Little problem...

Hi, I've gotten my watercooling system up and running but now my motherboard seems to be having problems. When I turn the computer on the northbridge fan doesn't activate and the system doesn't boot to bios. Otherwise it's fine, it's giving power to the other components. Did I fry it or something? Water fell on the motherboard but I dried it off with a paper towel and plently of air blowing over it.

some mobos need a fan connected to the cpu fan header in order to boot. did you had a fan connected that you removed?

Yeah, I disconnected the heatsink fan to install the motherboard but it will work without a device connected to the cpu fan header. I just tried connecting a fan and turning on the power to see if it made any difference but the fan header no longer works. Btw, if it makes any difference I've got an Abit Nf7 rev.2 motherboard.

did you try resetting the CMOS?

You may of tightened the HS to tight. Abit boards are flacky when they get slightly distored from pressure. Try relaxing the HS a little and see if it boots.

I tried loosening the waterblock but that had no affect. I just reset the cmos and now about 10 seconds after I turn it on, the motherboard cuts off power and emits one long high beep and one long low beep one after the other. I looked this up and apparently I've got a voltage problem? How'd that happen? Anyone know how I can fix it?

The siren beeps are generally overheating. Thats a good sign, means your cpu is still alive!

check what your voltage is set at in your bios (if you can get to it), and check your 5v and 12v rails on your psu with a multimeter.

If you reset CMOS then the voltage issues you may be having should be resolved. You are correct about the beep codes and what I think you may be looking at is improper chipset cooling. If the fan isnt going the very overheating you may be experiencing is not CPU but NB. Check the power connect for the stock fan and if that doesnt help you may just need to get your hands on a replacment NB cooling solution. You may want to contact seller or abit for a replacement stock or you might want to go ahead and get a third party cooler such as the NB-1(or NB-1C). It's generally agreed upon that one should get a third party NB colling solution sooner or later anyway.

I too have had issues with the stock fan, as mine makes that raking dying fan sound even though its only a few hours in operation. I plan on seeking a passive NB solution such as the NB-1C w/o fan.

If you want to test this, get a spare fan and direct its airflow down on the stock HS and see if the same thing occurs. If it does, then you may be looking at an improper block mount on the CPU.

Good luck

Ok, I aimed a fan at the northbridge and it must have worked because it didn't start beeping. And yeah, that fan had been making some bad noises over the past few weeks, I suppose it was just a matter of time before I had to replace it. I didn't know that a faulty nb heatsink could stop my computer from even reaching bios... thank you!