mckinnley

i've been building my PC from the ground up for about a month now. so today i got the last of all the parts i need, the psu. so i plugged it into the motherboard and all of the peripherals and pressed the power button... nothing happened. then i fiddled around with it for about an hour and it just refuses to turn on. i have all the parts i need, that is, the CPU motherboard, RAM, video card, audio card, monitor, keyboard, and all the disc drives. they are all plugged in and should be ready to go.

also, i have the psu set to 115v, i'm pretty sure that's what it should be but i've tried both settings and it doesn't work either way. according to all logic, my computer should be working perfectly.

RipperRoo

if you have tried both settings the chances are you have blown the internal fuse in the PSU, what country are you in? cause in the UK its 240volt (220 setting on PSU) - couldnt tell you about anywhere else.

you should be ok and only need to replace the psu, it is possible to just replace the fuse but its soldered in and not recomended as you may end up inadvertantly blowing the rest of your system if you make a mistake.

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mckinnley

you mean just by flipping the switch it could break it? well i don't think it did that because i didn't hear any kind of sound come from it. also i had it at 115v while i was trying everything and it didn't turn on at all the whole time. i only set it to the higher voltage when i was trying every last possible thing, but nothing happened to it and i learned about 5 minutes later that it should be at 115v. so that's fine. the jpanel is what i put the power button into right? because i've tried every possibility and nothing happens with any of them. it's weird, usually you would get at least something from it, but it's acting as if it's just not plugged in (which it is).



edit: i swear to god i want to throw this thing arcross the room. i've spent hundreds of dollars on it, i've been waiting for weeks for all of the parts to get here, i've ***embled it exactly how it should but the thing just won't turn on! i've never seen this problem before in my life, if everything is connected then it should just f**king GO! but it won't, it has to be a little bastard like that. i was so excited about getting it but the stupid thing just refuses to do what it's supposed to do, it doesn't make any sense. i seriously need help with this, i've ***embled computers in the past but every time i've done it the thing at least turns on. i've had other problems before but never this, i've always at least been able to turn it on, it's just so simple but my computer refuses to do it for absolutely no reason. i've gone onto many different forums with people who have the same problem but not a single person has the same problem that i have, as i've said before... it doesn't make any sense. i'm really starting to hate this thing.

RipperRoo

it can happen, but only if it should be on 240 and you switch it to 115 from what i understand - had a PC in just last week that that had happened to.

from what you are saying you dont appear to of referenced the motherboard manual to find out the correct pins to connect to so i would suggest poping over to http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en-us...er.php?S_ID=283 and getting a copy, a torch may be an idea as well as it can be hard to see the markings on the board when its inside the case

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A7V8X xp2600 Barton SLK 97U, GeForce FX 5700, 1GB 2700DDR Ram
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Epson R265 With CIS, HP 2500C With CIS
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mckinnley

yes but if i've tried every single possible combination then it can't be that, sure i don't know which one turns it on but logically if you were to try every single one then it would do at least something.


edit: the manual doesn't say which ones control the power, in fact it only references the jpanel once and that's just to say it's name.

mckinnley

ok, so i found out that the reason why it wouldn't turn on was because i didn't have the little plastic pieces that short certain wires in the right places. so i put them in right and i pushed the button, and it turned on! so it went for a couple of seconds without it showing anything on the monitor, i'm not sure why. but then all of a sudden it just shut off. so i was wondering, why did it turn off? so i felt the CPU and after just about 30 seconds it had overheated! i was so confused, i didn't think it would overheat in such a short amount of time. i was lucky that i have a thing on my motherboard that shuts it off if the CPU is too hot. so i put the fan on (which i should have done in the first place) and waited for it to cool down some more. so i turned it on again and i still got nothing on the monitor. then after about a minute the thing shut off again due to the CPU overheating again. i don't have any of the cream stuff on it but i didn't think that it would matter that much, is that why it won't work? so i haven't turned it on again since i'm afraid of breaking my computer. it's weird that it would overheat that quickly, is there any reason why that happened? did i do something wrong?

mckinnley

ok, so i found out that there were two power supplies to the CPU and i should only have one of them in, ok so that problem was solved. but when i turn it on now there is still nothing appearing on the screen. but my biggest problem is that the graphics card that i spent $120 on starts smoking every time i turn it on! it's terrible, i got so afraid when i saw that, it started smoking immediately when i turned it on, does this mean that it's fried? or does it still have a chance? god damn it, why the hell does this have to be so hard?

so is there any way of saving my graphics card?

RipperRoo

if its smoking its dead, at this point i would advise taking what you have left to a qualified PC tech and seeing what they can save if anything.

i also suggest before attempting to build another PC that you spend some time reading the manuals that come with the parts such as the motherboard before you take anything out of its box as from what you have said i doubt that was something you did this time.

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Epson R265 With CIS, HP 2500C With CIS
HP NX6125 Laptop 1gb memory

Lion7718

Humm JF<------

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killer_cow

First of all,



Yes, very easily. And it doesn't matter if you switch from 220 to 115, or vice versa. If it is plugged in WHILE you flick the switch over, you COULD be running power to the PSU circuit through 2 seperate transformer circuits. This can cause havok to your PSU (especially if it was cheap! [ie. with minimal protection against aggressive voltage transformations]).

The fact you got it working again tho, says that you got away with it. Be careful in future and set that switch BEFORE plugging in the PSU.




The 'cream stuff' that you should DEFINATELY have is called Thermal Paste. It optimises the transfer of heat from you CPU to the heatsink. You need this paste to make up for the uneven contact between your CPU and heatsink (because neither is ever going to be perfectly flat).

Another potential issue is that the CPU cooling solution you chose was insufficient for the heat the CPU gives out. This could be your problem if it wasn't a cooler that came in the same box as the CPU.



Ditto.



Again, I completely agree, you need to read the manuals each and every time you build a new computer, requirements can change dramatically* between different PC configurations.

(*maybe im being over dramatic )

The CPU overheating, however, I'm convinced was due to the lack of thermal paste.

The smoking graphics card sounds like a manufacturing fault (or damaged PSU! causing damaged to your graphics card).

Either way, for this expensive machine of yours get a qualified technician to take a look at it.

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