Fried Pc

[Catomic123]

So my friend is upgrading his pc with some new parts, I am pretty savvy when it comes to building so I was gonna help him out. It’s been a nightmare trying to fix this pc the past few days. First it booted once when I was testing it, then the rest of the night it wouldn’t boot at all no matter what I tried. The only thing that would happen is the leds on the motherboard would turn on but it wouldn’t power up. So today I brought my pc to test the power supply and it wouldn’t work in mine either. This lead me to believe the psu died when we were upgrading okay, so I plug my psu into his computer it doesn’t boot. I unplug the graphics card and suddenly the fans spin up but then smoke starts coming from the cpu area on the motherboard. When I inspected it I saw no visible damage on the motherboard or the cpu, when I inspected the cooler we had put it on backwards so theres a possibility it shorted out from touching metal. Now when we try to boot it with the cooler in correctly the cpu light and memory light come on the motherboard for post code reasons. I’m basically at a loss as to what parts are broken and damaged, did the psu fry the board and potentially the cpu with it? Why won’t the graphics card boot up with the pc. I’m testing each individual component in my pc right now but any help would be appreciated. This is the first time I’ve had issues building a pc. 

 

 

His specs are as follows:

850 watt power supply thermaltake smartprorgb

gtx 960 

i78700k

asrock phantom 4 motherboard 

h100i or something similar water coolers 

23gb (16x2) Gskill ram

[TensorVortex]

What do you mean put it on backwards? The back plate is upside down?

 

Most PSU has short protection, it shouldn't fry PSU if it's not too old.

 

Mobo could be dead.

[WereCatf]

14 minutes ago, Catomic123 said:

I unplug the graphics card and suddenly the fans spin up

You didn't turn the PSU off when you were removing the GPU?

[Catomic123]

 

10 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

You didn't turn the PSU off when you were removing the GPU?

No sorry i made sure to turn everything off before each test and all that 

 

20 minutes ago, TensorVortex said:

What do you mean put it on backwards? The back plate is upside down?

 

Most PSU has short protection, it shouldn't fry PSU if it's not too old.

 

Mobo could be dead.

That’s the thing the backplate for the cooler was backwards so usually plastic pegs stick through the mobo. Instead it was put on in reverse so the screws went in without a plastic guard preventing screws from touching board but I don’t think that’s what causes the issues 

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, Catomic123 said:

No sorry i made sure to turn everything off before each test and all that

How would the fans then start spinning and the mobo smoking?

[TensorVortex]

1 minute ago, Catomic123 said:

 

No sorry i made sure to turn everything off before each test and all that 

 

That’s the thing the backplate for the cooler was backwards so usually plastic pegs stick through the mobo. Instead it was put on in reverse so the screws went in without a plastic guard preventing screws from touching board but I don’t think that’s what causes the issues 

Yah the backplate usually is at least painted so it's not conductive, but some cheap ones are not painted.

 

You just have to swap part by part to determine the issue. Seems like motherboard issue.

[Catomic123]

So to continue I tested ram, it was fine and I tested the cpu

when I put in the cpu into my system it and booted it, fans spun for like half a second and then turned off when I put mine back in it booted perfectly fine so i think the cpu is dead 

 

we are wondering how to we test if the motherboard is still working, I’m afraid to put my personal cpu in there if it is breaking components 

[TensorVortex]

Just now, Catomic123 said:

So to continue I tested ram, it was fine and I tested the cpu

when I put in the cpu into my system it and booted it, fans spun for like half a second and then turned off when I put mine back in it booted perfectly fine so i think the cpu is dead 

 

we are wondering how to we test if the motherboard is still working, I’m afraid to put my personal cpu in there if it is breaking components 

don;'t put ur cpu in it... really doesn't feel like a good idea....

 

Yah it is a difficult situation. Hope you guys get everything sorted out soon.

[Catomic123]

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

How would the fans then start spinning and the mobo smoking?

It seemed like the computer was finally about to post, something it had yet to do when I plugged my power supply in, but then immediately we noticed smoke coming from the top area of the cpu/mobo but couldn’t find visible damage, testing the cpu in my pc it would immediately turn off when I pressed power so I don’t know what’s wrong 

[Catomic123]

I guess I’m wondering how to test and see if the motherboard is working or not, we are headed to Best Buy to get a new psu new cpu and new motherboard and new gpu. Anything that ends up not being needed we’re gonna return. Ideally we can use the motherboard but I’m afraid to hook up the whole pc to it and fry another part or even one of mine. So what can I do to test if the motherboard is working without risking any other components to break 

[dizmo]

Just RMA the CPU. I think you're going to have to eat the motherboard cost as it was user error.