p4p800 is Ive got the p4p800-e deluxe and have had no problems what-so-ever with it and the overclocking options are great and the preset OC settings are great (OC 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%) really takes all the guess work outta OC if your new at it. It has tons of features too and even has a mobo slot specifically designed for an ASUS wi-fi card. its kinda expensive for an older socket but it really gave my aging system life.

 

I think what happened was one of the ram sticks was not fully seated when you turned the machine on, and the board, if im not mistaken the p4 mobiles are 479. ed

 

yes my mistake, meant 478

The ram was correctly seated, triple checked before booting up

 

depending on the age of your system (when u bought ur mobo) you may be able to get it replaced under warranty since mobos arent supposed to fry themselves lol

 

check into what viper_boy403 said, cause from what you're saying it wasn't anything you did. maybe they sold you a jacked up mobo?