Serious Problem...computer wont run

[PiMpShiN]

This is how it began:

Due to noise generated by my 92mm Torando I decided to 7v it. I connected the 12v and 7v together with wire. My power psu is a Antec TruePower 480w, it has an external power connector in the back that i was going to use to test the 7v Tornado.

As i turned on the computer with the Tornado plugged in the back all of a sudden everything stopped working. I turned powered off the computer and waited a while. Then I turned it back on and everything turned on but nothing would happen. Something especially strange was that my burner's light was orange (always green unless burning). The boot screen wouldnt come up or anything. I kept waiting and trying again but nothing worked.

Attempts:
1. I replaced the battery for the bios but same thing happened.
2. I replaced my processor but same thing happened.
3. Reset BIOS but same thing happened.

Im very concerned about what has happened to my computer, I would really appreciate any help.

[PiMpShiN]

I think i connected the wrong wires together but is there any way to fix the problem?

[PiMpShiN]

I dont know if anyone has been in a situation where they need help quick and im in that situation. Please anyones help would be great.

[PiMpShiN]

I dont think i may have done it wrong, but i tried it another way and everytime i try it, it turns off the psu.

man this is gonna be one of those situations that no one answers untill i buy a new psu and waste my money then people are going to start helping me.

[Vulcan]

do you have a voltage tester?

[PiMpShiN]

no, but i used to though.

[PiMpShiN]

why is it whenever i do the 7 volt fan mod the psu always turns off? It did the same with my old one too. I know im doing it right.

[k3nshin]

when you restarted your comp was the fan still attached?

[Mico]

All I can think is that somewhere you shorted it...does it supply any power at all, i.e. fans spinning or anything?

[PiMpShiN]

when you restarted your comp was the fan still attached?

no i took off the fan.

All I can think is that somewhere you shorted it...does it supply any power at all, i.e. fans spinning or anything?

all the fans and everything are spinning but the screen wont come up or anything. and the thing that freaks me out the most is the fact that the burner light is orange, that cant be good.

[Mico]

Hmm...that indeed doesn't sound good. Take everything but the bare minimum (CD, Floppy, Video, One stick of RAM) off, and try restarting. If that doesn't work, let us know.

[PiMpShiN]

honestly i tried that. I knew that all a comp needs to start up is those but it still didnt work.

One thing that confuses me if why everything turns on but nothing works. and i am especially confused about that 7v fan mod that started all this.

[cobray]

Originally posted by PiMpShiN
am especially confused about that 7v fan mod that started all this.

Well, LOL, generally these types of mods yield success when you know what your doing before you start them.

I connected the 12v and 7v together with wire. My power psu is a Antec TruePower 480w, it has an external power connector in the back that i was going to use to test the 7v Tornado.

As i turned on the computer with the Tornado plugged in the back all of a sudden everything stopped working.

Could you elaborate on this a little more. What do you mean "it has an external connector in the back" and "connected the 12v and 7v together with wire". Do you mean you connected the +5VDC (the "red" wire ) to the ground connection on the Tornado (the "black" wire)?

[PiMpShiN]

well i did the mod wrong or another way of doing it, im not sure. what i did was i got a wire and connected the yellow 12v to the red 5v in the back. Then i plugged it into the external power connecter in the back of the psu.

[PiMpShiN]

I read some info on google after that and i did it wrong. The 12v wire from the tornado is supposed to go to the 12v on the molex from the psu and the ground from the tornado was supposed to go to the 5v on the molex.

[Cutter]

take the motherboard out of the case and put it something that is not conductive. Then just hook the bare minimum to the board and see if it will boot, ie vid, mem, cpu, at least then you will know wether or not it is a short somewhere

[PiMpShiN]

well it happened when i plugged in the fan. so i doubt removing the motherboard would help.

Plus i already tried running the bare minimum.

[Mico]

This far we have, and correct me if I'm wrong:
1. No post.
2. Spinning fans.
3. Processor switch ineffective.

Set everything the way it was originally, try a restart. If it doesn't work, swap out the motherboard with another. If that doesn't workd...keep swapping things, but only one at a time. I'm afraid you may have burned something out.

[PiMpShiN]

I've only got that one motherboard. I hope its the psu and not the computer components. Basically all i need to try to switch would be the memory now right? The cd and hdd are not neccessary to get the comp to load.

Man i hope its not the memory.

[PiMpShiN]

i swapped it with some kingston ram but i got the same result. I know that power is getting to the motherboard and everthing because the little light that shows that theres a psu is on.

Well could it be the motherboard, because i dont get any error beeps.

[PiMpShiN]

i have my old HP psu and i used it on my cd drive by itself and i got the orange light again so theres one thing thats fried i believe. then i plugged it into the hdds and i didnt even get a sound of them spinning so i guess there goes all my data on both drives. and i cant get it to fit on my floppy so i dont know about that.

I am unbelievably ****ed right now. i bet the motherboard is fried too even though the lights turn on. it doesnt beep or do anything.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

From the sounds of things the PSU is almost certainly damaged... my first step would be to meter the 5v and 12v rails and see where they are, however since you don't have one that may be tricky unless you know someone with one you can borrow. You could also try swapping out the PSU if you have a spare handy.

I take it you've already tried switching off and unplugging the PSU from the mains for a while to reset it?

Edit: just saw your latest post... it's possible that in shorting the 5v and 12v together, the combined output did go through and fry a few things... I would be real careful about running the True 480 now until all rails can be checked with a meter - preferably with the PSU disconnected from anything :(

[PiMpShiN]

yeah, heres the thing i go and work at directron every saturday. Im gonna take everything there and have them test it. If theres something they may be able to replace it.

[PiMpShiN]

im gonna go and double check everything now though.

[PiMpShiN]

i plugged the hp psu into the molex for my graphics card but that fan didnt spin. If it fried that as well I am completely done with computers. Im gonna put everything outside for the garbage men to take. and im not joking:mad: i didnt spend $560 dollars on my graphics card and then have it burn.

[MameXP]

OMG, thro all your post i found......YOU SHOULD CALM DOWN.

You're so frustrated about it then make all kind of guess. Why did you think you CD burner is burned? because you got green light instead? Why did you think your mem is the problem? i dont see it.

You should be clam down and look at this relaxingly alittle. Have you tried to boot with a diff PSU? You work at Directron i'm sure this should be easy for you. Have you tried your PSU on diff setup? I guess you should have some other setups or you can borrow your friend's. This is the easiest way to find ifs its your PSU.

Second to this, its the mobo. Check the ATX connectors, oh if you can test it with a diff mobo. Look at your mobo's manual to see if there's anything mention about booting sequence. If there is then follow that. Or you can start with no mem on mobo, if the mobo beep errors then move on to no vcard and such... This is a blind to see if you mobo did have all sequences to boot.

Well i can only think of this so far, good luck to you and let us know.

MameXP

[PiMpShiN]

yeah i need to relax but its just alot of money wasted. The burner is messed up, i tried it on the family computer.

i have 2 hard drives and one of those got fried but i believe the other is ok.

I believe the motherboard is messed up aswell because there arent any beeps or anything.

I dont have another psu or motherboard to use to test everything, and the family computer is an old dell so i cant use that.

I found my voltmeter though and when i tested the molex's they strangely showed correct amounts of voltage except 2 of them which the 12v were giving out 5v. But when i plug the molex's into components they wont run.

In about an hour im going to directron and im gonna see if they can help me.

[MameXP]

Geee, :( This totally sucks. Thats a lot of money. Let us know
MameXP

[Mico]

Well...let's have a look at this in a simply stated manner once more:
1. Broken CD-RW
2. No beeps. If it's not posting, at all, then the problem occcurs before the boot.
3. Molex's showing weakened power. That would explain your devices/motherboard not working.

I think you may have (partially) burned out the 12v line on your PSU. In that case...not a whole lot would work.

[PiMpShiN]

well im at directron and i got the mobo and psu switched. The psu was faulty and the motherboard was dead. The only thing that survived i believe was one of the hdds. I have to hook up the graphics card to the motherboard when i get home to check if it still works.

After all this i need someone to really explain to me what i did wrong with the 7v fan mod. All it is, is have the red wire from the fan go into the 12v and have the ground from the fan go into the 5v, right?

[CrashOveride]

My guess would be the mod went bad (short somewhere or you accidentaly hooked up the wires wrong) and messed up your powersupply which ruined all the stuff. Or you did the mod in a spot where it effects other stuff and you send the wrong voltages into some things. But I would be a little hesitant to throweverything out, make sure you double or tripple check what is dead and what is not.

You didn't do the mod while the computer was on right?

[Mico]

Hmm. It think that's right. As Crash said, it might have affected things "down the line" so to speak, or it may have shorted, my original thought. Hopefully it will just be the PSU, and nothing else. Good luck.

[PiMpShiN]

Ok heres the situation now:

The PSU, Motherboard, HDD, CD-RW, and Graphics Card were all fried.

The Floppy and one of the HDDs were spared i believe.

I got the PSU replaced with an Antec True550w. I got an exchange on the motherboard and got a better NF7-S (newer batch, better hs on the chipset). I bought a new Lite-On 52x CD-RW drive.

As for the graphics card, that did the most damage to me. It cost me $560 (ATI 9800XT) and its fried. I noticed that one part of it had just barely melted, perhaps do to the power.

I tried exchanging it for a new one at compusa but thier return policy is garbage. Im gonna try another compusa and if it doesnt work im gonna have to pull a "switcharoo". Im gonna go and buy another from bestbuy and swap the cards and return it and get my money back.

Ill post how it all turns out.
Hopefuly it works and that would be the last of my problems.

[Mico]

I'm sorry to here that news...I was afraid something like that was the case. Just to let you know...pulling 'switcheroos' is generally frowned upon, but it's your choice. Good luck with getting it rebuilt.

[CrashOveride]

Um... don't do the switacharoo, and if you are gonna, don't talk about it. It is stealing and it's agains the law and morally wrong.

[PiMpShiN]

i appologize about mentioning the switch. Tomarrow im just gonna go and talk to the manager and see if i can get things straightened out.

[PiMpShiN]

btw i have an old 2x agp graphics card (nVidia TNT2), do you think that would work temporarily? I tried it back when i had my A7N8X Deluxe board but it didnt work do to incompatabilty.

[Sony]

2x cards wont work in an 8x board you need something 4x or higher a cheap GF4 MX would do the trick for like $30. As for the Volt mod it sounds like you accedentally combined the +12v and the +5v rails and instead of creating 7v you created 17v which means you overvolted everything that uses the 12v rail. So the HDD, CDRom, MB, and GFX card got fried. You were lucky the one HDD and Floppy survived. I think the 7v mod you are supposed to take the +12v rail and combine it with the -5v rail this should create the 7v's you require.

[Mico]

Hmm...my AGP is a 2/4/8x....check the motherboard specs...you may get luvky, but it is like Sony said for the most part.

[CrashOveride]

Originally posted by Sony
2x cards wont work in an 8x board you need something 4x or higher a cheap GF4 MX would do the trick for like $30. As for the Volt mod it sounds like you accedentally combined the +12v and the +5v rails and instead of creating 7v you created 17v which means you overvolted everything that uses the 12v rail. So the HDD, CDRom, MB, and GFX card got fried. You were lucky the one HDD and Floppy survived. I think the 7v mod you are supposed to take the +12v rail and combine it with the -5v rail this should create the 7v's you require.

No, it's the +12v as the + and +5 as the ground - gives 7v. -5 as the ground would give 17v. The differnce btwn 12v and 5v is 7v, 12 and -5v is 17v. My bet is he either did it in a spot that was bad and it send lower voltage to stuff (I accidentaly killed a CD-RW drive like that a while ago) or he accidentaly touched some wires when he shouldn't have.

[Remove]

Originally posted by PiMpShiN
I tried exchanging it for a new one at compusa but thier return policy is garbage. Im gonna try another compusa and if it doesnt work im gonna have to pull a "switcharoo". Im gonna go and buy another from bestbuy and swap the cards and return it and get my money back..

I feel your pain but all of these components were fried due to something you did and in no fault of the manufacturers or the retailers.

Please do the right thing and bite the bullet and buy new components or see what you can find here in the classifieds. Mentioning a switcharoo may give the wrong ideals to new members that are reading this post.

I'm sure just about everyone here that does mods has fried at least one component in their trials and tribulations and we know the frustrations. Any member with more than one star should be really careful of what they say (even when frustated) and always try to be an example to others as to what it means to be a member of the OC forums.

.....enough preaching.....back to watching the playoffs!

[PiMpShiN]

welll luckily there was no need for a switcharoo. today i went and explained to one of the nicer emloyees, and the cool thing was that i got this thing back when i got my card that it lets your exchange the card if anything happens to it for a year. Soooo i got a NEW 9800 XT.

One more bad new though. It turns out the floppy did fry too. Sucks, and it was a SONY brand too (my favorite). but i guess besides getting a new HDD i need to buy a new floppy. but no big deal, their not too expensive.

[PiMpShiN]

just as side note, MAXTOR make awesome hard drives. The ONLY thing that survived was my maxtor hdd and it was from my old HP computer.

[CrashOveride]

Man, good thing you don't really need a floppy for anything and no-one should use them anyways :p
;)

[PiMpShiN]

true, plus i can get one for like 5 dollars if i need it.

[mattmolson]

thats really good news about the vcard replacement pimpshin!
you got caught a break there with that excellent store return policy.i killed my ati9700pro by being a lazy idiot and leaving it in while unlatching mt hdd cage.knocked a chip off the board and had to cough up the cash for a 9800pro.
glad it wasn't atotal disaster for ya.

[Remove]

Glad things are looking up for you! :)

[PiMpShiN]

thanks appreciate it.

[dalilman52]

haha or u could buy the new 9800 xt and return it with nothing in the box :D

hah jk, thats wrong, and ur screwing over a company that makes good video cards, cuz nvidia fx line just sux....

man...i want a new video card!!! i just dont wanna pay ne money :P

[PiMpShiN]

but you're rich dude.

[larrymoencurly]

Due to noise generated by my 92mm Torando I decided to 7v it. I connected the 12v and 7v together with wire.

What's a 7V wire? There's 12V, 5V, and 3.3V, but 7V comes from connecting the fan's 12V wire to 12V and its ground wire to 5V.

How did you attach the wires? With a Molex-to-fan-7V adapter? If not, was there any possibility that something could have shorted against anything in the computer?

Did the fan have an RPM sense wire going to it? Is it possible that because the fan wasn't grounded that somehow the RPM signal sent out a high voltage spike from the fan motor and zapped the RPM/temperature sensing chip on the mobo?

Is there any possibility that this was just a coincidence and that the real culprit was the power-hungry video card?

You might want to ask in sci.electronics.repair.

[PiMpShiN]

crashoveride said it exactly how it happened. and it caused alot of damage so next time i need to be more careful not to send 17v through everything.

[PabloEscobar]

1 simple thing people forget... Which i did and this same exact problem happened.

Is the 12V connector from the power supply connected to your motherboard?

Without it, it will do the same things your expriencing.

If you have already went threw this solution...then i dont know what to tell ya.

Sorry about the problems :(

Pablo