Can someone point me in the right direction here as to what may be at fault.

I got hold of a new ATX case today and changed my system into it (something ive done many times, I built this and other ones myself). After the change over I had a few teething troubles getting it up and running but after 5-10 mins I had it booted up no problem. At that point I noticed I had forgotten to attach the power cable to my DVD Writer so I shut down (which it hung on, resulting in having to switch off), and attached the cable. When I tried to switch it on again it was dead !!

I did change a couple of things, nothing major though. My old case had 3 fans (case,CPU and PSU). I wanted to loose the CPU fan as it is noisey, the main reason I got a new case with better airflow and some additional cooling fans. So I took that off, my new case has 4 case fans (2 small, 2 large) plus the PSU fan. I also took my DVD ROM out as I never use it anyway. I had looked at the temperatures when it was running and it was a bit higher than it was (now 60-62 degrees as against around 55), This was idle. Im running an Athlon 64 3000+ and AMDs are hotter anyway (although not sure if they should be that hot or perhaps even hotter?).

I get nothing now when I press the power switch, my initial thought was the PSU (Jeantek 400W). I had a new Jeantek 600w quiter PSU anyway, as that was another change I was doing, wanted to check it out with all old kit first though. So I tried that PSU and still get nothing. Ive checked the obvious fuses etc and cant find anything wrong there.

Can anyone tell me what may be wrong here? I dont want to put it in a shop as it costs a fortune and I can fix it myself as long as I know what the problem is !!

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Hi and welcome to D-A-L

Originally Posted by ShaneH

My old case had 3 fans (case,CPU and PSU). I wanted to loose the CPU fan as it is noisey, the main reason I got a new case with better airflow and some additional cooling fans. So I took that off, my new case has 4 case fans (2 small, 2 large) plus the PSU fan.

how are you cooling the CPU ? just with the heatsink?

Hi,

I did have a non Coolmaster heatsink and fan on it. It was running around 50-55 degrees if I remember correctly. When I moved into the new case I hadnt put the fan back on the heatsink and it was running(idling in windows) at 60-62 degreesish.

All I did at the time of failure was shutdown (which it locked at the 'windows is shutting down' bit), I then re-applies the power cable to the DVD Writer, and I havent been able to boot it since, its now totally dead. I get nothing at all when I press the power switch, not even a twitch in the PSU.

Im thinking motherboard and/or CPU problem, but wouldnt the PSU still fireup if that was the case ?

For info, ive got Athlon 64 3000+ on a Chaintech ZNF3 250 Motherboard.

*EDIT*

Just been having a look over it again today, tried it in a different wall socket and with my original PSU it acts somewhat strangely. The PSU fan constantly twitches as if attempting to go and the case fans are getting intermittent power. With the new PSU I get a twitch of power then nothing else.

Managed to get hold of another PC and tested all the bits now, well as much as I can, and ive narrowed it down to the Motherboard or CPU, everything else works fine. Guess its time to take a trip to the shops, was going to upgrade anyway, maybe not just yet though !!

I should imagine running the chip without cooling it's maybe fried, you may be lucky and the mobo will be OK.