Power Problems

[cain]

Just recently my chipset fan for my Asus A8N SLi Deluxe motheboard went out. So I replaced it with a Vantec copper fan. After disassembling the PC to install the fan I proceeded to put it back together and now it won't power up at all. It worked fine before other than the fan not working. The powerswitch connectors are all in the proper place and the green LED on the motherboard comes on when i turn on the powersupply, but when I hit the switch it wont power up anything. I'm not sure what else could be the problem. Any help is appreciated.

[rjfvillarosa]

Can you tell us what hardware you are using and especially the make and model of the power supply.

[cain]

It's a raidmax case and powersupply 420W. I'm running an AMD 64 4000+, 2gigs of Corsair XMS ram, two 80 gig harddrives, an HP CDRW from my old PC and a Sony DVD player with a XFX Geforce 7800GTX, all on the Asus A8N SLi Deluxe. Like I said it worked fine before I replaced the fan and now somehow it wont power on at all. Thanks for the reply.

[m4gery]

oh i've had this problem with one of my builds before. You might want to take out the motherboard and reseat it again if you took it out

[cain]

I had thought about that being the problem, what was shorting out your board?

[m4gery]

it turned out to be the mounting screws that were shorting my board, it's happened to me on both my builds (must have a hard time aligning things), lol.

[rjfvillarosa]

The first thing I would do is remove the graphics card again, clean the contacts with a little isopropyl alchohol and reseat the card firmly back in place.
As you only touched the graphics card to replace the fan I would concentrate on the card and any nearby cables that you could have disturbed, if that doesn't sort it out, then I would try substituting the card followed by the power supply.

[cain]

I suppose I'll give that a try. Two rebuilds in one night....fun.

[Mr.Ferrari]

Make sure nothing is getting shorted.

And do you have a spare psu to test with? Because your psu mightve suddenly gone out.

And even if it didnt, that psu is crap and by using it your just asking for trouble..

[cain]

I just finished taking everything out again and reinstalling it. It's still having the same problems. I had to remove the whole motherboard to get the old chipset fan off so I pretty much disturbed everything. I don't have a spare PSU to test it with, but would the one I have now just all of a sudden quit in the middle of a repair?

[rjfvillarosa]

I have seen PSU's fail for no reason just as they were unplugged and plugged back in, I would try and find a spare to test with.

[cain]

I'll have to get a new one since I don't have one laying around, and like Ferrari said this PSU is trash and needs to be replaced anyway. I just do hope its the PSU. What are the chances that I F'd up the motherboard installing the fan? I was pretty careful with static and manhandling it.


And as a side note:

What do you guys recommend for Power Supplies? I know the Best Buy here has Antecs and a BFG but overcharge for them.

[rjfvillarosa]

It is always a possibilty, have you tried the "out of case" build to make sure nothing is shorting the motherboard?

[cain]

No I havn't tried the out of case build yet, but I'm almost certain it can't be shorting out on anything since I've had the configuration for years without any problems until now.

[rjfvillarosa]

You said you removed the motherboard in order to take off the chipset fan, how do you know you didn't kink or nick a cable? maybe something you overlooked is caught behind the motherboard.

[cain]

Well I took it apart a second time and made sure everything was in place and nothing was caught then put it back together.

[glc]

Follow this procedure:

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=132409

[cain]

Thanks GLC i'll give that a try.

[cain]

Alright so I took the motherboard out of the case and tried powering it on with the bare essentials. It still wont even twitch. The green LED on the asus still comes on when I switch on the power supply but won't power up anything. I did notice though that when I first turn on the PSU and short out the power pins I hear like a little electric sound just barely audible and when I try to short them out after the first time it doesn't make that sound anymore. Could it just be a junk powersupply?

Also is it possible that the new fan is somehow shorting something out?

[Alaron]

I doubt the fan is the problem, but you could disconnect temporarily to see if it makes a difference.

I would guess your Raidmax PSU has gone south. They aren't the best. It is the first thing I would replace now that you've done the out of the case setup.

[cain]

I did disconnect it momentarily to see if that was the problem, but didn't help matters. I thought that maybe the copper frame of the fan might be shorting something out. I guess the next logical step is replacing the Raidmax PSU, since it is a piece of crap and needs to be replaced anyway.

I ended up purchasing this BFG PSU from bestbuy http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1142292375112 along with a new LCD monitor that was on sale.

[cain]

Well I installed the new powersupply and it fired up perfectly. I am having a problem with the fan though. When I boot up the computer it notifies me that the fan is either below threshold or failed like it did with the old ruined fan. However, when I look in the case I see it spinning and supposedly working fine. I checked the temps on Asus probe and it's reading the motherboard temp at 41 degrees Celsius. Am I overheating this thing?

[Underhanded]

Nah 41 degrees isnt so bad. If the fan is still spinning at an acceptable speed for you, you might just want to go into your bios and disable that warning.