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Computer will not boot! (not even the power supply!)


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#1
Daren

Daren

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Well, after having my computer for four years, it finally has a problem I cannot tackle. Here's the story:

Earlier this month, my friend suggest I look through forums (including this one) to find a solution to my problem I've had with Windows XP not able to detect my Cruzer Mini 512mb usb stick. The solution I found was setting the jumper assignments from the normal 5V to the "5V_SB". I tried that, it miraculously worked. However, it left my computer rather unstable, as I could not read the flash usb stick AND my external hard drive simultaneously. So, rather than finding a solution to that, I set my jumpers back to normal and reverted to my configuration of not even using my flash ram ever again, or at least on this PC.

Things were fine for almost a week, until I decided to shutdown my computer after leaving it on for three days. When I turned it on, the only thing that I could detect as being ON was my busy light! No fans were running, the power light did not light, not even my power supply fan was running. Worried, I turned off my computer. Eager to get it going, I tried to turn it back on a couple of times. I gave up, since I had friends waiting for me to go out to eat. As I was getting dressed, I started to notice a acrid smell of burning plastic. I saw some faint smoke coming from my computer! I then turned off the power supply and unplugged it. Then, I decided not to worry for the time being and went out to eat.
I came back, the smell was gone. I decided to try to boot it up again. I heard some sparks inside and some puffs of smoke spewing from the inside from where my power supply should be. I concluded that my PSU needed replacement.

So it is now Wednesday, December 29th, 2005. I decided to contact my brother to try his spare PSU. Everything plugged in, I booted up the comptuer. Well, nothing powered up again, except the BUSY LIGHT. I decided to break it down, only powering my motherboard, my floppy drive, my CD-R drive, and my DVD drive. Viola! It booted! Finally! Then I powered down and tried booting up again with the two hard drives on my computer. Nothing, just the busy light again! Well, I then powered everything, except for my 120gb HD. This power up lead to SMOKE! Well, it looks like my 20 gig OS-dedicated hard drive is useless and smelly. But the problems do not stop there! Here's the real problem: I decided to power everything except for my damaged 20gb. But nothing turns on except for the busy light.

So there you have it. The computer will not boot! Here are my specs:

Biostar M7VIQ VIA KM266 / VT8235 chipset
Two 256mb DDR RAM
AMD Athlon 1300+ Socket A processor
Linksys WMP54GS Wireless network card
ATI Radeon 2400? I should really write this stuff down. My brother gave this to me as a gift. It's almost too beefy for what I need it for.
Soundblast Live! Value soundcard (disabled onboard sound in favor of this)
300 Watt PSU Generic? Deer? Not certain. I will report back when I get ahold of the computer again. Right now I am at my library.
Generic 48x CD-R/CD-RW drive
Generic DVD-rom drive ripped out from an old 333 Compaq Presario
Generic Floppy drive (Mitsui? Not sure. It was the cheapest from Newegg)

My computer time is about to end, so if I leave out any details, I will fill them in very soon. Thank you for reading through all of this!
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#2
Daren

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In addition, I have these hard drives:
120gb 7200rpm Seagate hard drive (this is my slave storage)
20gb 7200rpm Western Digital? (not sure, but my master hard drive)
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#3
Doby

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Hi,

Get a new name brand psu, at least 430w something like the Antec true power.

Then you should try and boot the board with minimal components to see if its damaged or possible damage to cpu and ram.

If that goes well and you can get into bios monitor the voltages for a few minutes.

Then add drives and cards one at a time to see whats good and whats not.

Its really the only way to tell what other parts got damaged.
It could be the 2nd psu you tried was not good enough for all the load you put on it especially if thats the one that was only 300w.

Rick
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#4
gerryf

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could also be a short circuit that arose from something you did when you "jumper assignments from the normal 5V to the "5V_SB". "

Where is this jumper? On the motherboard? Is this a jumper that you remove, or a rocker switch of some type?

Also check for any lose wires, or contacts that aren't normal ((ie, motherboard resting on the case)
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