Finished building my PC.. it didn't end well

Habakkuk · 9 Mar 2017 at 18:25

^ Good call - it may be shorting to ground.

Yes the CPU should be plugged in as well.

Teebee · 9 Mar 2017 at 22:46

Perhaps remove the MB and test it out of the case.

Smffy · 10 Mar 2017 at 07:14

Teebee said:
Perhaps remove the MB and test it out of the case.

Sensible option... sit it on the box it came with on a table and try it.

When you said sparks im going to guess just audible crackle, which isn't uncommon for wiggling a plug in live current.. if it doesn't power on us it lit up? If it's an asus board use the power button on it, you might have dislodged the power button connection.

RJC · 10 Mar 2017 at 07:18

Have you tried a CMOS reset, sometime this helps, also list your full specs

Rob89 · 18 Mar 2017 at 23:48

Well i finally got round to using the power supply tester.. the PSU still isn't powering up at all, so the blue lcd screen on my tester isn't lighting up. I gather it powers itself from the running PSU, if i had known that i wouldn't have purchased. I don't know if it might be the adaptor plug itself, i'll try using the plug off my old pc to see if that will power it.

Smffy said:
Sensible option... sit it on the box it came with on a table and try it.

When you said sparks im going to guess just audible crackle, which isn't uncommon for wiggling a plug in live current.. if it doesn't power on us it lit up? If it's an asus board use the power button on it, you might have dislodged the power button connection.

Yeah pretty much that, a crackle, but i could see some sort of electrical crackle inside a little were it was plugged into the socket.

It is an asus, and nothing is lit up, no fans, no noise, nothing. The power button connection seems to be firmly in place.

Smffy · 19 Mar 2017 at 10:48

Take the board out the case and sit it in the box it came with, connect the power and see if the lights are powering on. If comething is shorted/wrong then it will show you.

Presumably if the tester has no power from the supply it's a fail? How does it connect?

Rob89 · 19 Mar 2017 at 21:37

Smffy said:
Take the board out the case and sit it in the box it came with, connect the power and see if the lights are powering on. If comething is shorted/wrong then it will show you.

Presumably if the tester has no power from the supply it's a fail? How does it connect?

The lights were powering on before the power supply incident. The instructions for the tester were very poor, very little detail only on the back of the packing.

Here is the exact one as tested in this video

Though his PSU is powering on and works fine so the tester draws power from it soon as he turns it on. I think i might have done something to the 13 amp fuse in the plug, there's no discolouration of it though, but i'll change it over and see if that will power it on.

darael · 19 Mar 2017 at 23:47

Definitely check the fuse in your plug - if you have a multimeter, you can use this to test if the fuse has blown or not.

I would take your motherboard out, double check you have the right amount of standoffs in the case and tighten them up with pliers so they aren't as likely to become loose.

Check that all your connections are all the way home and secure - for your drives, fans, etc. With a working fuse in the plug, the PSU turned off and the socket at the wall turned off, connect the mains plug to the back of the PSU, switch on the PSU and test it with your tester again. If all seems well, put your motherboard back in, secure all connections and try again.

Plec · 20 Mar 2017 at 16:42

As others have suggested - build a skeleton system on a piece of cardboard it will confirm a shorting issue if the system were to boot and really help the diagnostic process.

Build the bare essentials on a piece of cardboard:

motherboard
CPU and cooler
gfx (onboard preferably but could add dedicated card if it boots with onboard)
1 stick of memory
PSU
power on by shorting pins on MB with a screwdriver (perfectly safe - but make sure that's all you touch. Watch a YouTube video if necessary

Attach the above to a monitor and hope that it boots to the BIOS screen. If it does check your case for misplaced risers as previously suggested and the backplate.it Then proceed from there. If it doesn't boot then then things won't be so promising.

Good luck.

Rob89 · 20 Jul 2017 at 13:25

Well some developments since my last post.. I bought an identical PSU and, big cause of it going spark..boom, i never had the mains plug all the way in either! Such a plonker.. So it could be possible that pushing it right in would've powered it back on again, but i can't be bothered to test that now i've replaced with a new PSU and plug. I thought it was in as far as it goes, but shoved this one in further (i have weak hands lol)

Have now put the graphics card into the PCI slot below. Did the big switch on.. and it finally powered on again! Well that's where the good news ends.. The graphics card has stopped beeping (could it have been something else beeping in there?) but it's still lighting up red, so it can't be the slots that are the problem. Also the rear fan isn't powering on, and neither is the RAM modules (they usually light up but aren't coming on). Not sure what else is not working. I would hope the fan cable has been nudged out of place on the motherboard (they are fidgety little things) Also the LED light on my motherboard is flashing orange (it's in a line)

Picture here: http://imgur.com/a/mwIrD

And to finish off, still getting no picture on my monitor, or indeed tv screen. My monitor must detect there is a HDMI but it just says "Entering Power Saving Mode" then switches off, as it doesn't say "No HDMI connected" like the other slot channel that has none. I assume it boots to the BIOS screen the first time you turn it on? (Well first of many in my case lol)