hi,

I'm new to building computers from scratch. I just bought all the parts (I though) I needed and received them the other day.

I have:

• Motherboard: PC CHIPS P53G motherboard
• Processor: Intel Celeron 1.8 GHz
• RAM: 2x 512 MB
• CD Drive: IDE DVD/CD ROM drive
• HDD: SATA 80GB HDD
• Case: Case w/ 500w PSU

I'm puting all this stuff together and I realise that the case has all these little wires coming from the front. theres one for the 2 USB ports on the front, one for the audio ports, and several really tiny 2pin wires for the LEDs and Powerbutton. I found pretty easily where the USB and audio cables go, but the power button wire and LEDs had a little issue I can't figure out. first of all, the case wants me to plug in a HDD LED, reset sw, power led, and a power sw. second, the motherboard manual says to plug all this in "panel1" - panel 1 has 4x pins on the top and 5x pin on the bottom. is looks like this

l - - - - l
l - - - - - l

its labeled starting from upper left

• FP PWR/SLP +
• FP PWR/SLP -
• POWER SW P +
• POWER SW N -
• key (the upper right blank space)
• HD LED + (lower left to right now)
• HD LED -
• RESET SW N -
• RESET SW P +
• RSVD DNU

so, I put the HDD LED in where it syas to, same with the power sw, and reset sw. theres nothing FP PWR/SLP pins. the power led cable is confusing me, it has two diffrent endings to it, it ends up as a 3pin but where a white and green wirego into a 3pin but 2 black wires come out where the white and green wires went in. sorry if im confusing. but anyway, where do these plug in? it doesnt seem like theres a place for it to plug in.

well, while none of the power buttons are working, when I plug it in, all the fans ( 3 total, 1 case fan, 1 PSU fan, and one processor fan) turn on. and the hdd light is always on even though I didnt install it yet. and remember, I just pluged it in, I didnt press any buttons on the front of the case or anything.

Lastly, there were some power select jumpers on the motherboard. USBPWR_F2 and USBPWR_R1 both have a function for VCC (pin 1 + 2) and 5VSB (pin 2 + 3). when they are both on the 2 + 3 pin setting, the fans work, but nothing else.

so, what should I do?

thanks!

This post has been edited by NightNinja: Jul 15 2008, 07:51 AM

Welcome to G2G

Apologies for the delay in replying.

Having the power come on (i.e fans spin up etc) after plugging in the power cable is fairly common. To test whether the power switch is actually working, I suggest you plug in the power cable so that the fans spin up, then press and hold in the power switch on the front of the case. If the power hasn't gone off after about 4-5 seconds whilst keeping the power button pressed in, then the switch isn't working.

If it's not working, then I suggest you double check the connection to the motherboard first. Make sure you have identified the correct 2 wires by tracing them back to the switch itself.
Double check that you are connecting the 2 power wires to the correct pins on the board:

o_o_6_8
o_o_o_o
o_o_o_o_o

The 2 pins you need are 6 & 8 which are in the positions above. There is no polarity on these so it doesn't matter which wire connects to which pin.

Let me know how you get on

well, I took it to a tech friend. he looked at it and said that the motherboard was bad.
so im going to get another one.

also...
the 500w psu seems to be working fine. but, the psu says that it has -5v, but the power tester says its not working.
is that a bad psu then? and how can I tell what the motherboard needs?

thanks.

Don't worry about the -5V rail - this was only really used in much older systems, newer systems don't require it. So long as all the other rails are providing the correct voltage, then it should be fine.

ok, well the psu just um, blew up. I just got a new motherboard to relpace the other one, but when I set it up, it started sparking.
so I really need a new psu now. how can I tell which one to get, how can I tell what it needs? also, do you think the motherboard is fine still?


not having much luck with the first build..

First of all, what exactly was sparking? The PSU or the motherboard? Did it smell like something was burning out?

When this happened, were the motherboard & PSU both properly fitted & screwed in the case?

Can you tell me which motherboard you have? Is it identical to the first one (i.e PC CHIPS P53G)? If it's different, let me know the make & model number.

the psu was sparking, not the motherboard. edit- with a slight smell of smoke

they were both screwed down properly.

I got the exact same motherboard. - sorry I forgot to clarify all this before. I was in a little rush then.

also, I took out the psu and motherboard. the motherboard "looked" fine but i have no idea about the psu but am assuming its fried.

This post has been edited by NightNinja: Aug 1 2008, 02:03 PM

Hopefully the motherboard will be ok. I wouldn't risk trying the PSU again if it was sparking & definitely wouldn't want to connect it to a motherboard! Out of interest, was this a cheap PSU that came with the case? Is there a voltage selector on the back (i.e 110v/240v)?

yes and yes.

heres what it says on the psu -

ATX P4 POWER SUPPLY

AC INPUT - 115/230v, 5/2.5A, 50-60Hz
DC OUTPUT - +5v - +12v - -5V - -12V - +3.3v - +5VSB - TOTAl
KY-500ATX - 32A - 14A - 0.5A - 0.8A - 28A - 2A - 500w

Ok. (I'm assuming that the voltage selector was set correctly for the country that you're in...?)

In answer to your other question about how to pick a new PSU:
I always recommend buying a decent brand of PSU. Cheap ones just aren't worth the risk as you've just discovered....
Good brands include Antec, OCZ, Hiper, Silverstone, Thermaltake, Tagan, Coolermaster, Enermax, Corsair (this list is not exhaustive).
For that motherboard you just need a standard 24 pin ATX PSU. You can pick a decent one up fairly cheaply these days. I don't know which country you're in, but check out the link below to Newegg for an example of a cheap Thermaltake PSU that would be compatible with your system...

Newegg

ah, so all the +12v, +3.3v, etc. stuf dosent really matter? all I need to look for is a standard ATX PSU?

just clairifing - I'm in America and the AC input setting was on 115v.


so thanks for the help. if I need anymore help, I'll know where to come.

Basically that's correct - you will come across 2 main versions of the ATX at the moment - v2.1 and v2.2. You need to get v2.2 because this has the 24 pin ATX connector (20 pin + 4 detachable pins), where as v2.1 has just a 20 pin connector.

If you compare the wiring schematic of the ATXv2.1 20pin connector to the ATXv2.2 connector (with the additional 4 pins detached), they are identical. i.e. same voltages on the same wires etc. The additional 4 wires in the ATXv2.2 revision is for PCI-E support.

You may also find ATX referred to as ATX12V which means it also has a 4 pin 12V connector for providing additional power to the cpu. This is the square connector with 2 yellow wires (12V) and 2 black wires (ground) which your current PSU should also have. You should find that all ATX PSUs on the market now have this 12V connector.

Let me know how you get on and if you do have any further questions or problems, don't hesitate to ask