New build problems (PSU the culprit?)

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by xeon, Jun 19, 2003.

  1. xeon

    xeon Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I put the finishing touches on a system I have slowly been getting pieces for over the last few months. After getting everything together I plugged the PSU in and immediately it started to smoke and the PC just started to beep.

    I don't have a system I can switch the components into to test individually, but I did have another PSU available. Lights, fans and everything seems to operate, but I don't get a post only a repetitive beep from the system speaker. I've had things go wrong before, but never a PSU like this. What's the potential that things got hosed? I am RMA'ing the PSU for sure and I need to try and iron out the rest.

    My basic setup is this:
    Smoking PSU: Powmax LP6100A
    M'board: Albatron-KX400-8X Pro
    512 MB Corsair XMS DDR 2700
    AMD XP 2400+ (retail)
    Albatron Ge4 ti 4280
    Liteon 52x24x52
    Maxtor 40G HDD

    I am a bit lost here, any help appreciated.
     
  2. zeus

    zeus out of date

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    36
    Do you know what the beep is signaling?

    This may help.....
    http://www.amptron.com/html/bios.beepcodes.html

    Find out what is failing POST first.

    I am right in saying that the first psu died (they usually go pop) and when you ried a seond psu it just failed POST
     
  3. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

    Likes Received:
    145
    Trophy Points:
    63
    http://bioscentral.com/

    That's has an extensive list of BIOS beep codes.

    Usually an endlessly repeating beeping means something is funky with the RAM. Try reseating it and/or test it in a known working motherboard. Of course, I would be careful at testing since the smoking PSU isn't a good thing (duh).
     
  4. xeon

    xeon Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    It is beeping a 1-1-something which points to the processor and/or motherboard (Phoenix). I am planning on running it outside of the case tonight with the barest of essentials and seeing what I can deduce. Without the "smoking" PSU of course.

    You are correct the PSU did pop, actually it made my right ear ache for a while. I quickly removed it from the system, smokin-n-poppin = not good. I'm wondering if it affected anything or I have some other bad hardware, I'll be toying with it tonight again.

    Wish me luck.
     
  5. harrack52

    harrack52 Supreme Geek

    Likes Received:
    5
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I don't think it affected anything, besides your ears :p

    My father once had a psu who litterally went up in smoke. As intelligent as it may seem, he tried it to make sure it was really fried. (of course it was)

    In the end, all of his other parts were still working
     
  6. xeon

    xeon Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I like your reply best of all, LOL. It implies the least amount of damage from my PSU, and my ear is fine today, LOL.

    Even with that said the system will not POST with a known good PSU, which I pulled last night from the computer I'm typing this on. I'm hoping I can deduce something on it this evening.
     
  7. harrack52

    harrack52 Supreme Geek

    Likes Received:
    5
    Trophy Points:
    0
    what's your psu now ? with the brand.

    Running the system with the bare essentials is a good idea, but try using a very low-end card, like a cheap pci or something, because GeForce 4s demand lots of power.
     
  8. xeon

    xeon Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    The PSU I am using is a 400W Antec, which should be more than sufficient I would think. I wish I had a card to use in place of my ge4, but I don't have a card I'd like to use in this scenario.
     
  9. harrack52

    harrack52 Supreme Geek

    Likes Received:
    5
    Trophy Points:
    0
    A Antec 400w should be plenty enough, even with that card.
    What happens when you turn on the system ?
    Do you hear fans, disks, or is it just nothing ?
     
  10. xeon

    xeon Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I didn't notice anything that didn't work, case fans, lights, LEDS, HDD spinning, heat sink fans in chipset/v-card/cpu... of course the thing I want most... POST'ing didn't happen. I actually used the Antec supply last night on the system, which I failed to mention and still no post... which is why I am thinking something got hammered or something else is faulty also.

    I'm going to pull the m'board tonight and lay it on the pad it is shipped with. I'll only have the Antec PSU, m'board, CPU, V-card and memory in the equation at that point. Hopefully something will stick out.
     
  11. zeus

    zeus out of date

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    36
    Yeah, Ive had two go on me. Both times on the same board, ram, graphics card and cpu.

    I still use the graphics card and ram...... everything worked fine afterwards.

    Its nice to know!
    If you think it maybe your motherboard which is causing trouble with POST try simply resetting the bios. Id read your motherboard boolket first as well if you havent done it with that board before, just to be sure.
     
  12. xeon

    xeon Geek Trainee

    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I'm thinking it could be the motherboard after last night's monkeying around. Or in the very least the motherboard, I'll RMA what I can and start without a tested PSU. This has really been a pain.
     
  13. Big B

    Big B HWF Godfather

    Likes Received:
    145
    Trophy Points:
    63
    It's pretty frustrating trying to figure out what's the culprit when a system doesn't work right, something you'll run into again and again...which builds your reference of things to try in the future.
     

Share This Page