Help! I think I destroyed my computer.

[Khroe]

I don't know where I should put this but I'm desperate. A simple google search brought me to your fine website. We'll start from the beginning.

So I play Skyrim, a lot. Recently I was looking into ways to increase my performance and turned to overclocking. I have an Nvidia GTX 460 Hawx (talon attack, also I was using a Corsair 750w PSU) So I downloaded Afterburner and Nvidia Insepctor, and after much research I slowly started to overclock my card. I carefully monitored my temps, (which never went above 65c on max load) and resumed the day to day excited at my about 10 fps increase.

Few days later, to my great horror, my computer just shuts off. So I go to turn it back on and my fans try to turn for a split second but don't get very far. Also the power light on the front of the case illuminates and then slowly fades. Pushing the power button on the front of the case simply does nothing, although the power button and reset button located on my mobo were still shining brightly.

I don't know what I did wrong, I was so careful. By the end I had my settings like this in Nvidia Inspector:

Core Clock: 880
Memory Clock: 2110
Shader Clock: 1760
Voltage: 1.087

If you're still reading, thank you kind soul. So I panicked and took it to the Geeksquad at Best Buy, and told them the problems I was having. He said it sounded like my PSU so of course he plugged in a different PSU and lo and behold my computer starts up just fine. So I thank him, buy my new PSU and rush home to put it in. (Cause I'm not paying 50$ to have them install it, and installing a PSU is easy.)

After installing my new Corsair 800w I go to turn on my computer and
...same thing as before. Fading light, fans turn halfway, won't start up.
So I take it back and they offer to give me a free 70$ diagnostic to test the other hardware.

That was last night, and it's been there all day today. I called them and they said that the computer still won't start up and they can't really get a handle as to what's going on so it's "probably" a fried motherboard. They also made sure to tell me that the GPU could be fried as well "because that sometimes happens."

In a perfect world I'd like to think that somehow the Geeksquad fried my board but, I probably deserved all of this by being new and inexperienced at overclocking, but any advice or any help at all that someone can give would be very much so appreciated.

Also, if you need more information about my rig, or the situation, just let me know.

 

[Knufire]

Frankly I wouldn't trust Geeksquad at all. If you just went from a TX750 to a GS800...that's a bit of a downgrade.

Could you list your entire system specs?

 

[Khroe]

Frankly I wouldn't trust Geeksquad at all. If you just went from a TX750 to a GS800...that's a bit of a downgrade.

Could you list your entire system specs?

Funny and the "Geek" told me it would be an upgrade. You'd think you could expect quality service these days. Here's the specs.

Also, thank you very, very much for your help. I'm completely out of my element here.

Mobo: ASUS P8Z68-v Pro
GPU: Nvidia 460 GTX Hawx
PSU: Corsair HX750w Professional Series
RAM: Corsair DOMINATOR 2x4g sticks
CPU: Intel i5-2500k LGA1155

Also have ASUS hard drive and ASUS dvd drive.
If I've forgotten anything please be patient, this whole event has left me a bit.. absentminded.

 

[Knufire]

They just want to sell you stuff.

Professional series is an HX, right? HX to GS is even more of a downgrade, lol.

But yeah, strip it down to the bare essentials, CPU+cooler and 1 stick of RAM, running off onboard video. See if it works. If it does, add stuff back one by one until you figure out what's causing it not to start up.

 

[Khroe]

They just want to sell you stuff.

Professional series is an HX, right? HX to GS is even more of a downgrade, lol.

But yeah, strip it down to the bare essentials, CPU+cooler and 1 stick of RAM, running off onboard video. See if it works. If it does, add stuff back one by one until you figure out what's causing it not to start up.

Well I'm about to go an pick up my computer and return the GS now. I'll try that as soon as I get home, and let you know.

Now, quick question before I head out, the first time I brought it over to the geeksquad he plugged in a generic PSU from behind the counter and it started up just fine. Then, afterwards, when I installed the GS at home it did the same thing as before and wouldn't start up. Why did it not turn on at all, then start up just fine at best buy, and then proceed to not turn on again? Just seems weird to me that's all. Anywho, brb, off to best buy to pickup my poor baby. D:

 

[Knufire]

Now, quick question before I head out, the first time I brought it over to the geeksquad he plugged in a generic PSU from behind the counter and it started up just fine. Then, afterwards, when I installed the GS at home it did the same thing as before and wouldn't start up. Why did it not turn on at all, then start up just fine at best buy, and then proceed to not turn on again? Just seems weird to me that's all. Anywho, brb, off to best buy to pickup my poor baby. D:

Honestly, that part completely dumbfounded me. I have no idea how he made it work if two different quality PSUs didn't.

 

[PolePosition]

They just want to sell you stuff.

Don't we all?

EDIT: But you are so right about Geeksquad, as Bestbuy actually hires people more on the sales ability than their technical expertise, and I knew someone who actually lost their job there for that simple reason. The tech was more devoted to customer needs than pushing products, which he thought the customer really didn't need, but rather often times just a quick fix or tweak.

 

[Conumdrum]

QOUOT FROM THE OP: "So I play Skyrim, a lot. Recently I was looking into ways to increase my performance and turned to overclocking. I have an Nvidia GTX 460 Hawx (talon attack, also I was using a Corsair 750w PSU) So I downloaded Afterburner and Nvidia Insepctor, and after much research I slowly started to overclock my card. I carefully monitored my temps, (which never went above 65c on max load) and resumed the day to day excited at my about 10 fps increase."

Did you know what you did on the overclock? Funny things can happen if you overclock stuff.

I had a game that would lock up early in the game every time. I reinstalled, tried everything.

Finally dropped the overclock on the GPU just a bit and it never did it again. IT COULD BE JUST YOUR PuSHING YOUR GPU TOO HARD

Have you tried running it at stock settings?

 

[Khroe]

Alright so I just got home with my computer. The way it was explained to me was that the video output part of my mobo is fried. If my video card is out, the computer will turn on and circulate electricity, but it will not out put video. Even using the on-board video card, it will not output any video.

Also the part that wasn't making sense to us was explained as following:
When I first brought it in he connected the PSU to ONLY the motherboard and CPU, not the video card. So basically having my video card in made it not turn on.

This is what I was told and they basically said I need to replace my motherboard. Does that sound right? Can only a specific part of my mobo be fried? Should I still test everything out to be sure?

I'm double checking with you guys because I trust you more than the geeks.
Especially if they are just telling me things so that I'll buy more stuff.

I might be able to rma the mobo as this build is only about 7 months old.

 

[Khroe]

QOUOT FROM THE OP: "So I play Skyrim, a lot. Recently I was looking into ways to increase my performance and turned to overclocking. I have an Nvidia GTX 460 Hawx (talon attack, also I was using a Corsair 750w PSU) So I downloaded Afterburner and Nvidia Insepctor, and after much research I slowly started to overclock my card. I carefully monitored my temps, (which never went above 65c on max load) and resumed the day to day excited at my about 10 fps increase."

Did you know what you did on the overclock? Funny things can happen if you overclock stuff.

I had a game that would lock up early in the game every time. I reinstalled, tried everything.

Finally dropped the overclock on the GPU just a bit and it never did it again. IT COULD BE JUST YOUR PuSHING YOUR GPU TOO HARD

Have you tried running it at stock settings?

Well the thing was my overclock settings would reset every time my computer turned off. I would have to manually go into Nvidia Inspector to re-overclock my system whenever I wanted to play something. So it's not like it's booting up with those settings on, right? Also, I was getting no weird artifacts or anything. I did get a few driver crashes which let me know I needed to tune it down a bit, and I did. I guess not enough. D:

 

[PolePosition]

I would definitely test it out one more time with CPU, 25 pin MB connected AND GPU connected to be certain it is in fact the MB. Also, I hope GS didn't actually cause damage.
But if any one component of a MB is dead, you might as well RMA it. It is also good to check the PSU to be sure you are in fact getting power to your GPU using a multimeter tester.

 

[Khroe]

Well I just tested everything out and it does indeed not turn on only when the video card is connected. If the video card is not connected to the PSU, but still seated, it will turn on. Also, I get no signal when directly plugged into the onboard video.

This is all using my old "broken" corsair hx750 psu.

Does this confirm that I need a new motherboard? I'm gonna try the GPU on another machine to see if it's bad also. I could rma them at the same time.

 

[trents]

If the on-board GPU gives you that problem as well then it does sound like you need a new motherboard. Sounds like the Corsair hx750 might be okay but I would check it out on another system or very carefullly on the new motherboard. Video cards are relatively easy to fry when overclocking compared to CPUs. One component frying can take others out with it, especially true of PSUs. The cheap, generic PSU causing the system to work for the Geek Squad may have been due to a marginal mobo component that finally died when you tried it back at home. Stranger things have happened. Look for bulging caps on the motherboard. Absence of them doesn't necessarily mean a component is not bad but presence of them does. If your video card fried it could have sent a power surge back up the PCI-e lane to the on-board GPU.

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

Question: Is the onboard video enabled? if not then it won't work try enabling it and see if that works. Soulds like the plug in GPU is bad if the PC won't work with power to the GPU.

 

[Knufire]

Question: Is the onboard video enabled? if not then it won't work try enabling it and see if that works. Soulds like the plug in GPU is bad if the PC won't work with power to the GPU.

I had this suspicion too.

Next step is to unplug the computer, remove the small battery on the motherboard, wait about 10 minutes, put it back in and try again. This should reset all the BIOS settings, if the onboard is disabled it should reenable it.

 

[trents]

Question: Is the onboard video enabled? if not then it won't work try enabling it and see if that works. Soulds like the plug in GPU is bad if the PC won't work with power to the GPU.

Good thought. And even if the onboard video is enabled in bios on a lot of boards it will automatically be disabled when a discrete video card is istalled in a slot. So KHroe, make sure when you test the onboard video you don't have a card inserted at the same time.