strange issues building a pc

The VCR King

The VCR King

Well-Known Member
A friend of mine was moving and I got a box of computer parts. I got 2 power supplys, some SATA cables and HDDs, a case, and I built a PC. Thing is, the pins on the power button to the PC didnt match to the motherboard. I plugged in the power supply to the mobo and then the power supply to a power outlet, and the whole PC started. The CPU fan spun up, the HDDs began clicking around, the CD drives spun up, and the motherboard had power. But it isnt putting out display and nothing on the I/O panel is giving power. The PS/2 ports are dead, the USB ports are not doing anything at all. I also had an Asus motherboard but that one had a blown cap and wouldnt power at all. Demo video below.

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Did you try clearing the CMOS? Are the mounting studs done correctly? Is the motherboard even good?
 
Alright, I took out the CMOS battery and the system powered on...then the CD drive's power cable threw a huge spark and the whole system shut down. Now it won't power on at all. I think I fried it.
 
You're supposed to remove the power cable and drain any residual power before you remove the battery :cool:
 
You're lucky you didn't zap yourself. You need to be more careful, power supplies can kill you if you don't know what you're doing.
 
As long as you don't do something stupid like open up a PSU, none of the external voltages are high enough to hurt you. You might get burned if you short a wire across the output since it will get hot very quickly but you can't get electrocuted. All of the lethal voltages in a PSU are kept within the metal case which is why there are labels all over it saying don't open it.
 
The VCR King said:
I also had an Asus motherboard but that one had a blown cap and wouldnt power at all.
Click to expand...

I wonder why...

Regarding voltage, volts don't kill, amperage does. Under the right conditions, 15v has the ability to carry enough amps to cause serious injury/death.

But anyway, yes, don't go mucking around an open PSU. That's just stupid.
 
Bump...
I swapped a different Asus motherboard into the system, and it started fine. However when I power it on there is no USB power or video output. If it helps, I looked at the motherboard and it came out of an Acer T160.
 
Either you have two bad MoBo's or the PSU is damaged somehow. Why not get new/known-good parts and build rather than cobble something together from "a box full of computer parts", especially for a first time build.
 
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