Build disaster - please help!

Computer Forum General Hardware
1

I’m building the following PC:

Case : ASPIRE X-Navigator ATXA8NW-BK/500 Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply
Mobo : ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
CPU : AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4400CDBOX
Video : GIGABYTE GV-NX78T256D-ZK Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
RAM : OCZ Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model OCZ4002048PFDC-K
HD1 : Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3400832AS 400GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive with NCQ
HD2 : Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3200826AS 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
Optical 1 : PLEXTOR Black IDE DVD Burner Model PX-740A/SW-BL
Optical 2 : PLEXTOR Black IDE CD Burner Model PX-230A-BPS-BL
Floppy : MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal 8 in 1 Floppy Drive
Monitor : Rosewill R911E 12ms Black 19" 12ms LCD Monitor

I hook everything up as per the mobo and case manuals. The mobo says there should be a 4 pin square PSU connector put into the board’s 12V female connector. It also says the system will not boot without this. My PSU has one connector that has the right config for this, however the case’s manual says this is for P4 systems only. I figure the mobo manual probably knows better, so I plug it in. The system will not boot. I get about 1/10 of a second of power, then nothing.

So I unplug the square 4 pin PSU connector from the mobo and the system starts to boot. Seems like everything is ok for about 5 seconds, but one of the vid card’s two power connects (normal 4 pin PSU connectors) starts to smoke. As I reach for the power cord to yank the plug, the system shuts itself down. Or fries, I’m not sure which at this point.

I open the case and feel the power cable’s and one of them is very hot - obviously, this is the one that the vid card was plugged into. The PSU cable has 3 regular four pin connectors and one floppy connector but the only thing plugged in on this cable was the vid card.

Now, it won’t boot at all. I pulled everything from the case except for the CPU, RAM and one HD and unplugged everything else except the case’s power switch connect. The system will not boot. I get about 1/10 of a sec of power, then nothing.

Anyone have any ideas? I hope to God I did not fry this system, it was about $2k. Help!!

crow

2

Really sorry to say it, but it very much sounds like you fried something. I’ve never seen something smoke from the connection between the video card and psu, but that sucks a lot. My suggestion at this point is to at least only try booting from one video card (the one that didn’t get smoke coming out of it. What happens when you press the power button? Do any fans come on even for a spit second? Im pretty sure that video card is going to be wasted and i’m thinkin the same for the psu. Man, I really feel for you. If you have another psu that you can test in there barebones, I would give it a shot. Hopefully it just screwed your psu or just the video card, but even then, it really sucks. Hopefully someone else can give you a more educated guess, as I fortunately dont have a whole lot of experience with frying components (with the exception of one incident - fried a stick of ram and my mobo). Really feel for you and hope I’m wrong, but good luck and let us know of any progress.